Ancient Slavic gods. Pagan gods - the main deities in Slavic mythology

For the first time this series was published in the Kirovograd journal "Threshold", here it is presented in an even more complete form. Then the code was published by us in the book by D. GAVRILOV, A. NAGOVITSYN. "Gods of the Slavs. Paganism. Tradition”, — M.: Refl-Book, 2002. 464 p.

A distinctive feature of this list is that it is tied to the dates of the pagan folk calendar. It should be noted, however, that all dates are given for central Russia and may vary depending on the latitude and longitude of the celebration. Added quotes from a number of previously inaccessible to us Western medieval primary sources on the beliefs of the Slavs.

Let us also mention such a curious hypothesis of the researcher Sergei Pivovarov - Svyatich - from the "Circle of Ber" that the pantheon could not exceed 33 true names of the gods. This is a sacred number for the Vedic Tradition.

Then it remains to be assumed that some of the gods named below are heiti (alegorical remembrance), so the mother goddess could have “pseudonyms” Lada, Priya, Rozhanitsa, Koruna, Karna ... And the daughter goddess could have heiti - Lelya, Rozhena, Zhelya, Wow…

THE FIRST, OLDEST GODS AND GODDESSES

1. KIND AND BIRTH

ROD - the Existing, the One, the progenitor of the gods and the creator of the world, “The Almighty, who is the only immortal and undying creator, I will blow a man on the face of the spirit of life, and be a man in my soul I live: it’s not Rod, sitting on the air, a mosque on the ground piles - and the children are in that…”, is mentioned, for example, in the teachings against paganism “On the inspiration of the holy spirit”, “The Word about Idols”, “The Word of Isaiah the Prophet”, the manuscript of the Chetya Menaia from the Old Russian confessor. Perhaps, like Stribog, i.e. the stern (old) god-father is mentioned in the "Tale of Igor's Campaign" and Russian chronicles, and also as God in the agreement between Igor's Rus and the Romans. Helmold reported: “Among the diverse deities to whom they dedicate fields, forests, sorrows and joys, they (the Slavs) recognize and one god, dominating them in heaven, recognize that he is omnipotent, cares only about heavenly affairs, other gods obey him, perform the duties assigned to them, and that they come from his blood, and each of them is all the more important, the closer he stands to this god of gods. Such a “God of Gods” among the Western Slavs is called Sventovita, most likely, this is one of the main hypostases of the Sort.

“To that things Boyan and the first refrain, meaningful, speech: “Neither cunning, nor much, nor much torture of the Judgment of God.” It would be funny if the grandson of Veles turned to a different court, except for the pagan, whether Veles or the court of the Family. We assume that here, under the name of God, it is precisely Rod that is hidden. The genus is accompanied by women in labor. In “Questions of Kirik we find”, a monument of literature of the XII century: “Already to Rod and Rozhanitsa to eat bread and cheese and honey ...”, somehow connected with fate. Probably, if Rod is called the Court, then women in labor are called Sudinites - and most importantly, with the posthumous life of a pagan, the rebirth of the “male principle” through the “female”.

Sometimes only one Rozhanitsa is mentioned: “From the time of deer to put the treb to Atremis and Artemis, the reksha Rod and the Woman in Childbirth, the Iguptians are the same. So even before the word, until the end of these words, and you began to lay the requirement for the Family and Rozhanitsa, ... and here the Egyptians lay the requirement for Nile and fire, river Nil, the fruit-bearer and the grower of the class. In a bright hypostasis, Rod is compared with Apollo-Atremid (Artemis): "Artemi, call Rod to the south." It is curious that Sreznevsky uses the word “gehena, unquenchable fire” as a synonym for “rod”. According to Sreznevsky, the clan in the PJP is opposed to the Christian God, that is, it is equated with his opponent, Satan, equal to him in “appointment”: “Those who serve God and do his will, and not the Family, nor the Women in Childbirth, a vain idol, but you sing song of demons to Rodow and Women in Childbirth". Many consider Lada and Lelya to be women in labor (see), although they are never called that in PJP. It is clear that women in labor are the maidens of life and fate, who “they cut their hair from the first time and the women cook porridge for a meeting of women in childbirth”, and people back in the 13th century “preparing a meal for razhanits and performing demonic sips” , and not for women in childbirth "" Setting a meal for women in childbirth i other all the services of the devil"

In the sixteenth century, in the “Charter of the Monk Savva” we find such a confessional question: “didn’t she slut ungodly fornications with women, didn’t she pray to pitchforks, or Rod and women in childbirth, and Perun, and Khors, and Mokosh, drank and ate?”

Modern pagans put idols to Rod in the form of wooden phallic symbols painted in red. It may be just a stone pile, which has analogues in India, where the phallic linga symbolizes Rudra. Such idols are always placed in an open place and the higher, the better. For the manufacture of idols, it is best for Rod to use beech, elm, ash, but since these trees are rare, it is proposed to replace them with maple.

Trebs of the Family are still unconsciously brought in the form of "Easter" eggs to the graves of their ancestors. A special honoring of the Family falls on April 21 (Orthodox Rodion the icebreaker). This holiday is called in pagan Radogoshch, and Svarozhich himself is honored as a solar deity.

