Žemyna¶

Tautosakos šaltiniai [Istoriniai duomenys]¶

Žemyna („earth“, from žemė) is the Baltic earth goddess. The first written naming is Jan Łasicki’s De diis Samagitarum (c. 1582, printed 1615; „Zemina“), followed by Daukša, Daniel Klein (1666) and Matthäus Prätorius (1690s). Prätorius describes the household rite of žemyneliauti: beer poured on the ground, a cock or hen cooked and eaten, the remains offered to the goddess. Other recorded practices: bread of the last harvest buried before sowing, a black piglet sacrificed, and kissing the earth in prayer. She is the wife of Perkūnas in later folklore (hence no ploughing before the first thunder), though the pairing is a reconstruction.

Earth-oaths (kissing or eating soil) come from later ethnography; medieval treaties name gods, not the earth. Dagotuvės as an equinox feast is a modern Romuva reconstruction.

Žemyna


Tipas	dievybė
Pastaba	Earth goddess; mother and nourisher of all living beings, sworn by earth in oaths.

Sagoje¶

Domain: earth, fertility, oaths sworn on soil. Element: Earth („Žemė tau laikys“), zenith Dagotuvės (autumn-equinox dusk). Force-face: with Medeina’s grief she hardened into the Root-Mother. She patronises Priesaika: an earth-oath is binding physically, and the oath-breaker’s land rejects him.

Book I: the Pebble’s first working is „the old power of Gabija and Žemyna, passed through a mother’s hands“ (ch. 3); Kęstutis says „Žemyna still holds us“ (ch. 4) and, dying, calls his nephews the greatest cowards „this Žemyna ever carried“ (ch. 9). After Vytautas’s army burns a village, Žemyna „took the first part of the debt“ (ch. 20): a red blister under the pouch and a cold pebble. Henė notes that Žemyna has her hour at Dagotuvės and that blood spilled on owed ground is heard then (Book III ch. 8). Samogitian baptism puts one God above „Perkūnas and Žemyna“ (Book IV ch. 3). Weakness: she turns away from the one who burns the land, and she cannot work at sea or in the air.

Aukos ir draudimai¶

Bread and beer given to the ground; the kissed soil of oaths. Taboos: ploughing or sowing before the first thunder (later folk rule), and breaking an earth-oath, for the land will refuse the breaker.

Tarimas¶

zheh-MEE-nah (IPA [ʒʲɛˈmʲiːnɐ]), stress že-MY-na.

Ryšiai

Element: Žemė (Earth)

Force-faces: Šaknų Motina (Root-Mother)

Patron of: Priesaika (oath-binding)

Servants: Kaukas / barzdukai (field-luck) — The unnamed dead, kept in the soil to tend the fields. · Milžinai (giants) — Asleep in the land; their bones are the hills.

Žemyna

Earth goddess · attested (Łasicki c. 1582; Prätorius); earth-oaths and Dagotuvės are later

Domain Earth, fertility, oaths sworn on soil

Layer God (Layer I) · her wild grief with Medeina's hardened into the Force Šaknų Motina

Element Earth, Žemė tau laikys · zenith Dagotuvės, autumn-equinox dusk

Force-face Šaknų Motina, the Root-Mother

Offerings Beer poured on the ground; bread of the last harvest buried before sowing; the kissed soil of oaths; a cock or hen in the household rite (Prätorius)

Taboos Ploughing or sowing before the first thunder (late folk rule); breaking an earth-oath; burning her land

Signs The oath-breaker's land rejects him: crops fail, horses throw him, the forest loses him; a red blister under the pouch and a cold pebble (Book I ch. 20)

Answers

Unmovable Will. Stillness and endurance on another (tau) or oneself (man). Her zenith halves the cost.

Earth-oaths. Binding physically. She patronises Priesaika alongside Perkūnas.

The unnamed dead. She keeps them in the soil to tend the fields (the kaukai).

Refuses

The one who burns the land. She turns away. After Vytautas's army burns a village she takes the first part of the debt (ch. 20).

Sea and air. An Earth working is impossible there.

Costs

Petrification. A major Earth working turns the caster to stone for the length of the effect, and costs permanent grace.

Desecration. An earth-debt, separate from any working.

Source: Cosmology §3.1 · Magic rules §3.3, §4.1 · Power systems §2.6 · Bestiary §3 · Book I ch. 3, 20

Sąsajos¶

graph LR
  el_earth["Žemė (Earth)"]
  kaukas["Kaukas / barzdukai (field-luck)"]
  milzinai["Milžinai (giants)"]
  priesaika["Priesaika (oath-binding)"]
  root_mother["Šaknų Motina (Root-Mother)"]
  zemyna["Žemyna"]
  zemyna -->|Element| el_earth
  zemyna -->|Patron of| priesaika
  root_mother -->|Force-face of| zemyna
  kaukas -->|Servant of| zemyna
  milzinai -->|Servant of| zemyna
  style zemyna stroke-width:3px