MYTHOLOGY MEME: GODDESS FROM A TO Z  | AUSTEJA

Austeja, is the baltic Bee Goddess. Austeja has dominion over bees, hives, honey: and the flowers needed to make honey. She also cares for people, promoting and protecting abundance, fertility, and growth. She offers special protection to brides, pregnant women, and beekeepers, too. Austeja serves as guardian of the family but is also the one true mother of the bees. Lithuanian hives were kept high within trees partially to keep bees close to their mother. 

Austeja a primordial deity, was actively venerated until the sixteenth century. Austeja is simultaneously a bee and a woman. Before gathering honey, it’s traditional to make offerings to Austeja combined with prayer and petition. Honey had tremendous spiritual value in the Baltic homeland: it was once forbidden to buy or sell it as it was a sacred gift.