World Tree- Baltic LocationLocation · Landmark"Axis Mundi"

The Three Realms

The World Tree was most often imagined as a great oak, ąžuolas in Lithuanian, and it held the world together. Its roots reached into the cold realm of Velnias. Its trunk passed through the middle world where humans lived. Its crown rose into the sky where Dievas and the shining gods dwelt.

In the Latvian dainas, the tree teems with life at every level. Eagles and cuckoos nest in the crown. Bees hum in the hollow trunk. Serpents coil among the roots. Each creature belongs to its tier, and the tree holds them in place. Souls of the dead descended along the trunk to the underworld, following Saulė on her nightly journey beneath the earth. Souls being reborn climbed back toward the light.

Saulė's Path

The sun goddess traveled through the tree's branches on her daily course from east to west. The dainas say that at evening, Saulė hung her belt on the World Tree's branches before descending to rest in the underworld. At dawn she retrieved it and began again. The tree that carried her made all growth possible. Its leaves caught the divine light and directed it downward to the fields.

The Oak of Romovė

Particular oaks stood as earthly points where the cosmic axis touched the ground. The most famous was the great oak of Romovė, the Prussian sacred site described by Peter of Dusburg in his fourteenth-century chronicle. This evergreen oak never shed its leaves. Offerings were hung on its branches, and an eternal flame was kept beneath it, connecting the fire below to the celestial light above. The sacred grove surrounding the oak was the place where the Baltic peoples stood at the center of the world.