Saulė

Saulė (Lithuanian: Saulė, Latvian: Saule) is a solar goddess, the common Baltic solar deity in the Lithuanian and Latvian mythologies. The noun Saulė/Saule in the Lithuanian and Latvian languages is also the conventional name for the Sun and originates from the Proto-Baltic name *Sauliā > *Saulē.

Representation

Saulė is one of the most powerful deities, the goddess of life and fertility, warmth and health. She is patroness of the unfortunate, especially orphans. The Lithuanian and Latvian words for "the world" (pasaulis and pasaule) are translated as "[a place] under the Sun".

Saulė is mentioned in one of the earliest written sources on Lithuanian mythology. According to Slavic translation of the Chronicle by John Malalas (1261), a powerful smith Teliavelis made the Sun and threw it into the sky. Missionary Jeronim Jan Silvanus Prazsky (ca. 1369–1440) spent three years attempting to Christianize Lithuania and later recounted a myth about kidnapped Saulė. She was held in a tower by powerful king and rescued by the zodiac using a giant sledgehammer. Jeronim Prazsky swore that he personally witnessed the hammer, venerated by the locals.

Saul

According to the Hebrew Bible, Saul (/sɔːl/; Hebrew: שָׁאוּל, Šāʼûl ; "asked for, prayed for"; Latin: Saul; Arabic: طالوت‎, Ṭālūt or Arabic: شاؤل‎, Shā'ūl) was the first king of a united Kingdom of Israel and Judah. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, would have marked a switch from a tribal society to statehood.

The oldest accounts of Saul's life and reign are found in the Hebrew Bible. He was reluctantly anointed by the prophet Samuel in response to a popular movement to establish a monarchy, and reigned from Gibeah. After initial successes he lost favor with Samuel and God because of his disobedience to God. His son-in-law, David, was chosen by God to be a king. He fell on his sword (committed suicide) to avoid capture at the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa. He was succeeded by his son, Ish-bosheth, whose brief reign was successfully contested by David. A similar yet different account of Saul's life is given in the Qur'an. Neither the length of Saul's reign, nor the extent of his territory are given in the Biblical account; the former is traditionally fixed at twenty or twenty-two years, but there is no reliable evidence for these numbers.

Saul (Alfieri)

Saul is a theatrical tragedy in five acts, written by Vittorio Alfieri in 1782, in which the eponymous protagonist simultaneously embodies the tragic heroism of both tyrant and victim. This play marks the high point of Italian tragedy and pre-romantic poetry.