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Loading... The Sun Princess and Her Deliverer: A Lithuanian Folk Taleby Irina Zheleznova (Translator), Irina Zhelenznova (Translator)
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This detailed retelling of a Lithuanian folk epic was fascinating, if somewhat uneven. Perhaps it is a weakness in the translation, The Sun Princess and Her Deliverer being printed by the Moscow-based Progress Publishers, but the sequence of events was not always clear to me. The prince's three sisters are supposedly kidnapped by a dragon, but no mention is made of their abductor when he meets up with them again years later. He seeks the Sun Princess in order to free his brothers-in-law, but his quest is utterly forgotten, until the very end of the story.
But despite these inconsistencies, I enjoyed both the story and the stylized illustrations by A. Makunaite. There are many references here to ancient Lithuanian mythology, from the witch Laume, to the Sun Princess herself, who is clearly meant to represent the goddess Saule. In fascinating contrast to the more patriarchal Greek norms, which assigned masculinity to the sun (Apollo), and femininity to the moon (Artemis), the Lithuanian pantheon included a sun goddess (Saule), and a moon god (Menulis). Well worth the time, for anyone interested in Lithuanian or Baltic folklore, though how the reader might obtain a copy, is another question altogether. (