Saulė

Saulė (Lithuanian: Saulė, Latvian: Saule) is a solar goddess, the common Baltic solar deity in the Lithuanian and Latvian mythologies. The noun Saulė/Saule in the Lithuanian and Latvian languages is also the conventional name for the Sun and originates from the Proto-Baltic name *Sauliā > *Saulē.[1]

Saulė
Sun
Idol of the Saulė used for peasant rituals in early 20th century from Palūšė, Ignalina District
Consort	Mėnuo/Mēness
Offspring	Žemyna Indraja Sėlija Žiezdrė Vaivora

Representation

Saulė is one of the most powerful deities, the goddess of life and fertility, warmth and health. She is patroness of the unfortunate, especially orphans. The Lithuanian and Latvian words for "the world" (pasaulis and pasaule) are translated as "[a place] under the Sun".

Saulė is mentioned in one of the earliest written sources on Lithuanian mythology. According to the Slavic translation of the Chronicle by John Malalas (1261), a weak smith named Teliavelis made the Sun and threw it into the sky.[2] Missionary Jerome of Prague (ca. 1369–1440) spent three years attempting to Christianize Lithuania and later recounted a myth about the kidnapped Saulė. She was held in a tower by a powerful king and rescued by the zodiac using a giant sledgehammer. Jerome swore that he personally witnessed the hammer, venerated by the locals.[3]

Family

A circa 1912 painting by Janis Rozentāls depicting the daughters of Saule (Saules meitas)

Saulė and Mėnuo/Mēness (the Moon) were wife and husband. Mėnuo fell in love with Aušrinė (the morning star or Venus). For his infidelity, Perkūnas (thunder god) punished Mėnuo. There are different accounts of the punishment. One version has it that Mėnuo was cut into two pieces, but he did not learn from his mistakes and thus the punishment is repeated every month. Another version claims that Mėnuo and Saulė divorced, but both wanted to see their daughter Žemyna (earth). That is why the Sun shines during the day, while the Moon visits at night. A third version claims that the face of Mėnuo was disfigured by either Dievas (the supreme god) or Saulė.[4]

In other myths, Aušrinė is depicted as a daughter and servant of Saulė. Aušrinė lights the fire for Saulė and makes her ready for another day's journey across the sky. Vakarinė (the evening star) makes the bed for Saulė in the evening. In the Lithuanian mythology, Saulė was mother of other planets: Indraja (Jupiter), Sėlija (Saturn), Žiezdrė (Mars), Vaivora (Mercury).[4]

Feasts

Saulė's feast was celebrated during the summer solstice. Lithuanian Rasos (turned into Saint Jonas' Festival by Christianity) and Latvian Līgo (turned into Jāņi) involve making wreaths, looking for the magical fern flower, burning bonfires, dancing around and leaping over the fire, and greeting the Sun when it rises at around 4 am next morning.[5] It is the most joyous traditional holiday. The winter solstice is celebrated as the return of Saulė. Christianity absorbed Lithuanian Kūčios and Latvian Ziemassvētki into Christmas. Other celebrations took place around the equinoxes.[4]

Mythology

Colours

In Latvian folk songs, Saulė and her daughter(s) are dressed of shawls woven with gold thread, and Saulė wears shoes of gold.[6]

She is sometimes portrayed as waking up 'red' (sārta) or 'in a red tree' during the morning.[7] Saulė is also said to own golden tools and garments: slippers, scarf, belt and a golden boat she uses as her means of transportation.[8] Other accounts ascribe her golden rings, golden ribbons, golden tassels and even a golden crown.[9]

Saulé is also described as being dressed in clothes woven with "threads of red, gold, silver and white".[10] In the Lithuanian tradition, the sun is also described as a "golden wheel" or a "golden circle" that rolls down the mountain at sunset.[11] Also in Latvian riddles and songs, Saule is associated with the color red, as if to indicate its "fiery aspect".[12]

