Archaeologia Baltica

The myth of the Theft of the Thunder-Instrument (ATU 1148b) is found almost exclusively in the Circum-Baltic area. It is found among both Indo-European and Finno-Ugric cultures. This implies that it was adapted from one into the other, unless both assimilated it from a common cultural stratum. This paper surveys this mythological narrative tradition that is found in Baltic, Finnic, Germanic and Sámic cultures. It proposes that the tradition’s persistence in a Circum-Baltic isogloss is a consequence of historical contact and interaction between these cultures, and that its evolution has been dependent on that history of contact and exchange.