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Sovij (Lithuanian:Sovijus) is a character in aBaltic myth recorded in the Russian translation ofChronography by the Byzantine chroniclerJohn Malalas (1261). According to the myth, Sovij was the instigator of the ancient Baltic tradition of burning the deceased and the subsequent rituals of sacrifice for the Baltic gods of Andajus,Perkūnas, Žvorūnė, andTeliavelis. His other purpose was also the escort of dead souls to the underworld, akin to the ancient EgyptianAnubis and ancient GreekCharon.[1][2][3][4]
The origin and meaning of the Sovij name are disputed. For example,Eduards Volters, a linguist, ethnographer, and archeologist of theBaltic languages and culture states that it's a borrowed word from Arabic, while philologist Antoni Julian Mierzyński states that it originates from the name of a Lithuanian tribe. But the majority of etymologists think that it originates from theIndo-European rootsāue, meaning sun.
The myth revolves around the three main ways of burial - ground burial, hanging in a tree, and burning. Sovij, after successfully hunting down a boar, gave 9 of its spleens to his children to cook. Instead of cooking them, the children ate the spleens. Infuriated, Sovij traveled to hell. After making it through 8 gates, he required assistance from one of his sons to enter through the 9th. After the remaining brothers were discontent with the son's decision to help his father Sovij, he promised to take him back for burial. After dining with his father, he took him to sleep [to bury] in the ground, while the next day he took him to sleep up a tree. Sovij was discontent with both methods of burial until he was burned in a fire, remarking that he slept like a toddler in a cradle. Sovij also is mentioned to have led souls in hell to worship the aforementioned gods.
The myth of Sovij is the first recorded myth of theBaltic religion. The switching of burial methods suggests previous cultures' varying methods. Scholars think that the Sovij myth was a justification for the method of burning the deceased, though they do not agree on the representation in the myth. Two paths of interpreting the myth became apparent - one of them, seeking to find a universal correlation between the myth and other religions (e.g.Gintaras Beresnevičius), and the other - seeking to find a correlation in Baltic tradition (e.g. Jonas Basanavičius);
