JÅ«ratÄ— and Kastytis
Jūratė and Kastytis is a Lithuanian legend. It was fixed the first time in 1842 by literary Liudvikas Adomas Jucevičius. Since then, it has been widely adapted - in the form of modern poems, ballets, and even rock operas.
The narrative
The story is very different from version to version. The basic principles but are the same. The goddess Jūratė (in some stories mermaid called ), whose name comes from the Lithuanian word for jūra sea, lived deep in the Baltic Sea in a beautiful amber castle. She ruled the sea and all its inhabitants. A young fisherman named Kastytis disturb this peace, as he caught a lot of fish. Jūratė decided to punish him and restore peace, but fell in love with the handsome young man. They lived for a while happy in amber castle, but Perkūnas, the Thunder God of the Lithuanian mythology, learned that the immortal goddess had fallen in love with a mortal. He was furious and destroyed the Amber Castle with a flash, so that only millions of small pieces of amber were left. Jūratė he left on the seabed to either the ruins or a rock chains. According to legend, this is the reason for the amber pieces that are still flushed after a storm the beaches of the Baltic countries.
Other versions tell that Jūratė Kastytis had saved when he almost drowned in a storm that Kastytis was later killed by the angry Perkūnas and that Jūratė mourns the death of her lover until today. According to these versions, it is their tears, which are hardened to amber pieces washed ashore, and that you can hear her crying in storm times today. Some versions indicate that Kastytis came from the small fishing village šventoji north of Palanga.
Cultural Significance
The core of the story is in the texts of various genres variants. The tale Egle, the queen of snakes are known ( Lithuanian: Egle žalčių karalienė ) and Jūratė and Kastytis. Both contain in addition to the romanticized representation also elements of the Lithuanian mythology, in particular an etiological component. To date, both Egle and Jūratė popular female name in Lithuania. The legend of Jūratė and Kastytis wrote on the folklorist, ethnographer and historian of literature Liudvikas Adomas Jucevičius and published them in Polish in Vilnius in his book Wspomnienia Zmudzi (1842 ).