Proto-Baltic Sky Father
The Proto-Baltic Sky Father is *Deivas (meaning 'god, sky deity'), a reflex of the PIE *Dyēus ph₂tēr, from whom the Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz, the Greek Zeus, the Roman Iupiter and the Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ, the father of the 'heavenly twins', the Dieva dēli is derived. It is possible that the Proto-Baltic form of the god derives from the ultimate PIE version via an intermediary step, which can be proved linguistically: the Proto-Balto-Slavic *Deivas‑pats, from which the Slavic *Divъ (Transcribed in English as *Div) also derives, meaning 'god'.
Lithuanian Sky Father, Dievas
From *Deivas we derive the Lithuanian Dievas, meaning 'shining one, god'. His functions:
. Sky god.
. Cosmic ruler.
. Moral overseer.
. Giver of prosperity and order.
In function, He matches the PIE *Dyēus ph₂tēr more closely than either Zeus or Iupiter, who became storm gods. Like *Tiwaz, He is remote and distant from the petty affairs of man. Unlike the other gods, He is not anthropomorphised and He is not a warrior; He delegates roles to the other gods. His function is cosmic and He rarely intervenes in the affairs of man. I must point out that while He closely resembles *Tiwaz, the latter was pushed aside by both Odin and Thor due to later developments in the Germanic world: this is not the case with Dievas, who was always remote and distant. Thus, unlike *Tiwaz, he naturally preserves the archaic functions of the PIE *Dyēus ph₂tēr.
Latvian Sky Father, Dievs
Dievs has the following functions:
. Sky god.
. Cosmic father.
. Moral overseer.
. Giver of order, prosperity and fate.
. Distant but benevolent.
The Latvian folk songs, known as the Dainas, preserve stories about this deity. From these we can derive further details about the god:
. Rides a white horse.
. Farmer of the sky.
. A giver of blessings.
. A judge of human behaviour.
. Visits the habitations of men to test their hospitality. (This compares well with Odin in the Eddas).
. Father of the heavenly twins, (the Dieva dēli).
In comparison to the Lithuanian Dievas, the Latvian Dievs appears to be a more personal god, who interacts with human beings, while Dievas is more abstract in nature.
The Lithuanian Dainos are the equivalent of the Latvian Dainas, but they appear to be much more archaic in nature and preserve the Indo-European Weltanschauung in a remarkably pure form, while the Dainas preserve more of the folklore.
Old Prussian Sky Father, Deiwas
At this point, it should be noted that the Old Prussian variant of the Sky Father is poorly attested, and the name of the deity has become a generic term for 'god'. Due to the conquest of Lithuania by the Teutonic Order, the native Prussian religion collapsed and the language regrettably became extinct with its unfortunate annex to Germany. Most of the surviving texts are catechisms written by Christian missionaries.The Old Prussian reflex of the deity is still clear from a linguistic point of view, but we lack the same level of mythological information in comparison to the Lithuanian and Latvian reflexes.
These are the likely functions of Deiwas:
. The bright sky.
. Cosmic order.
. Moral authority.
. Father of the Heavenly Twins.
. Paired with an Earth Mother.
The Baltic language group is the oldest group within the Indo-European family, with lexical items close to Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European. The same may be said about the mythology of the three Baltic peoples. Due to their very late Christianisation (14th-15th centuries), strong oral tradition, rural continuity, linguistic conservatism, and limited external influence, their languages and mythologies are very close to the source: the Proto-Indo-European. It therefore behooves laymen and pagans like me, along with scholars, to give greater attention to their study. In doing so we may shed more light on our own Celto-Germanic ancient past. This will be one of my aims for this blog.
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