Mythology: Giltine

It's been a while since I've last made a blog post, mainly due to laziness and partly because of working. Anyway, I've decided to make more of blog and start writing about mythology on here, as well as updates about my current projects and so on.

So, to start my series of mythology postings, I've decided to write about Giltine, the Baltic goddess of death. I recently came across her in my research for She Set the Sky Ablaze and I have to say, I found her story to be quite interesting. My friend Kat gave me quite a bit of information on her.

The story goes that Giltine was once a beautiful woman and for some reason (which isn't stated in the myths), she was deceived and trapped in a coffin for seven years. After she emerged or escaped from the coffin, she was no longer beautiful. Instead, she became a hideous woman, with a long nose and a long, venomous tongue.

The myths about Giltine state that if she would appear at the top of one's bed, it meant your time was up but if she would appear at the bottom of your bed, while you were ill, it meant you would recover. She was also alleged to have spent her days in graveyards, feeding on the dead, which helped keep her tongue venomous.

As stated above in this post, Giltine was trapped in a coffin for seven years. The belief was that you could trap her in a nut shell to prevent, temporarily, a loved one's death, however doing this would invoke her wrath. One of my friends, Vytaute, feels that this is why she was trapped in the coffin.

Giltine's appearance is that of a slim woman, dressed in white, though this is possibly a manifestation after the baptism of Lithuania. Giltine has also been described as the sister of Laima, the goddess of fate and death. One other thing that my friend Kat told me about Giltine, is that around the time of All Soul's Day (2nd November), she would make rice ales or something to that extent for the homeless, so they;d pray for those who have passed on.

While Giltine may come across as being a scary figure in Baltic mythology and folklore, I wouldn't say she's evil as so many death deities are portrayed. She is simply an agent of fate, the one who pulls the plug on us when our time has come.

Image source: Piper Fantasy.

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