ABSTRACT
ALBERT Krantz, the reliable German historian who achieved renown about 1500, and after him Matthew of Miechow, the Pole, Lmaintain that during the time of paganism these Lithuanians, as long as they were held by the errors of heathendom, revered three main divinities, fire, woods, and serpents. 1 Fire, because it features in every sacrifice, or because they had been led astray by Persian custom and thought that fire itself was a god, as we read in Herodotus; or through following the belief of the Egyptians, who were persuaded that fire was a living beast, eating up everything that was born and, when it was glutted with what it had consumed, dying along with the very thing it had devoured. 2 3 Woods they thought holy and, again like the Egyptians, held that all animals which lived in them were gods; 3 as the poet states: The gods, too, have dwelt in the woods. 4
Albert Krantz Matthew of Miechow
Divinities of the Lithuanians Fire
Fire a living beast
Forest
Virgil
