Saules meita

The Saules meita, or Daughter of the Sun, most often spoken of in the plural as the Saules meitas, is the radiant maiden at the heart of the Latvian celestial-wedding cycle. Daughter of the Sun-goddess Saule, she is imagined at daybreak on the seashore spreading red cloths, brushing away the dew and weaving her bridal dowry in the first light. Her hand is contended for by the shining youths of the sky family, the Sons of Dievs, the Morning Star Auseklis and the Moon, whose rivalries and betrayals drive the drama of the heavenly marriage. The theft of her from her rightful suitor and its punishment by the thunder-god belong to some of the most poetically developed of all the dainas, in which the movements of sun, moon and morning star are retold as the loves and quarrels of a divine household.

Parentage

• parent: SauleDaughter of the Sun-goddess.Biezais, Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten, 1972. (secondary)

Domains

• celestial wedding
• dawn dew weaving

Powers

• weaves and washes in the light of the rising sun
• is courted in the wedding of the heavens

Epithets

• Saules meitiņa — dear Daughter of the SunBarons & Wissendorff, Latvju dainas. (primary)

Relations

• parent: SauleDaughter of the Sun-goddess.Biezais, Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten, 1972. (secondary)
• lover: AuseklisBetrothed to the Morning Star, from whom the Moon steals her.Biezais, Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten, 1972. (secondary)

Sources

• The Saules meita, Daughter of the Sun, is the divine maiden of the celestial-wedding cycle, courted by the Sons of Dievs, the Morning Star and the Moon.: Biezais, Haralds. Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten. Uppsala, 1972. (secondary); Barons & Wissendorff, Latvju dainas. (primary)