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Laurinkienė, Nijolė . ÒThe Image of Heaven and the Motifs of
Creation of the Sun in Baltic MythologyÓ. Culturas
Populares. Revista Electr—nica 5
(julio-diciembre 2007). http://www.culturaspopulares.org/textos5/articulos/laurinkiene.htm ISSN: 1886-5623 Recibido: 01/02/08 Aceptado: 07/03/08 |
The Image of Heaven and the Motifs of
Creation of the Sun
in Baltic Mythology
Nijolė
Laurinkienė
Institute of Lithuanian Literature and
Folklore,
Vilnius (Lituania)
Abstract
The subject of the present article are motifs of the creation of the Sun in
Lithuanian and Latvian cosmogonic theories. These motifs are presented in the
framework of the conception of heaven in its entirety. Baltic creation stories
are compared with those of the Finno-Ugrian mythology.
Keywords: Baltic mythology, Finno-Ugrian mythology, Cosmogony, Heaven,
Creation of the Sun, Sun.
Resumen
El tema de este art’culo es el an‡lisis de los
motivos de la creaci—n del sol en los mitos cosmog—nicos de Lituania y de
Letonia. Estos mitos est‡n comprendidos dentro del marco de la concepci—n
general del cielo. Son comparados los relatos b‡lticos sobre la creaci—n con
los de las mitolog’as finougrias.
Palabras clave: Mitolog’a b‡ltica,
Mitolog’a finougria, Cosmogon’a, Cielo, Creaci—n del sol, Sol.
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he investigation
of ancient Baltic cosmogonic theories, related to the mythological world
outlook, reveals an exceptional place of the stories about the creation of
celestial bodies. The themes of the creation of heaven and its elements –
the Sun, the Moon, the constellations and the peculiarities of their origin
– are to be found both in Baltic folklore and in written sources.
The present article is devoted
only to the study of the theme of the creation of the Sun and to the aspects of
its liberation as its ÔbirthÕ or ÔrebirthÕ, and these motifs are presented in
the framework of the conception of heaven in its entirety. An attempt is made
to offer some ideas, which might serve as a stimulus in defining the
perspective of the solution of some mythological problems.
In this study, Baltic
cosmogonic stories are compared with those of the Finno-Ugrian mythology.
Though the Finno-Ugrians are not genetically related to the Balts, and their
languages belong to different families, nevertheless their cultures contain
analogies, which could be accounted for by affinities of typological character
or as a result of prolonged contacts between these two ethnicities. The
investigation of mythological archaisms on the basis of a wider area of their
distribution enables more precise conclusions about their chronology, nature
and semantics of the phenomena concerned.
A peculiar feature of Baltic
mythology is the manner of its preservation – it is found mainly in
folklore either as prose narratives or sometimes as certain semantic poetical
stereotypes in songs and lamentations. However, historical sources, containing
information about heaven, celestial bodies and their worship, are few. The
extant written records indicate that the Balts venerated the Sun, the Moon and
the stars, in addition to other objects of nature. Corresponding allusions can
be found in the works of Peter von Dusburg and Nicolaus von Jeroschin in the
fourteenth century, Jan Długosz, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and Marcus
Antonius Coccius Sabellicus in the fifteenth century (BRMŠ p. 333, 344,
358, 367, 546, 566, 591, 595, 606–609). True, the testimonies of foreign
authors often present the conception of the ancient Baltic religion in an
oversimplified way. Failing to perceive the veneration aspect of the objects of
nature, they (with the exception of Piccolomini) did not record any detailed
comments about the place of celestial bodies in the Baltic world outlook.
The Baltic viewpoint towards
heaven is actually inherited from the Indo-European mythological thought. In
Indo-European mythology, heaven is one of the three components of the universe
(the heavens- the earth – the nether worlds), and it is accorded
particular importance. Heaven is associated with the Supreme God of the
pantheon, God the Father (Old Indian Dy‡us pit‰ ÔGod the FatherÕ, ÔGod the HeavenÕ), because that was
the way heaven was conceived, that is, a power ruling the world, equal to the
role of the father in Indo-European patriarchal society[1].
