Albanian paganism comprises the pre-Christian customs, beliefs, rituals, myths and legends of the Albanian people. The oldest stratum of Albanian mythology is of ancient Paleo-Balkanic origin. Ancient paganism persisted among Albanians, and especially within the inaccessible and deep interior – where Albanian folklore evolved over the centuries in a relatively isolated tribal culture and society – it has continued to persist, or at most it was partially transformed by the Christian, Muslim and Marxist beliefs that were either to be introduced by choice or imposed by force.; ; ; . The Albanian traditional customary law (Kanun) has held a sacred – although secular – longstanding, unwavering and unchallenged authority with a cross-religious effectiveness over the Albanians, which is attributed to an earlier pagan code common to all the Albanian tribes. Indeed, the Kanun contains several customary concepts that clearly have their origins in pagan beliefs, including in particular the ancestor worship, animism and totemism, which have been preserved since pre-Christian times. Albanian traditions have been orally transmitted – through memory systems that have survived intact into modern times – down the generations. They are still very much alive in the mountainous regions of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and western North Macedonia, as well as among the Arbëreshë in Italy, the Arvanites in Greece and the Arbanasi in Croatia.; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
The old beliefs in sun and moon, light and darkness, sky and earth, fire and hearth, water and springs, death and rebirth, birds and serpents, mountains, stones and caves, sacrifice, and fate are some of the pagan beliefs among Albanians.; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; . The Fire (Zjarri) rituals and the Sun (Dielli) and Moon (Hëna) worship are the earliest attested cults of the Albanians. The Sun holds the primary role in Albanian pagan customs, beliefs, rituals, myths, and legends; Albanian major traditional festivities and calendar rites are based on the Sun, worshiped as the god of light, sky and weather, giver of life, health and energy, and all-seeing eye;; ; ; . the sunrise is honored as it is believed to give energy and health to the body. The Moon is worshiped as a goddess, with her cyclical phases regulating many aspects of Albanian life, defining agricultural and livestock activities, various crafts, and human body.; ; . The morning and evening star Venus is personified with Prende, associated with dawn, beauty, love, fertility, health, and the protection of women.; ; ; ; ; . The cult of the Earth (Dheu) and that of the Sky (Qielli) have a special place.
The Fire – Zjarri, evidently also called with the theonym Enji – is deified in Albanian tradition as releaser of light and heat with the power to ward off darkness and evil, affect cosmic phenomena and give strength to the Sun, and as sustainer of the continuity between life and afterlife and between the generations, ensuring the survival of the lineage (fis or farë). To spit into Fire is taboo. The divine power of Fire is used for the hearth and the rituals, including calendar fires, sacrificial offerings, divination, purification, and protection from big storms and other potentially harmful events.; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; . Fire worship and rituals are associated with the cult of the Sun, the cult of the hearth (vatër) and the ancestor, and the cult of fertility in agriculture and animal husbandry.; ; ; ; . Ritual calendar fires are associated with the cosmic cycle and the rhythms of agricultural and pastoral life.; ; ; .
Besa is a common practice in Albanian culture, consisting of an oath (be) solemnly taken by sun, by moon, by sky, by earth, by fire, by stone and thunderstone, by mountain, by water, and by snake, which are all considered sacred objects.; ; ; ; . Associated with human life, bees are highly revered by Albanians. The eagle is the animal totem of all Albanians, associated with the Sky, freedom and heroism. A widespread folk symbol is the serpent (Gjarpër, Vitore, etc.), a totem of the Albanians associated with earth, water, sun, hearth and ancestor cults, as well as destiny, good fortune and fertility.; ; ; . The sun, the moon, the star, the eagle (bird), the serpent, and the bee, often appear in Albanian legends and folk art.; ; ;
In Albanian mythology, the physical phenomena, elements and objects are attributed to supernatural beings. The mythological and legendary figures are deities, demigods, humans, and monsters, as well as supernatural beings in the shapes of men, animals and plants. The deities are generally not persons, but animistic personifications of nature.; . Albanian beliefs, myths and legends are organized around the dualistic struggle between good and evil, light and darkness,; ; ; the most famous representation of which is the constant battle between drangue and kulshedra,; . a conflict that symbolises the cyclic return in the watery and chthonian world of death, accomplishing the cosmic renewal of rebirth. The weavers of destiny, ora or fatí, control the order of the universe and enforce its laws.; The zana are associated with wilderness and the vital energy of human beings.; ; ; ; A very common motif in Albanian folk narrative is metamorphosis: men morph into deer, wolves, and owls, while women morph into stoats, cuckoos, and turtles. Resulted from the Albanian tribal culture and folklore and permeated by Albanian pagan beliefs and ancient mythology, the Kângë Kreshnikësh ("Songs of Heroes") constitute the most important legendary cycle of the Albanian epic poetry, based on the hero cult.; ; ; ; ; ; ; . Hero's bravery and self-sacrifice, as well as love of life and hope for a bright future play a central role in Albanian tales.