Movements

Saulė is portrayed dancing in her gilded shoes on a silver hill, and her fellow Baltic goddess Aušrinė is said to dance on a stone for the people on the first day of summer.[13][14] In Lithuania the Sun (identified as female) rides a car towards her husband, the Moon, "dancing and emitting fiery sparks" on the way.[15]

Dwelling

In a myth from Lithuania, a man named Joseph becomes fascinated with Aušrinė appearing in the sky and goes on a quest to find the 'second sun', who is actually a maiden that lives on an island in the sea and has the same hair as the Sun.[13] In the Baltic folklore, Saulė is said to live in a silver-gated castle at the end of the sea,[16] located somewhere in the east,[17] or to go to an island in the middle of the sea for her nocturnal rest.[18]

Vehicle

Saulė also drives a carriage with copper-wheels,[19] a "gleaming copper chariot"[20] or a golden chariot[21] pulled by untiring horses, or a 'pretty little sleigh' (kamaņiņa) made of fish-bones.[22][23] Saulė is also described as driving her shining car on the way to her husband, the Moon.[15] In other accounts, she is said to sail the seas on a silver[24] or a golden boat,[20] which, according to legend, is what her chariot transforms into for her night travels.[17][25]

Horses

Saulė's horses are also mentioned in several pieces of Baltic folklore. Her horses are said to be of a white color;[17] in other accounts they amount to three steeds of golden, silver and diamond colors.[15] In Latvian dainas (folk songs), her horses are described as yellow, of a golden or a fiery color.[25] The sun's steeds are also portrayed as having hooves and bridles of gold in the dainas, and as golden beings themselves or of a bay colour, "reflect[ing] the hues of the bright or the twilight sky".[26] When she begins her nocturnal journey through the World Sea, her chariot changes into a boat and "the Sun swims her horses".[24]

Scholarship points that the expressions geltoni žirgeliai or dzelteni kumeliņi ('golden' or 'yellow horses'), which appear in Latvian dainas, seem to be a recurrent poetic motif.[27]

See also

• List of solar deities
• Proto-Indo-European mythology
• Indo-European cosmogony
• Baltic mythology
• Lithuanian mythology
• Prussian mythology
• Latvian mythology