Heaven and its gods were conceived as furnishing the necessary surroundings for
the existence of humans – light, water (in the shape of rain), and to a
great degree conditioning the welfare, which in its turn influenced the
spiritual state of the being. Therefore, heaven and the light emitted from
there as well as the meteorological phenomena having to do with heaven were
under constant observation in all the periods of the year day and night, while
the celestial bodies were frequently personified and treated as deities or
their manifestations.
A close relationship between
god and heaven is attested by the etymology of the I.-E. *tÕieu(s) ÔgodÕ. This word is related to the root *tÕei- Ôto light, to radiateÕ[2].
The same root is detected in Lith. dievas, Latvian dievs, Old Prussian deiws ÔgodÕ. Lexically the connection between ÔgodÕ and ÔheavenÕ is
quite obvious in the Baltic languages. The Finnish taivas ÔheavenÕ and the Estonian taevas ÔheavenÕ are undoubtedly cognates of the
Lithuanian word, denoting ÔgodÕ. Taivas, taevas are loan-words from the Baltic languages. This word
must have reached the Finno-Ugric tribes, when they, migrating from the Urals
and the Volga River, came to the shores of the Baltic Sea and became the northern
neighbours of the Balts (that migration must have taken place ca. 1200 BC). A
question can arise: did the Finno-Ugric peoples have their own concept of
heaven as god prior to their arrival or did they form it under the influence of
the Balts? An etymological analysis of the Finno-Ugric theonyms could give the
answer to that question. One of such names is - Ilmarinen, god of wind and good weather of the
Finns. It can be associated with the Finnish word ilma meaning Ôwind, storm, weatherÕ, and it can
also mean Ôsky, heavenÕ. Its equivalent in Udmurt mythology is Inmar, believed to have been composed of Udmurt in,
i–, im Ôsky, weatherÕ. The
Udmurts treated Inmar as the God of sky and weather. The evident relationship
of this theonym with the sky would suggest that the Finno-Ugric peoples had the
same conception of the sky as god and closely associated these two concepts.
The next question concerns the
Baltic god which could also imply the sphere of the sky and express the idea of
heaven as embodying God the Father. Normally the historians of religion
attribute the role of the god as heaven to the Supreme God of the pantheon. The
data about the Lithuanian Supreme God are scarce. Written sources contain
several theonyms denoting supremacy in the hierarchy: Nunadej (the Form in the Source Нънадееви), Andaj (Андая), Auxtheias Vissagistis, Ockopirmus (BRMŠ p. 257, 260). Since the shapes and
functions of the deities, bearing these names, are far from clear, it has been
surmised that the role of such a god was that of deus otiosus, that is, an abstract and inactive god.
However, there is much more information relating to another Baltic god Perkūnas (Latvian Pērkons, Prussian Percunis) – a god, ruling over the elements,
thunder and lightning, and also having to do with heaven and, according to some
suppositions, meaning Ôheaven properÕ[3].
Besides, God the Thunder, being closely connected with heaven, could also be
conceived as God the Father. The paternal function of Perkūnas,
Pērkons is emphasized
by his other names: Lith. Tėtis (ÔfatherÕ; Klvk p. 111), Lith. vėšas
tėvulis (Ôold daddyÕ;
BsFM p. 178), Latvian vecais tēvs (Ôold fatherÔ; LTdz 7845).
Speaking about the Baltic and
Finno-Ugric mythological parallels it is worth noting that the name Perkūnas has left a trace in the Finno-Ugric
tradition. The Mordvin theonym Pirgene is considered to be a slightly modified loanword from
the Baltic Perkūnas.
According to one tendency of the Baltic mythological studies, God the Thunder
is considered below the Supreme God, though there is also a viewpoint that
Ôinitially God the Heaven (= Supreme God) and God the Thunder were one and the
same personified beingÕ. The divergence took place later, and the resulting God
of the storm was subordinated to God the Heaven.[4]
Both suppositions lack definitive proofs, and only an a priori choice is possible at present.
Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy fact that the Baltic God the Thunder was
considered to have associations with heaven and could be perceived as father.
Moreover, if account is taken of the presumption that God the Thunder could
occupy the position of the Supreme God (or that the Supreme God could have
relegated him certain functions, among them that of thundering), it would seem
quite logical to surmise that at a certain period the image of God the Thunder
could also incarnate the ideologeme of heaven as God the Father.
