thumb|right|Žaltys and the Holy Fire are depicted in Olaus Magnus' Carta Marina, above the inscription LITVANIE PARS thumb|Parade belt of an officer of the Lithuanian Army, decorated with Žaltys ornaments. thumb|right|Monument to Žaltys in Vyžuonos A žaltys (, literally: grass snake) is a household spirit in Lithuanian mythology. As a sacred animal of the sun goddess Saulė, the grass snake was considered a guardian of the home and a symbol of fertility. People used to keep it as a pet by the stove or other special area of the house, believing that it would bring good harvest and wealth. Killin
thumb|right|Žaltys and the Holy Fire are depicted in Olaus Magnus' Carta Marina, above the inscription LITVANIE PARS thumb|Parade belt of an officer of the Lithuanian Army, decorated with Žaltys ornaments. thumb|right|Monument to Žaltys in Vyžuonos A žaltys (, literally: grass snake) is a household spirit in Lithuanian mythology. As a sacred animal of the sun goddess Saulė, the grass snake was considered a guardian of the home and a symbol of fertility. People used to keep it as a pet by the stove or other special area of the house, believing that it would bring good harvest and wealth. Killing the žaltys was said to bring great misfortunes upon the household. If a žaltys was found in the field, people gave it milk attempting to befriend the creature and make it a sacred household pet.
==See also== Eglė the Queen of Serpents Proto-Indo-European mythology Indo-European cosmogony Baltic mythology Prussian mythology
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).