Documentation
Albanian traditions have been handed down orally across generations.; ; ; . They have been preserved through traditional memory systems that have survived intact into modern times in Albania, a phenomenon that is explained by the lack of state formation among Albanians and their ancestors – the Illyrians, being able to preserve their "tribally" organized society. This distinguished them from civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Minoans and Mycenaeans, who underwent state formation and disrupted their traditional memory practices.
Albanian traditional practices, beliefs, myths and legends have been sporadically described in written sources since the 15th century CE, but the systematic collection of Albanian customs and folklore material began only in the 19th century.
Origin
The elements of Albanian mythology are of Paleo-Balkanic origin and almost all of them are pagan. Ancient Illyrian religion is considered to be one of the sources from which Albanian mythology and folklore evolved, reflecting a number of parallels with Ancient Greek and Roman mythologies. Albanian legend also shows similarities with neighbouring Indo-European traditions, such as the oral epics with the South Slavs and the folk tales of the Greeks.
Albanian mythology inherited the Indo-European narrative epic genre about past warriors (Kângë Kreshnikësh), a tradition shared with early Greece, classical India, early medieval England, medieval Germany and South Slavs. Albanian folk beliefs and mythology also retained the typical Indo-European tradition of the deities located on the highest and most inaccessible mountains (Mount Tomor). Albanian paganism retained the Indo-European sky, lightning and weather deities (Zojz, Shurdh, Verbt), Sun and Moon deities (Dielli and Hëna), the dawn goddess (Prende/Afërdita), fire rituals and deities and the hearth cult (Enji/Zjarri, Nëna e Vatrës, Vatër), the Fates and Destiny goddesses (Zana, Ora, Fatí, Mira), aspects of the earth worship (Dhé) and of the Divine twins (Muji and Halili), as well as the "serpent-slaying" and "fire in water" myths (Drangue and Kulshedra), the "Daughter of the Sun and Moon" legend (E Bija e Hënës dhe e Diellit), and the guard of the gates of the Underworld (the three-headed dog who never sleeps).
History The absence of any single and specific theonymic root for the "earth" in the various branches of the Indo-European language family, might be due to the predominance held by earth mother goddess cults already extant and profoundly rooted among Pre-Indo-European-speaking peoples encountered by incoming Indo-European-speaking peoples. The confrontation between the belief systems of Pre-Indo-European populations—who favored 'Mother Earth Cults' comprising earthly beliefs, female deities and priesthood—and of Indo-European populations who favored 'Father Heaven Cults' comprising celestial beliefs, male deities and priesthood, might be reflected in the dichotomy of matriarchy and patriarchy that emerges from the two types of female warriors/active characters in Albanian epic poetry, in particular in the Kângë Kreshnikësh. Nevertheless, the Albanian belief system has preserved also the importance of the cult of the earth, Dheu.
The Albanian sky and lightning god, Zojz, is considered to have been worshiped by Illyrians in ancient times. Albanian Zojz is the clear equivalent and cognate of Messapic Zis and Ancient Greek Zeus, the continuations of the Proto-Indo-European *Di̯ḗu̯s 'sky god'. In the pre-Christian pagan period the term Zot from Proto-Albanian: *dźie̅u ̊ a(t)t- was presumably used in Albanian to refer to the sky father/god/lord, father-god, heavenly father (the Indo-European father daylight-sky-god). After the first access of the ancestors of the Albanians to the Christian religion in antiquity the term Zot has been used for God, the Father and the Son (Christ). The worship and practices associated to the Indo-European sky and lightning deity have been preserved by Albanians until the 20th century, and in some forms still continue today.; ; .
Early evidence of the celestial cult in Illyria is provided by 6th century BCE plaques from Lake Shkodra, which belonged to the Illyrian tribal area of what was referred in historical sources to as the Labeatae in later times. Each of those plaques portray simultaneously sacred representations of the sky and the sun, and symbolism of lightning and fire, as well as the tree of life and birds (eagles). In those plaques there is a mythological representation of the celestial deity: the Sun deity animated with a face and two wings, throwing lightning into a fire altar, which in some plaques is held by two men (sometimes on two boats). This mythological representation is identical to the Albanian folk belief and practice associated to the lightning deity: a traditional practice during thunderstorms was to bring outdoors a lit fireplace (), in order to gain the favor of the deity so the thunders would not be harmful to the human community.; . Albanian folk beliefs regard the lightning as Zjarri i Qiellit ("the Fire of the Sky") and consider it as the "weapon of the deity".
The earliest figurative representations that accurately mirror the Albanian lamentation of the dead—gjâmë—appear on Dardanian funerary stelae of classical antiquity. In the context of religious perceptions, historical sources confirm the relations between the Greco-Roman religious ethics and the Albanian customary laws. These relations can be seen during the rule of the Illyrian emperors, such as Aurelian who introduced the cult of the Sun; Diocletian who stabilized the empire and ensured its continuation through the institution of the Tetrarchy; Constantine the Great who issued the Edict of Toleration for the Christianized population and who summoned the First Council of Nicaea involving many clercs from Illyricum; Justinian who issued the Corpus Juris Civilis and sought to create an Illyrian Church, building Justiniana Prima and Justiniana Secunda, which was intended to become the centre of Byzantine administration.