PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Baltic paganism

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

If you want to make a pendant shaped like the crescent Moon, you've basically got three options: two horns up, one horn up, or two horns down. If you wanted to over-interpret, you could read these as Moon rising, zenith Moon, and Moon setting, respectively.

In that case, this one is Moon Come Down for sure.

 

The silversmith who, during the Baltic Bronze Age, made the original on which this little silver amulet is based chose the third option. What makes this lunula (“little Moon”) unique is its Double Moon shape. From one crescent grows another. One Moon holds another in its arms.

If you want, paradoxically, a static symbol of change, you'd go far to find one better than the Moon. This double Crescent redoubles that symbolism. It's a pregnant Moon, one Moon giving birth to another, to itself: Moon within Moon, as seed within seed, forever.

 

The dotted circles that dapple, crater-like, its surface intrigue me: their irregular distribution lends a certain visual dynamism, even a kinetic quality, to the piece. Do we see here merely the proverbial horror vacui of the Bronze Age craftsman? Or is there meaning to be derived?

Are they, perhaps, Suns? Shining with mirrored light, the Moon contains the Sun.

(Circles within circles, crescents within crescents.)

Or are they Full Moons, which every Crescent contains within herself?

I count twenty. If they're intended as Full Moons, along with the two Crescents, that makes twenty-two: a number of no obvious lunar (or, for that matter, solar) association. Either there's some symbolism here too recondite for my learning, or—this would be my guess—they're simply the number required to fill the space.

As I said, over-interpretation.

 

Witches, of course, have always been a people of the Moon. I kiss the little silver pendant and hang it around my neck.

Last modified on

 

Time: 800 years ago

Place: Latvia

In the Hall of Perkons—Thunder—the Old Gods of Latvia have gathered to discuss a terrible danger that threatens their beloved land and people.

It is this: the Pope of Rome has declared a crusade against the “pagans” of the Baltic Lands, and sent evil and rapacious men called the Teutonic Knights to enslave all of Latvia.

This would be Europe's first genocide.

The Old Gods—Earth, Sun, Thunder, Moon, the Winds, the Rivers, the Gods of Field and Forest—all swear to stand by their people, to guard and nurture them, each in his or her own way. Thunder himself swears to send the people a mighty hero who, with Thunder's own protection, will lead them against their foes.

So begins the story of the Bearslayer (Láchplesis), the Latvian national epic.

There is much here to tell; I will soon be reviewing Arthur Cropley's 2006 translation of the work. But for now, let us observe how this story addresses an important question which surely every thoughtful contemporary pagan must ask herself: Where were the pagan gods during the Christian centuries?

Last modified on

 

 

In the Halls of Heaven, the gods are meeting in council to discuss a problem of utmost urgency.

Perkons, god of thunder, tells the gods the ill tidings. Evil, power-hungry men, called “Christians,” have enslaved all the world; now they are coming to enslave Latvia as well.

As the gods weigh what actions to take to protect their people from this terrible threat, the goddess of the Daugava River arrives. She tells them of a handsome youth with the ears of a bear whom she wishes to take into her crystal palace at the bottom of the river.

“This is the youth himself!” cries Thunder. “He is the very hero who will protect our people from the slavers!”

 

So begins the tale of Láchplesis, the Bearslayer, Latvia's national epic. Folklorist Andrejs Pumpurs (1841-1902) wove together—à la Kalevala—old Latvian folk tales that tell of the time, 800 years ago, that the Teutonic Knights, in a crusade against Europe's last pagans, conquered the Baltic states with fire and sword.

The Bearslayer is a fine, romping tale of love, friendship, and treachery, filled with monsters, evil enchantresses, and magicians. Characters include the Bearslayer's true love, daughter of Fate the beautiful Laimdota, his best friend the hero Koknesis, and Kangars, the traitorous pagan priest who seeks to betray his people to the Christians.

The Bearslayer rallies the people and fights the good fight, protecting Latvia from enslavement for many years, but in the end he himself is betrayed.

Through the treachery of Kangars, the renegade pagan priest, the Black Knight learns the secret of the Bearslayer's strength: his furry bear's ears.

In a sword fight, he lops off both ears. As they grapple, locked together, they topple from a cliff into the waters of the mighty Daugava, and are never seen again.

