Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/486

320 Of the Baltic sun-myths perhaps the most famous is contained in the following dainà:$17$

Here we see the myth of the conjunction of sun and moon; their gradual divergence till at last the latter is in conjunction with the morning star; the wrath of Perkunas, who is not merely the god of thunder,$18$ but the great Baltic deity; and the explanation of the moon's changing form as he wanes. The poem is told of early spring,$19$ but the phenomenon which it describes is not peculiarly vernal.

In the Baltic languages the sun is feminine (Lithuanian sáule, Lettish sa'ule), and the moon is masculine (Lithuanian měnu&#x30A;, Lettish menes). The feminine Morning Star and Evening Star of the Lithuanians (Aušrìne, Vakarìnė), however, appear among the Letts as masculine, the "sons of God" (Deewa dehli), who, we shall see, woo the "Daughter of the Sun," whose Lithuanian suitor, as in the dainà just given, is the moon; $20$yet, with the frequent inconsistency of myth, these feminine stars have masculine doublets in Lithuanian itself in the Dė&#x303;vo sunélei, or "Sons of God."

A Lettish variant of this myth$21$ carries the story a little further. The sun and the moon have many children, the stars $22$ and the betrothed of the masculine Lettish Morning Star is none other than the sun's own daughter, the fruit of a temporary union with Pehrkon himself—a clear personification