Some notes on Lithuanian Mythology

I’m slowly forming some plans for some artwork based around a few Lithuanian mythological characters: Medeina, Žemyna, Ežerinis, and Ragana.

Lithuania wasn’t converted to christianity until much later than the rest of Europe, and as a result its earlier religion survived long enough to be documented, at least to some degree (compared to England, for example). This also means that the myths have been less “christianised” over the centuries and hopefully retain more of their original character.

At the moment I’ve only got the internet to research with (and many of the search results are in Lithuanian, which doesn’t help me!), but I’ve got some books on order which should provide plenty of more detail.

From what I’ve read so far, Lithuanian mythology was based on the Proto-Indo-European religion (and language) that swept out from the northern coast of the Black Sea around 3500 BCE to influence language, religion, and culture from Ireland in the west to India in the east.

(If, by some freak chance, there are any Proto-Indo-European scholars reading this please forgive any errors - I know there are several conflicting theories, and all I’ve done is read some web pages so far. I’ve got several books to read)