So begins Latvia's 700 years of enslavement to a foreign people and a foreign creed.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Well, I was wrong: there is an English translation: https://www.amazon.com/Bearslayer-translation-unrhymed-TREDITION-CLASSICS/dp/3
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I wish that my Latvian were up to the task, alas. Let me consult with a Dievturiba (= Latvian pagan) friend of mine. Stay tuned.
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    If that story Lachpleshis gets translated please let us know. I for one would like to read it.

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_Milky-WayGro.jpg

The highest figure of the Baltic pantheon is Dievas (Deywis/Deyws/Dievs) and is twenty ninth deity from the graveyard list.  He name is of Indo-European origin and is related to Dios/Zeus.  The name means both sky and god, also viewed as the shining dome of the sky or heaven shine.  In Lithuanian dialects, he is called Pondzejis, Avestian, Daeva, Tiwat and Tiwaz. 

Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    Tiwaz! That is so cool! That is also the name of the rune that represents Tyr in Asatru.

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Tree of Dawn

In Latvian lore, not much is remembered of Austra—the goddess whose sister-selves include the other Dawn goddesses of the Indo-European diaspora: Ushas, Eos, Aurora, Ostara, Easter, among others—except for her name and her symbol.

Each of the Old Gods of the Baltic pantheon is associated with a particular sigil that has been faithfully transmitted through folk-art—in particular weaving and embroidery—down to our own day. Saule (Sun) has a sun-wheel, Mēness (Moon) a crescent, Pērkons (Thunder) the thunder-cross (fylfot), and the like (Dzērvītis112ff.).

Since Austra, by her very nature, does not readily lend herself to depiction—how does one draw a picture of light, of color?—her symbol is Austras koks, “Austra's tree.” This makes eminent sense, since trees capture both the first and last light of the day, even when the Sun is not yet (or is no longer) above the horizon. In Latvian lore Austra's tree is said to have copper roots, silver leaves, and golden branches (Dzērvītis 115).

Read figuratively, this describes the colors of the great Tree of the East as it shines with the new light of dawn. Read literally, the image may sound to the modern ear both artificial and unnatural. But to the ancestors, for whom the natural was commonplace and artifice precious, the image would have expressed the transformation of the everyday into the extraordinary.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    "Dawn, shining raccoon...."
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I remember seeing some mornings back in high school when the early light shown down through the trees. I never met a pretty girl

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Golden God

I hear that if you go into a supermarket in Latvia and take a box of cereal off the shelf, you'll find that it's marked with the sign of the Grain God: Jumis.

I say God of Grain, but Jumis (you-miss) is much more than that. His name means “double” or “twin” (it's the same as Sanskrit jama, “twin,” or Latin Gemini, for that matter), and doubled things are his: twins, double fruits and nuts, eggs with two yolks. Abundance, fertility, marriage, all the good things: these are his gifts. His sign, shown above, represents two crossed grain stalks, heavy heads hanging: it is, one might say, shorthand for “sheaf.” (The motif has been used continuously in Latvian art since the Bronze Age.) He is the Baltic John Barleycorn, the Latvian Frey, the merry big-dicked god of bread and beer and other good things.

The harvest is, of course, his special feast, and lots of hymns to him survive. Many of them, like harvest songs everywhere, tend towards the bawdy. A stanza from one of my favorites:

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
You'll Never Outrun Wyrd

In the corpus of Latvian dainas—folksongs—no goddess is mentioned more often than Laima: Fate, Moira, Wyrd. Everyone acknowledges that she's the most powerful of them all. In some dainas she's said to be more powerful even than Dievs (Heaven/God) himself, but in the poems nonetheless she's generally addressed in the most intimate and personal terms: “my Laima,” “my dear Laima,” “dearest Laima,” the folksongs say. Euphemism perhaps, but what is closer than one's own wyrd?

Robert Cochrane once wrote that the true Goddess of Witches is Fate. In the raksti, the traditional symbol-motifs of Latvian folk art, Laima's symbol is the broom. In the end, she sweeps everything before her.

When translating dainas, I always aim for a poem that sounds as if it could have been written originally in English; hence my choice of “Wyrd” over “Laima” or “Fate”: translating one heathenry with another.

Last modified on

Additional information