Jūratė and Kastytis

The goddess (sometimes described as a mermaid or undine) Jūratė lived under the Baltic Sea in a beautiful amber castle.

They spent happy times in the castle, but the thunder god, Perkūnas, found out that the goddess had fallen in love with Kastytis, a mortal man.

Her tear drops are amber pieces washed ashore and one could hear her sad voice in a stormy sea.

Other stories of the Baltic Sea region also show characters and locations associated with an underwater palace, a watery domain and the amber gemstone.

Seething with envy and jealousy, the older brothers cast the youngest into the sea and take the bird for themselves.

[3] In a Polish fairy tale, the water-dwelling maidens with amber-colored hair live with their father, the Amber King, in a palace at the bottom of the sea.

Woodcut illustrations by Vaclovas Rataiskis-Ratas for the ballad won awards in an international exhibition in Paris in 1937.

In 1955 exiled composer Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis finished an opera, premiered in 1972 in Chicago.