{"id":73,"date":"2018-09-10T23:10:41","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T07:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sourcememory.net\/maxdashu\/?p=73"},"modified":"2019-08-28T21:34:19","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T05:34:19","slug":"crusades-against-the-pagans-ii-lithuania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sourcememory.net\/maxdashu\/crusades-against-the-pagans-ii-lithuania\/","title":{"rendered":"Crusades Against the Pagans II: Lithuania"},"content":{"rendered":"

For there is a savage race of men, a rustic one under the northern star
Which as yet has no knowledge of true religion:
But it worships as deities bluish snakes
And performs unspeakable rites by slaughtering a ram.<\/p>\n

\u2014Rector at the university of Konigsberg, 1545\u00a0 [Puhvel, 105]<\/p>\n

How Lithuania remained fully pagan up to 1400, and how its people resisted invasions by the Teutonic Knights for over a century. We also look at reverence for Zemyna, Mother Earth, for Gabieta, the hearth goddess, and Saul\u00e9, the sun goddess, as well as house snakes, and the vaidilut\u00e9<\/em>, fire priestesses, who survived into the 1300s. Excerpted from “The Heathen North,” a chapter in Vol XI (unpublished) of Secret History of the Witches<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Zhaltys, sacred serpent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The last die-hard pagans were the brave-hearted Samagitians, who had fought off the Order for a century.\u00a0 In 1407 the Samagitians sent a desperate appeal to the rulers of Europe, describing destruction, mass killings, seizure of children as hostages and of women as concubines.\u00a0 “And the worse they rage and destroy, the crusaders blame the pagans and pride themselves.” The Samagites say that they avoided baptism out of horror at what had become of the conquered Prussians, whose conscripts adopted the barbaric behavior of the Teutonic Knights:<\/p>\n

We beg you, hear ye, hear ye, whoever loveth the truth!\u00a0 We weep more often than talk.\u00a0 Hear of the unspeakable oppression…. They bound and deported to Prussia our elders.\u00a0 They burned some of them alive, with their wives, those who would not surrender their children as hostages.\u00a0 Our sisters and young daughters are abducted by force, by those who wear the Cross on their breasts.\u00a0 With heart-rending sorrow we say, the girls were raped in our sight, we can attest to that…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014Proposicio Samaytarum [<\/em>in Jurgela, 148]<\/p>\n

How much this sounds like other terrible invasions, colonizations and captivities.<\/p>\n\n\n