What is Baltic Paganism? | Obscure Mythologies

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This should be a series! "Obscure mythologies" just sounds right and there is more than enough material

Great video, some suggestions: - Inuit Mythology - Aboriginal Australian Mythology - Indo-European Mythology (as a whole and how they all intertwine) -Slavic folktales (Edit: Slavic Paganism in general)

As a Latvian, who has grown up being taught a lot about Latvian mythology I just wanna say this seems to be very Lithuania centric. Purely Latvian mythology is different in some ways, but nevertheless this was a really good video about a mythology that should be talked about more

I would love to see Sami paganism featured on this channel, great work!

Holy shit. Im Latvian and Baltic mythology is rarely talked about. I love your stuff and you talking about baltic mythology is just Fantastic.

As a Latvian who's deeply into Baltic myths I'm happily surprised by this rendition. In some places it is a bit of a mash between Lithuanian and Latvian beliefs (Māra is only mentioned in Latvia, Giltine is only mentioned in Lithuania. They might be related though) it's a great look into the wast craziness that is the baltic myth. Thank you!

My favourite Latvian mythological deity is the Vadātāja. She's basically either an old woman dressed in white, or a faceless woman carrying a torch or a light, or just a feeling, and her goal is to make people get lost in the woods.

I always find the commonality of “monster or evil being that terrorizes naughty kids” in mythology absolutely hilarious, like since the dawn of time parents have just been like: “you better do your work or insert monster will get you!”

In the same vein as this I'd love to see a video on Finnish/Karelian mythology i.e. Kalevala. Which you might know provided Tolkien with significant inspiration for the LOTR universe.

As a Slav, so as close to Baltic as one can get without actually being Baltic (we have such a fascinating shared history, pity it's also so violent), thank you so much for this. The Baltic people deserve recognition.

From Latvia here and happy to see someone talking about the vast Baltic mythology. We have some deities that are similar, but there are also differences. In Latvian, the three main deities that are sometimes depicted together are Dievs, Laima, and Māra. Our mythology is very rich and beautiful

As a Lithuanian, I knew a lot of these myths, but never really thought about them. I'm quite interested in the Nordic myths and Greek myths, but this gives me a lot to think about. The similarity is uncanny. I'm inspired to find out more about Baltic mythology now. Really interested to find out more about the thought processes of our ancestors - how are there so many similarities in ancient beliefs across Europe at least. Maybe there has been more connection than previously believed or they come more from the primeval ooze, thus the similarities and small differences would be a natural process of evolution of thought and culture. Anyway - amazing video, subscribed and rang the bell.

Omgs! The feelings I've got when I saw one of my fave youtube channels posting video covering subject about my homeland! Thank you! Greetings from Lithuania! 🇱🇹

Hi! I’m Latvian and seeing you cover the topic of our gods pleasantly surprised me. I think you would find it interesting that most of our pagan traditions never dissolved when christianity came. We are taught in our families and in school about what the old pagan symbols mean and how to celebrate the pagan holidays. The summer solstice is equivalently important as Christmas here in Latvia- people worship the gods, light fires, dress in folk outfits, make flower crowns and sing folk songs until sunrise. And it is important to note that even Christmas isn’t considered a very christian holiday (besides for really devoted christians, which there isn’t many here), we take part in pagan traditions like “ iet ķekatās” which doesn’t have a translation but is basically dressing up as different mythical characters and going door to door while pulling a log with you to symbolise the return of sun and light after the dark period of winter. And easter isn’t celebrated in a christian way either. Some people even go to church in the morning on easter but after that they go to a pagan celebration of easter where people, again, wear folk outfits, sing and dance and take part in pagan traditions such as egg rolling competitions and making prophesies for the future. I guess christianity never really broke our people down as much as you’d think, because the spirit of our pagan gods still lives on in the people hundreds of years after the crusades. A great film about our pagan past is ”The Pagan King”. The ring that is depicted in the film as the “ring that united baltic people” is still worn by many and is the most popular ring here, some people have it as their wedding ring or even pass it down for generations as a symbol of where they came from. So I guess we really are the last pagans to be conformed to christianity because most of us never accepted the christian god and never will.

This is a Lithuanian and Latvian video. In Estonia people did not really have a pantheon of gods, we believed forest spirits and creatures. The one exception being Uku/Ukko the skyfather. Also in the western isles they believed in Taara/Taarapita who is regarded as the interpretation of Thor.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of this content. But, if I could politely assert- Baltic beliefs are similar to one another, but different enough to be significant across the region. Samogitia, Prussia, Lietuva, Latvia, and to a partial extent Estonia, all have distinctive mythologies and pantheons of their own. I'd also like to share that Lithuanian is considered to be the closest currently spoken language to the parent language of all indo-european languages; it's a very fascinating linguistic rabbit hole to go down! Some more facts about Lithuanian beliefs: Dievas isn't only an old man, he does have several forms and and his title changes dependent on said form, as a warrior and a king is Andajus, for example. Mara is not a part of the pantheon; her counterpart, notably in revivalist Romuva as mentioned in the video, is Zemyna. Velinas was also not viewed as evil, until the Chrisitianzation and subsequent appropriation of existing beliefs; it was more like Hades in Greek mythology: his job is to keep an eye on things but he's not actively out to get you by any means. Would very much enjoy a followup video with more looks into the different variations of regional mythology! Thank you for making and sharing about our history!

Editing is evolving so fast, good job with this one! Really enjoyable!

As an Irish person, it'd be really cool if you made a video on old Irish Celtic mythology at some point. It's really diverse and is full of interesting tales.

Good intro to Baltic mythology. But anyone who'll watch it should note, that it is more Lithuania centric. There is differences between Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian groups. Livonian and Estonian also differs. Also there is Dievturi and Druwis and other movements, wich follows old ways. In Latvia it's heavily intertwined with folk traditions and folk movements, so there is no big need to create separate religion. Also to create religions and religious dogmas, and doctrines – it goes against Baltic worldview. Also this is the main reason, why there are such variety in beliefs and why there is no central organisation or dogmas to represent old Baltic beliefs.