Thus, the image of heaven as
god, as God the Father, as the conception of the light encircling the human
world and of the power mysteriously influencing it, has been preserved in
Baltic mythology. Heaven, on the one hand, was imagined as an indivisible
entity, as the god occupying the upper sphere of the mythological world. On the
other hand, this entire celestial plane was further articulated, divided from
the viewpoint of mytho-poetical consciousness into certain significant objects
– the heavenly bodies (the Sun, the Moon, Venus, the Great Bear/Ursa
Maior, the Pleiades,
etc.), which were treated as separate mythological personages or their
attributes.
A specific mytho-poetical
thinking of the human beings is revealed in the Lithuanian and Latvian folk
stories having to do with the creation of celestial bodies. It is noteworthy
that some of the texts originated under the influence of the Bible. All in all,
in Lithuanian and Latvian narrative folklore, related to the creation of the
elements of the world, there are rather many Christian fragments, often
intertwined with ancient mythological motifs. These are very interesting
phenomena of religious syncretism, which are not always easy to disentangle and
identify.
Lithuanian and Latvian legends
contain a story about the creation of the Sun. It was forged by a smith:
Senais laikais gyveno
žmogus kalvis. Tada buvo visur tamsu, naktis ir naktis. Tai šis
kalvis nutarė nukalti saulę. Paėmęs blizgančią
geležį, kalė kalė ir nukalė per šešerius
metus. Tada, užlipęs ant aukščiausios trobos, įmet‘
ją į dangų.
Ir iki šios dienos ji ten tebestovi.[5]
Agrāk ticēja, ka
Dievs licis kalējam uzkalt apaļu ripu. Kalęjs uzkalis. Tad Dievs
nokrāsojis apaļo ripu zelta krāsā un pakāris to pie
debesīm. Tā radusies saule. (LTT p. 35)
The Lithuanian legend tells
that in olden times, when it was pitch dark everywhere, a certain smith made up
his mind to forge the Sun. Out of iron he hammered it for six years. Then he
climbed up the tallest hut and threw his work into the sky where it can be
found up to the present day. According to a similar Latvian legend God asked a
smith to make a round flat object. The smith did as he was told. Then God
painted the disk red and hung it in the sky. That was the way the Sun appeared.
These two legends are connected by the figure of the smith and his cosmogonic
work – the making of the Sun and its placing in the sky.
This motif is recorded in a historical source, too
– as an insertion in the Chronicle of Joannes Malalas in 1261. In it the
smith is called TeljavelÕ (Телявели). In the Chronicle this insertion is
located next to a list of Baltic and Finno-Ugric deities. TeljavelÕ is reported
to have made the Sun and flung it into the sky (BRMŠ p. 266). The
existence of this motif both in folklore and in one of the oldest and
considered most reliable records of Baltic mythology attests to the
authenticity of the motif. Though in the legends the smith is not referred to
by name, he nevertheless can be identified with TeljavelÕ on the basis of the
same creative action.
The Baltic mythological smith
as a demiurge could be compared to the Finnish and Karelian smith Ilmarinen.
Both TeljavelÕ and Ilmarinen are creators, considered to be the producers of
the heavens, the upper mythical sphere of the world or of its objects.
TeljavelÕ, makes the Sun, Ilmarinen forget the sky, Sun and Moon (Klvl 49). In
historical sources both of them are identified as gods.7 Besides, the two
mythical figures are characterized by ambivalence – the ties with the
opposite extremes of the mythical universe, that is, heaven (they create it and
its elements) and the netherworld (this is attested by the image of the
Lithuanian smith as Velnias (the devil) and by the fact that Ilmarinen performs
his creative function in Pohjola (Klvl 49). A further investigation of the
parallels of Baltic and Finno-Ugrian mythology should prove whether the
analogies between these smiths are accidental or not.
The motif of the creation of
the Sun is related to the story about its capture – both motifs could be
treated as tattered and altered fragments of the myth. A similar story is found
in Latvian narrative folklore and in a Baltic fifteenth-century record,
describing some Lithuanian beliefs (BRMŠ p. 595).
