Aušrinė- Baltic GodDeity

Handmaiden of the Sun

Each morning before the sun appeared, Aušrinė rose first. Her task was to prepare Saulė's golden chariot and announce the sun goddess's arrival to the waking world. She was the bright point of light in the eastern sky, the one that told fishermen and farmers that day was coming. In Lithuanian folk tradition, rising before dawn to greet Aušrinė was considered virtuous, particularly for young women. To sleep past her appearance was laziness; to wake with her was devotion.

Her name comes from aušra, the Lithuanian word for dawn. Her light was gentler than Saulė's, arriving when the sky was still dark enough to notice a single star.

The Moon's Transgression

Mėnulis the moon god was married to Saulė, but he turned his attention to the morning star. In Greimas's reconstruction of the Lithuanian celestial myth, Perkūnas discovered the transgression and struck Mėnulis with a sword. The blow cleaved the moon's face. His waxing and waning became the mark of that punishment, a face perpetually broken and reformed.

Aušrinė herself escapes punishment. The dainos place the fault with Mėnulis, not with her. Each dawn she continued her service to Saulė as though nothing had changed.

The Sister at Dusk

Aušrinė had a sister she could never meet. Vakarinė, the evening star, performed the mirror of her service: receiving Saulė at day's end and preparing the sun's bed for the night. One sister greeted the sun in the east; the other received her in the west. They framed every day between them, separated by the very cycle they served.

Lithuanian folk songs return to this image often. Two sisters, perpetually apart, each departing as the other arrives.