Pusaitis- Baltic GodDeity"Lord of Earth Spirits"
Also known as: Pūsaitis, Puschkaitis, and Puškaitis
Titles & Epithets
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Description
Somewhere beneath the fields and forests, Pūsaitis commanded his Kaukai, the small earth spirits who guarded every hoard of gold and silver hidden underground. Those who sought buried treasure in the Old Prussian lands had to reckon with this unseen lord, for no wealth left the earth without his consent.
Mythology & Lore
Master of the Kaukai
The Sudovian Book, a sixteenth-century record of Old Prussian beliefs, names Pūsaitis as the lord of the Kaukai: dwarf-like earth spirits who guarded buried treasure. Every hoard of gold and silver hidden underground, every cache buried during wartime and never reclaimed, lay under his authority. The Kaukai were his servants, and they did not share willingly.
Those who wanted what the earth held had to petition Pūsaitis directly. Offerings were brought to burial mounds and ancient earthworks where the Kaukai had been glimpsed. If Pūsaitis was pleased, his spirits might reveal where to dig, or a dream might come showing the location of a hoard. If he was not pleased, the earth kept its secrets. Tunnels collapsed. Hoards that had been spotted vanished overnight. The Kaukai could be generous servants of a generous master, but to dig without permission was to invite their hostility.
The Old Prussians did not think of the ground beneath their feet as inert. It was Pūsaitis's kingdom, tended by small hands in the dark, and every glint of gold in the soil was his to give or withhold.