References

1. Baltic etymology
2. Beresnevičius, Gintaras. "Lithuanian Religion and Mythology". Anthology of Lithuanian Ethnoculture. Lithuanian Folk Culture Centre. Archived from the original on 2014-05-12.
3. Beresnevičius, Gintaras (2004). Lietuvių religija ir mitologija: sisteminė studija (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Tyto alba. p. 19. ISBN 9986-16-389-7.
4. Jonas Trikūnas, ed. (1999). Of Gods & Holidays: The Baltic Heritage. Tvermė. pp. 75–77. ISBN 9986-476-27-5.
5. Jonas Trikūnas, ed. (1999). Of Gods & Holidays: The Baltic Heritage. Tvermė. pp. 120–124. ISBN 9986-476-27-5.
6. West 2007, pp. 220–221.
7. Massetti 2019, pp. 232–233.
8. Motz, Lotte (1997). The Faces of the Goddess. Oxford University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-19-802503-0.
9. Laurinkiene, Nijole. "Saulės ir metalų kultas bei mitologizuotoji kalvystė: Metalų laikotarpio idėjų atšvaitai baltų religijoje ir mitologijoje" [CULT OF THE SUN AND METALS AND MYTHOLOGIZED BLACKSMITHING: REFLECTIONS OF THE IDEAS OF THE METAL AGES IN BALTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY]. In: Būdas, 2019, Nr. 5 (188), p. 52.
10. Andrews, Tamra. Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 169. ISBN 0-19-513677-2
11. Razauskas, Dainius. 2012. “Iš Baltų Mitinio Vaizdyno Juodraščių: SAULĖ.(Lithuanian).” Folk Culture 135 (3): 16-41. ISSN 0236-0551
12. Laurinkiene, Nijole. "Saulės ir metalų kultas bei mitologizuotoji kalvystė: Metalų laikotarpio idėjų atšvaitai baltų religijoje ir mitologijoje" [CULT OF THE SUN AND METALS AND MYTHOLOGIZED BLACKSMITHING: REFLECTIONS OF THE IDEAS OF THE METAL AGES IN BALTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY]. In: Būdas, 2019, Nr. 5 (188), p. 51.
13. Greimas 1992, pp. 64–84.
14. West 2007, p. 221.
15. Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. The songs of the Russian people, as illustrative of Slavonic mythology and Russian social life. London: Ellis & Green. 1872. p. 242.
16. Doniger, Wendy, ed. (2006). Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions. Encyclopaedia Britannica. p. 974. ISBN 978-1-59339-266-6.
17. Straižys, Vytautas; Klimka, Libertas. "The Cosmology of the Ancient Balts". In: Journal for the History of Astronomy: Archaeoastronomy Supplement. Vol. 28. Issue 22 (1997): p. S73.
18. Priede, Janis (2015). "Development of the Study of Religion in Latvian in the 20th Century". Studying Religions with the Iron Curtain Closed and Opened. Brill. p. 224. ISBN 978-90-04-29278-9.
19. Jones, Prudence; Pennick, Nigel (1995). A History of Pagan Europe. Routledge. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-136-14172-0.
20. Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic myth and legend. p. 252. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-130-4.
21. Andrews, Tamra. Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 20.
22. Massetti 2019, p. 234.
23. Taylor, Bron (2008). Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. 1. A & C Black. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-4411-2278-0.
24. Ķencis, Toms (2011). "The Latvian Mythological space in scholarly Time" (PDF). Archaeologia Baltica. Klaipėda: Klaipėda University Press (15): 148.
25. Laurinkienė, Nijolé. "Saulės ratų ir laivo mitiniai vaizdiniai: šviesulys paros cikle (Mythical Images of the Solar Carriage and Ship: the Heavenly Body in the Course of an Astronomical Day)". In: Tautosakos darbai t. 54, 2017. p. 13-25. ISSN 1392-2831.
26. Chase, George Davis. "Sun Myths in Lithuanian Folksongs". In: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 31 (1900): 198-199. doi:10.2307/282647.
27. Laurinkiene, Nijole. "Saulės ir metalų kultas bei mitologizuotoji kalvystė: Metalų laikotarpio idėjų atšvaitai baltų religijoje ir mitologijoje" [CULT OF THE SUN AND METALS AND MYTHOLOGIZED BLACKSMITHING: REFLECTIONS OF THE IDEAS OF THE METAL AGES IN BALTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY]. In: Būdas, 2019, Nr. 5 (188), p. 51.

Bibliography

• Greimas, Algirdas J. (1992). Of Gods and Men. Studies in Lithuanian Mythology. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32652-4.
• Laurinkiene, Nijole. "Saulės ir metalų kultas bei mitologizuotoji kalvystė: Metalų laikotarpio idėjų atšvaitai baltų religijoje ir mitologijoje" [CULT OF THE SUN AND METALS AND MYTHOLOGIZED BLACKSMITHING: REFLECTIONS OF THE IDEAS OF THE METAL AGES IN BALTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY]. In: Būdas, 2019, Nr. 5 (188), pp. 51-61.
• Massetti, Laura (2019). "Antimachus's Enigma on Erytheia, the Latvian Sun-goddess and a Red Fish". The Journal of Indo-European Studies. 47 (1–2).
• West, Martin Litchfield (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9.

Further reading

• Vikis-Freibergs, Vaira, and Imants Freibergs. "Formulaic Analysis of the Computer-Accessible Corpus of Latvian Sun-Songs." Computers and the Humanities 12, no. 4 (1978): 329-39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30204295.