Ebook: Tales, Myths and Legends of Ancient Prussia = Senosios Prūsijos sakmės, mitai ir padavimai = Opowieści, mity i legendy starożytnych Prus = Предания, мифы и легенды Древней Пруссии

Text in English, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian.

The Prussians, Curonians, Latvians, Samogitians and Lithuanians, i.e. the Baltic people or Balts, are descended from a common group, whose land of origin, as has been proven by linguists for a long time, can be sought in the forested areas between the upper Dnieper, Oka and Dvina Rivers. In the early Iron Age, particularly around the 7th century BC, these nations managed to spread across the area of the southern Baltic coast, where over the ensuing centuries they coexisted with the Germanic peoples in the west, the Finno-Ugric people in the north-east, and the Slavs (who came to the area later) to the east and south.

In this book we have taken the effort of bringing closer to the reader the issue of what the Prussians believed in and what has survived throughout the centuries in their culture. We are introducing a number of key issues related to the religion of the Prussians and other Baltic nations, because the religion of the Lithuanians, Latvians, Samogitanians, Curonians and Prussians obviously had much in common. What is more, due to the small number of available sources, the mythology of the Prussians should be investigated together with other information on the subject that retained among related nations, or should even be expanded to include the religious background of the Slavs, Germans and western Finns, with whom the Balts remained in constant contact.