The eternal fire of the Samogitians was extinguished in 1417. By 1670, missionaries had built a church over the venerable rock of Gelvonai. But not until 1723 did anyone defy the white bear that guarded the sacred oak of Daugavpils. Eastern European paganism may have been in retreat for centuries, but it was a long time dying, if it is dead at all. Francis Young’s new book contains a colour plate of Udmurts from an area between the Volga and the Urals conducting their sacrifice in the old way. The picture was taken ten years ago.

Silence of the Gods gives voice to peoples stretching from the Arctic Circle to Kazan, each obstinately loyal to the religion of their ancestors. The Christianisation of Europe ground to a halt in the marshes east of Vilnius, despite everything rulers attempted in the way of massacres, witch-burnings and the introduction of serfdom. As late as the 1740s, Russian soldiers were herding whole villages of Khantys into the Volga for mass baptism, a ceremony that did little to change their minds. The Teutonic Knights were unleashed in 1211 to conquer the heathen lands; they soon found themselves in a bind, for if there were no more pagans, they would lose their raison d’être and extensive landholdings. So they crusaded on, supported by an underclass of neophytes with neither the comforts of paganism nor the rights of their fellow Christians. When there was a risk of real conversion in Samogitia, the knights opposed it for fear it would bring the region under Lithuanian rule.

By the 13th century, Lithuania was the largest nation in Europe, and it had been forged by pagans. The usual path of state formation, where ambitious kings cemented their power through alliances with the Church, was derailed when King Mindaugas, a Christian convert, was assass­inated by outraged nobles. Subsequent rulers