If Europe's "last pagans" sparked your curiosity, join other curious learners for an 8-week seminar exploring modern Pagan traditions with scholar Thorn Mooney: https://www.religiondepartment.com/contemporarypaganism

As an estonian I can confirm, I do still go ask trees and rocks for help on exams. Maybe I should start leaving bread for them too, or else this relationship will continue to be terribly one-sided 😆

I'll take this opportunity to draw your attention to the useful Sami word poronkusema - the distance a reindeer can travel without stopping to urinate.

As a Finn I can clearly remember my grandprents unconsciously clinging on to some pagan practises when I was very young.
Like in sauna I was told not to bash the ladel. So to not to upset the spirit of the sauna. Or when walking in the nature not leaving trash after me to not to anger the wood folk.

I grew up on a Danish island in the Baltic and I have vivid memories of my grandparents telling me stories about the “under-earthlings” and telling me to treat nature with respect and reverence in order to not upset them. At Christmas my grandmother would leave porridge for them under a tree in her garden or in front of the main door to their house. Even sometimes in the attic. During spring she would sing to her plants and flowers in the garden to help them grow. She had such a lovely and calming voice. I miss her terribly!

I am Latvian, and I remember that my mother always treated noon with respect. At twilight she would keep a certain quiet and would not light the lamps. She called it “blessing the twilight” (svētīt mijkrēsli), and it seemed connected with the natural rhythm of the day. She also observed the solstices and equinoxes, each of which has its own name in Latvian, usually marking them simply with understanding and a small meal.

As a Native American, born on the reservation, I found this subject very close to my heart.  My family never accepted conversion.  It's wonderful to see other cultures do the same.  I have a friend in Latvia who keeps the old ways, too.

My mom always told me to hug the trees if I ever felt down

Reading all these comments about people's memories of their ancestors still practicing through the conversation, and the traditions still survives warms my heart.

As a Finn I can confirm. My great great grandmother was a traditional seer and healer (tietäjä) of sorts, referred to negatively by some as a witch. That branch of my family continued a lot of old pagan Finnic traditions despite her husband being a sacristan.

As an Estonian, I have come to realise just how much of our society is still "heathen" in customs. (the same goes for the Izhorian, and Votic peoples who were also famously called "half-believers" by the russians because they kept their nature belief whilst also being christian):
My friend's parents named him and his sister after traditional customs [noun name (generally connected with nature), in the nominative grammatical case - ex: Säde (spark) no names which don't mean anything are forbidden].
I remember my mother (a lutheran) telling me about if how I whistle inside, the house will burn down, or how I should look for fern flowers (sõnajalaõisi) on summer solstice (jaanipäev) night. Or telling me I will be snatched up after I leave the sauna at night because the spirits like blond children like me. We still sometimes stopped in silence before a large oak tree on the plains/a boulder, my parents said it was to respect the soul of forest
I'm glad our traditions have survived so long

As a Zoroastrian, Abrahamic faiths often call us as "pagan" due to our profound reverence for nature's elements. In pre-Islamic Iran, it was customary to tie green ribbons around ancient cypress and pine trees, viewing them as living sages or pirs.Legend says Zarathustra planted two such trees. While Arab invaders destroyed one out of anger at its ongoing veneration, the other still stands in Abarkuh, Yazd, at nearly 4,000 years old.Living in Tehran, I watched ordinary Muslims continue this custom at Haft Chenar, tying green ribbons around seven ancient plane trees despite religious prohibitions. Iranians never entirely abandoned their roots; deep down, the ancient spirit of pagan Zoroastrian nature-reverence remains.

As a Lithuanian I can confirm that we never fully embraced Christianity. To this day Summer Solstice  and Winter Solstice (the night before Christmas) are considered more important festivas than Christmas itself.

During Summer Solstice you're supposed to go into the woods looking for a fabled fern flower, and jump over a campfire.

During Winter Solstice you have a large meal with the family and you draw lots in the form of hay under the tablecloth to see which one of you will have better luck that year. If it's cold it is also customary to go out to listen to the wooden fences creaking. And it is said that animals speak in human voices in barns that night 😂

As a kid I remember my grandmother telling me that the wind in the trees is a sound of the Spirit of the Forest running atop of them (Mishkinis). Pagan beliefs are very much alive and well in the Baltic region.

We love our trees in estonia.

ReligionForEarlyLunch

Even here in Portugal, the old traditions continued to be practiced and fused into catholicism until recently, such as the goddesses, who were "converted" into catholic saints and "Marias" or the placing of goods of the 1st crops at the base of trees to thank for the fertile land, or placing hand made dolls  in the fields in May to bless the land with renewed vitality.... I could go on and on. . .

Fair to note the Sámi are Uralic peoples, so it’s not three separate groups you listed but two. It’s a linguistic term first and Sámi languages are very firmly part of the core of those

As an Australian of Latvian heritage, I have been told many times by my grandmother that her family was not Lutheran, but rather that they were pagans, and this is well into the 20th century! Baltic history is incredibly interesting I am glad you are speaking about it.

The Decca/Thecla thing reminds me of a story I once read about a guy who was trying to chronicle the Cherokee religion in the late 18th or early 19th century (I forget which, sorry). anyway, interviewing a shaman at a village in North Carolina he heard about a powerful [lawgiver] from ages passed, who had settled down the basic rules of what Cherokee could do and could not do, and spoke with the great spirit directly and blah blah blah. So the ethnographer or whatever we can call him, was very excited by this and told people about it and poured over it for quite a while only to find out that this mythical Cherokee log ever from ages past was in fact a garbled version of Moses that the people had heard about 100 years earlier when a missionary passed through, and it got incorporated into local folklore and religious practices

[edited to fix a typo]

Really enjoy reading these comments. I did not grow up in Europe, but now have moved to the country my family came from. I have grown closer to nature here. I talk to the trees and flowers all the time. It breaks my heart, really, on a daily basis, just how disconnected we are. How much disrespect we have. How we hurt the earth so much. It speaks to us. Guides us. Supports us. Gives us life. We need to give back. We need to give thanks