Baltic Mythology refers to the collection of beliefs of the Baltic people before their conversion to Christianity. It's important not to confuse the Baltic people with the Baltic states: the latter is a modern term grouping together Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania due to shared geopolitical history. The former are instead an ethnolinguistic group which includes Lithuanians and Latvians but excludes the finnic Estonians. It also included extinct tribes such as Yotvingians, Galindians and Prussians... yes, there's a reason why you are thinking of the militaristic Germans with pickelhaube.
Baltic languages are regarded as the most archaic Indo-European languages, and it's theorised they split from Slavic languages from a common Proto-Balto-Slavic ancestor. Tracing Baltic prehistory is hard due to centuries of isolation and lack of autochthonous written sources. What's important, however, is that their turning point arrived in The Late Middle Ages, with the Northern Crusades.
First the territories of Latvia and Estonia were conquered and merged by the Livonian Order, then The Teutonic Knights took over Prussia. The following centuries were characterized by intense missionary activity and German colonization, with different results: Germans in Latvia and Estonia formed a dominant minority
; in Prussia, wars had been so catastrophic that most native Prussians were dead or reduced to misery; Germanisation was much more intense, Prussians entirely assimilated and their language ceased to exist in the following centuries. Teutonic lands in Prussia were eventually secularised into a Duchy and acquired by the Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg, forming the base for the German Kingdom of Prussia, but that's another story...
Lithuanians instead resisted the Northern Crusades, which dragged for two other exhausting centuries. Meanwhile, they formed a unified duchy and expanded over Belarus and Ukraine, emerging as a regional power. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a multicultural and multiconfessional state, remained pagan up until the late 14th century, when Grand Duke Jogalia converted to Christianity and obtained the crown of Poland. Here ends the history of the last pagan nation of Europe, and begins the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
There's much uncertainty when it comes to Baltic mythology and contradictions between different sources. The earliest texts were all written by Christian foreigners; Baltic writers started treating their own paganism long after they abandoned it. How much the authors were biased or knowledgeable is open to debate. Not to mention that many writers wrote by hearsay and speculated about Baltic mythology much more than they had the right to. Folklore collected in the modern age remains another important source, though it's expected that it mirrors only distantly ancient paganism and shouldn't be taken at face value.
In recent year neopaganism gained quite a following in Baltic countries, under the name of Romuva in Lithuania and Dievturība in Latvia.
Baltic Mythology provides examples of:
- Blow You Away: Rytys, Pietys, Šiaurys and Vakaris, the four sons of Bangpūtys, are gods of the wind. They are associated with the four compass points: East, South, North and West, respectively.
- Chariot Pulled by Cats: Perkūnas rode a chariot harnessed with goats. Sounds familiar?.
- Earth Mother: Žemyna, goddess of Earth and fertility.
- Everyone Hates Hades: God of the Underworld Velnias is a mean trickster and firm opposer of Perkunas, and following the Christianization of the Balts he was even syncretized with Satan.
- Fiery Stoic: Gabija was the spirit of fire, intended as the protectress of home and family, and she manifested her power as the hearth of the household. If she was offended by the people mistreating her fire, she would burn the house as punishment.
- God of the Dead: Velnias the chthonic god of the underworld who is related to the cult of the dead. He was Hijacked by Jesus and turned into the devil associated with all evil. In some tales, Velnias (the devil) was the first owner of fire, with God sending a swallow (as in, the bird species) that managed to steal the underworld fire.
- God of Thunder: Perkunas the god of thunder, whose name is directly taken from the Proto-Indo-European "Perkwunos". As with Velnias, he has connections to Slavic deities- Perun and Veles respectively.
- Grandpa God: One of Dievas' nickname was "senelis", that means "the Old".
- Hijacked by Jesus:
- The peasant Goddess Māra from the Latvian pantheon, who integrated many aspects of Laima, seems to have been inspired by the Virgin Mary.
- All sources concerning Baltic Mythology were only written by Christian authors: foreigners who might have or not held Baltic paganism in contempt, native Balts who wrote about their old paganism only after their conversion. It's hard to determine how exactly Christianity influenced what we know of Baltic Mythology. Among the rest, it seems that feminine figures such as Žemyna or Laima were conflated with the Virgin Mary; Velnias, god of the dead, was associated with Satan and his very own name assumed the meaning of "devil" in Baltic languages.
- Hot Goddess: Aušrinė, daughter of Saulė and Mėnulis. She's described as a beautiful virgin woman and is associated with beauty, youth, and health.
- I Have Many Names: Perkūnas has many alternative onomatopoeic names like Dundulis, Tarškulis or Blizgulis.
- Lord of the Ocean: Bangpūtys, god of sea and storm. He's described as Two-Faced, having wings, a fish in his left hand, a utensil in his right hand, and a rooster on his head. He's the father of Rytys, Pietys, Šiaurys and Vakaris, the four gods of wind.
- The Power of the Sun: Saule is a goddess of light and the sun, the common Baltic solar female deity in the Lithuanian and Latvian mythologies. She is derived from the Proto-Indo-European "Sehul".
- Snakes Are Sinister: Inverted. Grass snakes were revered as benign household spirits. It was believed that keeping them as pets could protect them from plagues and bring good harvests while killing them would have brought misfortune upon the household.
- Solar and Lunar: Saulė and Mėnulis are wife and husband, and deities of Sun and Moon respectively.
- Top God: Dievas the supreme sky god, who is derived from the Proto-Indo-European "Dyeus". This name/word is also the root of both words "deity" and "divine" which is not a linguistic coincidence. However, his actual role in the Baltic Pantheon is debated. Some scholars believe he was mostly a non-active and detached God, which would explain the absence of cults dedicated to him specifically.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Teliavelis, who forged the Sun and threw it to the sky.
