After the books by Paul Einhorn for a longer period there is no description of Latvian folklore matching the scope of Einhorn's writings. There are numerous church visitation acts, mentioning the heathen practices of the locals, still they do not tell much, not mentioning the essence of those practices. In fact, Einhorn is an admirable exception in his time, so it is impossible to expect any other author to match his books soon.

The XVII century sees the birth of the Enlightenment. The time, when the delusions of the past were omitted or when the culture of the past was considered a hindrance to the progress depending on the approach one takes.

One of the outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment in Latvia was Gotthard Friedrich Stender called Vecais (the Old) Stenders (1714-1796), as his work was continued by Gotthard Friedrich's son Alexander ("the Young"). An educated German, professor of geography, having written works on both general philosophy and certain natural sciences, built globes for different customers including Danish Royal Library, described sea navigation methods.He had admirably well mastered the command of Latvian, using the language in writing of different works for the Latvians, localising (rewriting, adapting) German literature. He also compiled several dictionaries and grammar books (to be used by the pastors, who were virtually all Germans), also collected some folklore, probably while learning the spoken Latvian language. His "peasants' encyclopedia" entitled "Augstas gudribas gramata no pasaules un dabas" ("A Book of High Wisdom on the World and Nature", first edition published in 1774, the last, re-edited by Alexander Stender in - 1796.) is definitely first popular scientific book in Latvia, and may well be equally unique on European scale. Of course, his aim was enlightenment and ridding of the Latvians of the old superstition. It is still the time when there is no such term as folklore.

Jacob Lange (1711-1777), although is somewhat less known, has also done much. he arrived in Latvia in 1736, six weeks later he wrote his first sermon in Latvian. A year later he engages in editing the Latvian translation of the Bible done before him. In 1753 he completes a work entitled "Vidzemmes Lauzu veccas un jaunas buhschanas Stahsti" ("Stories of recent and old life of Vidzemme People"), also describing the language, dialects, unnecessary borrowings from German. Unfortunately this work remains in manuscript. In 1757 he finishes the manuscript of his dictionary, but it takes twenty more years before the book comes out of the press. Different problems and disasters keep it from happening, including fire in the printing house where it would have been finally printed.

Peteris Smits in his "Latvian Mythology" says as follows: “..as the oldest and the most important source for the Latvian mythology one usually takes the particular appendix to the Stender's grammar", continuing with the following “[..]The most important of Stender's sources was Lange's dictionary, from which he has rewritten many things word for word. he has just continued the work of the latter (meaning Lange), not adding a word on his source and the unreliability of information.” So it is very likely that the information compiled by these two outstanding men was used quite differently from how they had intended it.

In 1761 Stender publishes his "Neue vollständigere Lettische Grammatik" (New and more complete Latvian Grammar). It contains a dictionary, featuring all of the Mother deities mentioned by Paul Einhorn (not only those listed in Historia Lettica) and Laima. Most of the other words we would perceive as deities are explained without a hint to mythology.
1777 is the year when Lange's dictionary is finally published (too late for the author to see it). It doesn't contain any dedicated chapters, but among other entries it contains a great number of mythology related descriptions, both quoted from other authors in connection with the Latvian tradition and borrowed from works on mythology of neighbouring nations.
In 1783 comes out the second edition of Stender's Grammar, with a separate chapter entitled "Lettische Mythologie" at the end of the book, along with other chapters devoted to riddles and other examples of the Latvian language. This is the appendix mentioned above, which has played an important part in studies before Krisjanis Barons made his extensive folksong text edition available to readers. A comparative list of deities mentioned in all three books is available in this table, unfortunately in Latvian only at the moment being.