Introduction

Some years ago, I posed the question of whether ‘Circum-Baltic’ mythology is a valid concept for approaching mythologies in the Baltic Sea region (Frog 2011a; see also Frog 2014b). I proposed that Circum-Baltic mythology was an outcome of millennia of the complex contact history between different linguistic-cultural groups. Basically, the idea is that a distinct macro-regional system of mythology (Witzel 2012: 65-68) evolved through the long-term interaction of different Indo-European and Uralic cultures as well as the other cultures that these encountered as they arrived and spread through this part of the world. Here, the concept of Circum-Baltic mythology will be illustrated and explored through a variety of cases, some of which I have elaborated in more detail elsewhere. The present article extends the theoretical and methodological framework that I have developed across the course of this research.

I approach mythology through mythic discourse, or mythology as it is used, communicated, and manipulated by people in situated practices. I thus treat it in terms of symbols that can be communicated by language, iconography, and/or performance (see further Frog 2015). Circum-Baltic mythology thus refers to the outcome of cross-culturally shared symbols, frameworks for combining those symbols, and resulting frames of reference. For example, the motif THUNDER STRIKES DEVIL (SMALL CAPITALS indicate minimal symbolic units) was a fundamental symbol of all mythologies in the Baltic Sea region (Uther 1997-1999: 763). This does not mean that the specific forms of mythology are identical across cultures. The image of Thunder would vary by region while names for that image would vary by language and dialect.