Ašvieniai

Also Known As: a learned Lithuanian name built from ašva, an old word for a mare, on the model of the Sanskrit Aśvins; the folk tradition calls them Dievo sūneliai, the little sons of Dievas; Latvian counterpart Dieva dēli, the sons of Dievs
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Lithuanian Mythology, Baltic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: The Ašvieniai are the horse-linked sons of the sky god Dievas, remembered as the team that carries the Sun goddess Saulė across the sky.
Role in Mythos: They belong to the Baltic heavenly family of Dievas, Saulė and the Sun’s daughters, and are the Lithuanian branch of the Indo-European divine twins.
Relation to Humans: Lithuanian households carved paired horse heads, the žirgeliai, onto the ridges of their roofs as protection for the house, and ethnologists read those heads as the twins. No surviving rite of prayer or sacrifice is addressed to them by name.

Two wooden horse heads cross at the peak of a farmhouse roof, their necks carved from the ends of the gable boards, their muzzles turned away from each other toward opposite horizons. Rain has silvered the wood. Wind combs across them all night and they do not flinch. In Lithuanian villages these žirgeliai, the little horses, were put up to keep harm away from the house, and the people who study Lithuanian folk belief have long connected them with a pair of heavenly horses who belong to the Sun.

Those heavenly horses now go by the name Ašvieniai. The name is the first thing to get straight, because it is younger than the belief. Lithuanian folk songs speak of Dievo sūneliai, the little sons of Dievas, the old sky god. Ašvieniai is a learned name, formed from ašva, an old Lithuanian word for a mare, and shaped deliberately to echo the Aśvins, the horse twins of the Sanskrit hymns. Lithuanian writers who use it say as much; the ethnologist Libertas Klimka, describing the twin horses who draw the Sun’s chariot, glosses the word with the Sanskrit Asvin in the same breath. The beings are old. The label is a scholar’s handshake across the whole width of the Indo-European family tree.

Underneath the label sits a real family. Marija Gimbutas, writing on Baltic religion in 1963, described Dievas as a god who could not be separated from his horses, one or two or nine of them, in silver harness with golden saddles and golden stirrups. His homestead and his sons, the Lithuanian Dievo sūneliai and the Latvian Dieva dēli, were in her account bound up closely with Saulė, the Sun, and with her daughters. Saulė herself has only a vague human shape in the songs. What the singers cared about was her daily road over a hill of stone or silver, in a chariot with copper wheels pulled by fiery steeds.

That chariot is where the twins do their work. In the comparative reconstruction set out by the classicist Martin West in 2007, the sons of Dievas are the team that hauls the Sun’s carriage across the sky. Klimka, explaining the old calendar, adds that the twin horses turn the wheel of the year itself, bringing the Sun’s chariot to its turning points at the solstices. The songs make it physical: hooves on the sky’s hard road, the heat of the load behind them, the long slope down to evening. Then the turn, and the same climb tomorrow.

The richest stories about these brothers survive on the Latvian side of the border, and they belong to the Dieva dēli more than to the Lithuanian pair. In the Latvian dainas the sons of God are fine horsemen. When the Sun sinks into the sea at nightfall they row out in a golden boat to bring her back. They come courting the Sun’s daughters, they mow the heavenly meadows, and they pour water on the hot stones of the bath-house. Some songs make them two, some three, and some only one son, so even the twinship is less fixed than the comparison suggests. Encyclopaedia Britannica identifies them as the Heavenly Twins and as the morning and evening stars, which is the same astral double-act their Vedic and Greek cousins perform.

Those cousins explain why anyone reached for a Sanskrit name in the first place. The Vedic Aśvins are called divó nápātā, the grandsons of Dyaus, the sky. The Greek Dioskouroi, Castor and Pollux, are the boys of Zeus. The Lithuanian Dievo sūneliai are the sons of Dievas, whose name comes from the same Indo-European root for the shining sky. Across all three the twins are tied to horses, they rescue a woman of the dawn or the sun from danger, and they shine as a pair of stars at the edges of the night. It is one of the most secure pieces of inherited Indo-European myth. The Baltic songs, collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, preserve it with startling fidelity.

What the Lithuanian record does not give is just as clear. The twins have no individual names in Lithuanian tradition. There is no story of their birth, no quarrel between them, no death and no shared immortality bargained for, as Pollux bargained for Castor. Some English reference pages call them Usins and Martins and assign one the summer pastures and the other the winter stables. Those names belong to Latvian figures of the horse-keeping year, Ūsiņš above all, and they have been grafted onto the Lithuanian pair rather than found with them.

Their power, as far as the tradition shows it, is the power of a team in harness. They move the Sun, so they move the day and the year. They are the help that comes when light is in trouble, rowing out to the drowning Sun or riding to the Sun’s daughter. On a roof they are watchmen, two heads facing two directions so that nothing approaches unseen, and the house beneath them is guarded from misfortune.

Their limits are the limits of their station. They are sons, not rulers. They serve Saulė’s journey and do not set it; they court the Sun’s daughters and do not always win them, since the Latvian songs also promise the Sun’s daughter to Auseklis, the morning star. And in Lithuania their story has worn so thin that a scholar’s borrowed word now carries much of their weight. The carved heads on the gable still face outward, keeping the watch they were set to keep.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the Ašvieniai in Lithuanian mythology?

The Ašvieniai are the divine twins of Lithuanian tradition, the sons of the sky god Dievas. They are linked with horses and are described as the team that pulls the chariot of the Sun goddess Saulė across the sky. Lithuanian folk songs call them Dievo sūneliai, the little sons of Dievas.

Is Ašvieniai an old folk name?

No. Ašvieniai is a learned name built from ašva, an old Lithuanian word for a mare, and shaped to echo the Sanskrit Aśvins, the Vedic horse twins. The folk tradition itself calls the brothers Dievo sūneliai, and Lithuanian writers who use the name Ašvieniai gloss it with the Sanskrit word.

What do the Ašvieniai have to do with roof horses?

Lithuanian farmhouses often carried a pair of carved horse heads, called žirgeliai, at the peak of the gable. These were placed to protect the house, and ethnologists connect the paired heads with the twin horses of the Sun. They are the only visual image the Lithuanian tradition gives the Ašvieniai.

Are the Ašvieniai the same as the Latvian Dieva dēli?

The Ašvieniai and the Latvian Dieva dēli are counterparts, both described as the sons of the Baltic sky god and both tied to the Sun and her daughters. Most of the detailed stories, such as rowing out in a golden boat to rescue the sinking Sun and courting the Sun’s daughters, survive in Latvian songs about the Dieva dēli.

How are the Ašvieniai related to Castor and Pollux?

The Ašvieniai belong to the same inherited Indo-European divine twins myth as the Greek Castor and Pollux and the Vedic Aśvins. In each tradition the twins are sons of the sky god, are associated with horses, rescue a woman of the sun or dawn, and appear as the morning and evening stars.