According to the Latvian legend
at the time when Velns / Valns (the devil) still lived on good terms with God,
the former once boasted to God that he had extremely beautiful and bright
things and showed the hidden Sun and Moon:
Kaidu reizi Dīvs ar
Valnu dzeivojuši draudzeigi. Jī vīns uz ūtru
gōjuši cīmūs. Dīvs līlejīs, ka šam
asūt daudz labeibas. Valns arī stōstejis sovu bogoteibu. Valns
pastōstejis Dīvam, ka šam asūt tik leli skaistumi un
gaišumi, ka leidz šam taidus Dīvs naasūt vēļ
redzējis. Dīvs reizi aizgōjis pi Valna, un Valns jam
parōdejis sauli un mēnesi. Dīvs prasejis, lai
īdūdūt šam pacilōt, vai ši skaistumi asūt
arī smagi. Valns arī atļōvis. Dīvs paņēmis
sauli lobajā rūkā un męnesi kreisajā un, kai
svīdis sauli, tai tū īsvīdis debesīs; arī
mēnesi ar kreisū rūku īsvīdis debesīs. Tai
Dīvs atbreivōjis sauli un mēnesi nu Valna, un vēļ
tagad tī speid debesīs. (LTT p. 35)
On seeing the luminaries God
asked for permission to try how heavy they were. Velns(Valns) agreed, and God took the Sun into his
right hand and the Moon into his left and flung them into the sky. Since that
time they had been shining there. Thus the legend accounts for the appearance
of the Sun and the Moon in the sky. It is noteworthy that before that time
these celestial bodies had been at the disposal of the Velns, a figure
representing the netherworld and the world of the dead. They had been hidden
and shut by him, and it was only God who managed to free them and place in the
sky.
The motif of the SunÕs capture
has not been found in Lithuanian folklore. Nevertheless, as has been mentioned,
a similar story was recorded by the historian and politician Aeneas Silvius
Piccolomini in his work Historiarum ubique gestarum locorumque descripto, Venice, 1477. Piccolomini himself had not
visited Lithuania, and the monk Jeronim Jan Silvanus Pražsky (b. ca. 1369)
furnished him some material about this country. Basing himself on the
information of that monk, he states:
Profectus introrsus aliam
gentem reperit, quae Solem colebat, et malleum ferreum rarae magnitudinis
singulari cultu uenerabatur. Interrogati sacerdotes, quid ea sibi ueneratio
uellet, responderunt olim pluribus mensibus non fuisse uisum Solem, quem rex
potentissimus captum reclusisset in carcere munitissimae turris. Signa zodiaci
deinde opem tulisse Soli, ingentique malleo perfregisse turrim, Solemque
liberatum hominibus restituisse. Dignum itaque ueneratu instrumentum esse, quo
mortales lucem recepissent.
(BRMŠ p. 591)
This extract informs the reader
that during the voyage of Jeronim Pražsky through Lithuania a tribe was
found which venerated the Sun and an iron hammer of enormous dimensions. ÔAsked
about the meaning of that worship, the priests answered that for months they
had not seen the Sun which the powerful king had captured and locked in the
most strongest tower. Then the signs of the zodiac came to the aid of the Sun.
They destroyed the tower with a huge hammer, freed the Sun and returned it back
to the people. That is why the tool, with the help of which the mortals
recovered the Sun, should be held in great esteemÕ (BRMŠ p. 595).
The myth, recorded by
Piccolomini, has not been investigated in more detail so far. Nonetheless, it
is worth greater attention. This story, as well as the aforementioned about the
creation of the Sun and the Moon, are quite extensively developed in the
mythology of the northern Baltic neighbours – the Finns and the
Karelians. Kalevala speaks
about the capture of the Sun and the Moon. These two celestial bodies descend
to listen to VŠinŠmšinen playing kantele. Just then they are caught by Louhi,
the ruler of Pohjola. She grabs the Moon from the birch and the Sun from the
fir-tree, takes them to Pohjola and hides in a tall rocky mountain. The earth
is enveloped in complete darkness (Klvl 47, 5-24). Afterwards Ilmarinen
produces a new Sun and a new Moon, but cannot make them shine. Having learned
that the luminaries are in the mountain in Pohjola, VŠinŠmšinen sets out to
free them. He cannot get inside the mountain and returns home for the tools.
