Jūratė and Kastytis

In the legend, Perkūnas—the Lithuanian god of thunder—shattered Jūratė's amber palace beneath the Baltic Sea because she fell in love with Kastytis, a mortal fisherman. As an immortal sea goddess, Jūratė was not permitted to love a human, and the broken pieces of her palace are said to wash ashore as the amber found on Baltic beaches.

Yes, the myth serves as a traditional explanation for the amber that washes up on Lithuania's Baltic coast. The small golden fragments are said to be the remains of Jūratė's shattered palace, and the story is one of the most famous cultural associations between Lithuania and its amber trade.

Kastytis was a young mortal fisherman who caught the eye of the sea goddess Jūratė while casting his nets near the shore. Different versions of the legend vary on his fate—some say Perkūnas killed him with a thunderbolt, while others leave his end ambiguous.

The legend originates from Lithuanian mythology and is one of the best-known folk narratives in Lithuanian culture. It draws on pre-Christian Baltic deities—Perkūnas as the thunder god and Jūratė as a sea or water goddess—and is closely tied to Lithuania's long history of Baltic amber harvesting.