(Photo credit: Royal Ballet, Swan Lake, 2018) In Western European folklore, humans could be transformed into swans as a curse, or swans could shape-shift into humans at will, becoming swan maidens.

Perun is undoubtedly the highest god of the Slavic Pantheon. Worshipped across wide expanses of Slavic Europe and even beyond (as Perkunas he also appears in Baltic mythology), Perun is the reigning ...