While he is making the tools, Louhi, filled with foreboding, lets the Sun and
the Moon out of the rock. They immediately rise up into the sky (Klvl 49,
1-384). According to another variety of the myth, rendered in the Karelian hymn
about the SunÕs liberation (which E. N. SetŠlŠ treats as Ôthe most sacred pearl
of our folk poetryÕ), the memory goes back to the times when everywhere was
darkness[6].
Then the Son of the God (according to other version the smithÕs daughter)
decides to go and search for the Sun and the Moon, hidden in Hiitola, the Ôland
of devilsÕ[7].
The heavenly bodies are found and freed. The Sun is lifted into a tree and
placed on its middle branch, where it has been shining for humans up to the
present days[8]. The myth
must have experienced the influence of Christianity – that is evident in
the transformation of the SunÕs liberator into God the Son. The liberator of
the other variety – the smithÕs daughter must be a figure of an older
version, preceding that of God the Son. The view that the Sun can be freed by
somebody associated with the smith is corroborated by a Lithuanian myth,
according to which the Sun is freed with a hammer – a tool, peculiar to
the craft of the smith. If the Sun is created with a hammer, the liberation of
this heavenly body with a hammer would seem logical, too. The SunÕs liberation
could be treated as its Ôbirth or rebirthÕ, that is, the renewal of its
functions.
In Baltic mythology the
abductor of the Sun and the Moon is a mythical creature of the underworld,
associated with the realm of the dead – the Velnias/Velns (the SunÕs
hijacker can be a king as well), while in Karelian and Finnish myths it is
Louhi, the ruler of Pohjola, belonging to the land of the north, Ôthe other
worldÕ. Thus, all the captors of these heavenly bodies are representatives of
the mythical universe, having to do with darkness and the realm of the dead.
The liberators of the celestial
bodies in Baltic mythology are God or the signs of the zodiac with a hammer,
meanwhile in Finnish and Karelian tradition they are VŠinŠmšinen, the smithÕs
daughter or the Son of the God. They can transfer the celestial body from the
realm of darkness to the opposite world, the sphere of heaven and light, and
from there they can function illuminating the middle world, inhabited by humans.
The Baltic idea of heaven,
having to do with God the Father – the male deity of the highest status
– is considered to have dated back to Indo-European culture. However,
such a mythologeme of heaven as god could be treated as rather universal and
widespread not only in Indo-European culture, but among other archaic cultures
as well. The relics of this viewpoint are also attested by Finno-Ugrian
tradition. The image of heaven in Baltic and Finno-Ugrian mythology is
connected with the image of the god-smith, who can do the function of the
demiurge – the creator of celestial bodies. The themes of the sky, the
god-smith, the creation of the Sun related ancient Baltic cosmogonic theories
with Finno- Ugrian creation storys.
In general, the contacts
between Baltic culture and Finno-Ugrian mythological traditions have not yet
been subjected to any closer research, although the analysis of age-long
neighbourly ties can produce interesting results, as has been demonstrated by
the interpretation of the creation of heavenly bodies. The results of the
contacts between the Finno-Ugrian peoples and the Balts were unquestionable.
Therefore it can be stated that the investigation of the relations of these two
cultures must be a rewarding field of research.
Abbreviations
BRMŠ Baltų religijos ir mitologijos
šaltiniai. T. 1 : Nuo
seniausių laikų iki XV amžiaus pabaigos. Sudarė Norbertas
Vėlius. Vilnius, 1996.
BsFM Jonas Bassanavičius. Fragmenta
mithologiae: Perkunas – Velnias // Mitteilungen der Litauischen Litterarischen Gesellschaft
. Heidelberg, 1887, Bd. 2.
KlvK Vilius Kalvaitis. Lietuviškų
vardų klėtelė su 15 000 vardų. Tilžė, 1910.
Klvl Kalevala. Vertė Justinas Marcinkevičius. Vilnius,
1972.
LTdz Latviešu tautasdziesmas. Izlasi kārtojuši: A.
Ancelāne, K. Arājs, M. Asare, R. Drīzule, V. Greble. Rīga,
1959, sēj. 3.
LTT Latviešu tautas teikas.
Izcelšanās teikas.
Izlase. Sastāditāja
un ievada autore Alma Ancelāne. Rīga, 1991s.