Widewuto was a legendary king of the pagan Prussians who ruled along with his elder brother, the high priest (Kriwe-Kriwajto) Bruteno in the 6th century AD. They are known from writings of 16th-century chroniclers Erasmus Stella, Simon Grunau, and Lucas David. Though the legend lacks historical credibility, it became popular with medieval historians. It is unclear whether the legend was authentically Prussian or was created by Grunau, though Lithuanian researchers tend to support its authenticity.
Laima is a Baltic goddess of fate. She was associated with childbirth, marriage, and death; she was also the patron of pregnant women. Laima and her functions are similar to the Hindu goddess Lakshmi.
In Latvian mythology, the term Māte stands for "mother", sometimes written in English as Mahte. It was an epithet applied to some sixty-seventy goddesses. They were clearly distinct goddesses in most or all cases, so the term definitely referred to the mother-goddess of specific phenomena. According to professor Lotte Motz, scholar Haralds Biezais mentioned there were at least 70 characters in Baltic religion identified with the title of Mate.
Auseklis is a Latvian god, a stellar deity that represents a celestial body, but possibly not the same as Venus - the first "star" to appear in the mornings on the east side of the sky. He is the third most popular deity in Latvian mythology after Saulė and Mēness, but is almost exclusively mentioned in folk songs.
Lithuanian Mythology is the mythology of Lithuanian polytheism, the religion of pre-Christian Lithuanians. Like other Indo-Europeans, ancient Lithuanians maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure. In pre-Christian Lithuania, mythology was a part of polytheistic religion; after Christianisation mythology survived mostly in folklore, customs and festive rituals. Lithuanian mythology is very close to the mythology of other Baltic nations – Prussians, Latvians, and is considered a part of Baltic mythology.
Aušrinė is a feminine deity of the morning star (Venus) in the Lithuanian mythology. She is the antipode to "Vakarinė", the evening star.
Saulė 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.
Žemyna is the goddess of the earth in Lithuanian religion. She is usually regarded as mother goddess and one of the chief Lithuanian gods similar to Latvian Zemes māte. Žemyna personifies the fertile earth and nourishes all life on earth, human, plant, and animal. All that is born of earth will return to earth, thus her cult is also related to death. As the cult diminished after baptism of Lithuania, Žemyna's image and functions became influenced by the cult of Virgin Mary.
Perkūnas was the common Baltic god of thunder, and the second most important deity in the Baltic pantheon after Dievas. In both Lithuanian and Latvian mythology, he is documented as the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, fire, war, law, order, fertility, mountains, and oak trees.
Potrimpo was a god of seas, earth, grain, and crops in the pagan Baltic, and Prussian mythology. He was one of the three main gods worshiped by the Old Prussians. Most of what is known about this god is derived from unreliable 16th-century sources.
Gintaras Beresnevičius was a Lithuanian historian of religions specializing in Baltic mythology. He together with Norbertas Vėlius is considered to be the best specialist in Lithuanian mythology.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents, alternatively Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes, is a Lithuanian folk tale, first published by M. Jasewicz in 1837.
The so-called Sudovian Book was an anonymous work about the customs, religion, and daily life of the Old Prussians from Sambia. The manuscript was written in German in the 16th century. The original did not survive and the book is known from later copies, transcriptions and publications.
The Prussian mythology was a polytheistic religion of the Old Prussians, indigenous peoples of Prussia before the Prussian Crusade waged by the Teutonic Knights. It was closely related to other Baltic faiths, the Lithuanian and Latvian mythologies. Its myths and legends did not survive as Prussians became Germanized and their culture extinct in the early 18th century. Fragmentary information on gods and rituals can be found in various medieval chronicles, but most of them are unreliable. No sources document pagan religion before the forced Christianization in the 13th century. Most of what is known about Prussian religion is obtained from dubious 16th-century sources.
Lithuanian Dievas, Latvian Dievs, Latgalian Dīvs, Old Prussian Dìews, Yotvingian Deivas was the primordial supreme god in the Baltic mythology and one of the most important deities together with Perkūnas and he was brother of Potrimpo. He was the god of sky, prosperity, wealth, ruler of gods, and creator of universe. Dievas is a direct successor of the Proto-Indo-European supreme sky father god *Dyēus of the root *deiwo-. Its Proto-Baltic form was *Deivas.
Šventaragis' Valley is a valley at the confluence of Neris and Vilnia Rivers in Vilnius, Lithuania. According to a legend recorded in the Lithuanian Chronicles, it was where Lithuanian rulers were cremated before the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387. Maciej Stryjkowski further recorded that it was the location of a pagan temple dedicated to Perkūnas, the god of thunder. While the legends are generally dismissed as fiction by historians, they have been studied and analysed from the perspective of pre-Christian Lithuanian mythology by Vladimir Toporov, Gintaras Beresnevičius, Norbertas Vėlius, Vykintas Vaitkevičius, and others.
Kriwe Kriwaito or simply Kriwe was the chief priest in the Baltic mythology. Known primarily from the dubious 16th-century writings of Simon Grunau, the concept of kriwe became popular during the times of romantic nationalism. However, lack of reliable written evidence has led some researchers to question whether such pagan priest actually existed. The title was adopted by Romuva, the neo-pagan movement in Lithuania, when Jonas Trinkūnas was officially installed as krivių krivaitis in October 2002.
Interpretatio slavica is the practice by the Slavic peoples to identify the gods of neighboring peoples and the names of Christian saints with the names of Slavic deities.
The Brushed Pottery culture was a European Bronze Age archaeological culture found in present-day eastern Lithuania, Belarus, and southeastern Latvia. It succeeded the Neolithic Narva culture. It got its name from its characteristic flat-bottomed pottery, the outer surface of which is generally brushed with strokes, believed to be applied with bundles of straw or grass during pottery making.