2. STRIBOG, Stribo, Striba

God the father, stern, old god, grandfather of the winds (probably can be correlated with the Indian god Rudra), is mentioned in the "Tale of Igor's Campaign" ("Behold the winds, Stribozh vnutsi, blow from the sea with arrows on the brave regiments of Igor"), in Russian chronicles, in the retellings of Strykovsky, “The Word of John Chrysostom ... what was the first trash they believed in idols and laid rites to them ...” speaks of him as a deity of the sky, air and wind. Probably one of the names of the Family or the side of the Family, as the father of the gods. It blows life (spirit) into human bodies through the wind. His day is Saturday. It is no coincidence that Saturday is a parental day, the day of Satros - Saturn, the parent of the gods.

In later sources, it was depicted as a single head, acquiring chthonic features of the Viya-Vey type. There is a description of a pagan temple on the Kyiv land of the 16th century of the era of dual faith.

Associated with the lunar cult, the constant commemoration of Stribog next to Dazhdbog, a solar deity, leads just to this idea that the old god gives way to the young one, and the Moon to the red Sun: “eat the idol sacrifice ... believe Stribog, Dazhdbog and Pereplut, like him spinning drink in roses"

Perhaps one of Stribog's messengers is a swift. The pagan celebration of Stribog itself was probably on the first day of the last summer month. According to the new style, this is August 21st. The folk calendar these days is replete with proverbs regarding the winds - the grandchildren of Stribog: "The windmills drove the dust across the wide world, sobbed through the red summer." “The wind-running myrons drive dust around the world, they moan about the red summer.”

3. SVETOVIT and / or Belobog

Svantevit is a real (“good”) god, the god of fertility according to the Czech medieval dictionary “Mater Verborum” - “Ares, bellum”, “Mavors: Mavortem poete dicunt martem”, where he is also likened to the god of war Ares. In the same source: "Belboh: Belbog - beel, baal".

God, opposing Chernobog, is one of the sides of the Sort.

Sventovit, Svyatovit, Svetovik, Svetich - the god of the White Light, the supreme god of the Western Slavic pantheon, the horseman god fighting Darkness. Mentioned in the "Slavic Chronicle" by Helmold, described in detail by Saxo Grammar in the "Acts of the Danes", as the main god, "the god of the gods", "the most convincing in the answers." It is he who is most often meant by the name Belobog among the Slavs, functionally correlated with Apollo, i.e. thus Atremis-Artemis, brother of Artemis-Lady. “Hence the evil god the Devil and Chernobog, that is, the Black God, the good Belbog, that is, the white god, was called. The figure of this idol, carved in stone, can still be seen on Ruyan, on the Witt Peninsula, popularly referred to as Wittold, as it were, “Ancient Wit”. With a big head and thick beard, he looks more like a monster than a fictional god” (“History of the Kamensk diocese”, 17th century). And a century earlier it was reported: “The image of the idol of Ruyana, carved on a stone, can be seen in the village of Altenkirchen, in the vestibule of the temple. More like a monstrous evil demon than any god; the former inhabitants of the island called him Svyatovit, the current Vitold. (David Khitreus. Saxon Chronicle, 16th century). Thus, Svetovit and Belobog are one and the same essence, but under different names of the One Good God.

Comparing the Black and White gods, Peter Albin in the “Misney Chronicle” (1590) testifies to another name for the god of light: “XI. Chernobog was a black god; like the Utrobog, the god of the dawn. Undoubtedly, a similar god was also worshiped, which probably meant the morning dawn.

Sventovit - a predictor and giver of earthly blessings - crops, the sanctuary of Arkona is famous for the fact that the priests predict the future (guessing by the tread of a horse and a horn).

The Arkon idol, according to Saxo the Grammar, "gave tribute to the entire Slavic land." Helmold's Rugs or Ruyans in the Slavic Chronicle, to whom the temple of Sventovit belonged, are reported as a tribe that is most respected by other Slavs, the priest was honored there above the prince, and without the decision of the rugs close to the gods, nothing was done in public affairs according to Adam of Bremen. It can be assumed that he is a lawmaker, like Apollo among the Greeks. Frenzel speaks of him as "De Svantevito, Deo Soraborum Slavorumque supremo"

Sventovit is identified with the four-faced image of the upper tier of the Zbruch idol. The same image of Sventovit stood in the famous Temple in the city of Arkona. The idol was exterminated by Bishop Absalon in 1168.

Saxo Grammaticus writes: “The city of Arkona lies on the top of a high rock; from the north, east and south it is fenced with natural protection ... from the western side it is protected by a high embankment of 50 cubits ... In the middle of the city lies an open square on which rises a wooden temple, of excellent workmanship, but honored not so much by the splendor of architecture, but by the majesty of God, to whom an idol is erected here. The entire outer side of the building shone with skillfully made bas-reliefs of various figures, but ugly and crudely painted. Only one entrance was into the interior of the temple, surrounded by a double fence ... In the temple itself stood a large, exceeding human height, idol, with four heads, on the same number of necks, of which two came out of the chest and two - to the ridge, but in such a way that from both front and both rear heads, one looked to the right, and the other to the left. Hair and beard were cut short, and in this, it seemed, the artist conformed to the habit of ruddy. In his right hand, the idol held a horn made of various metals, which was usually filled every year with wine from the hands of a priest for divination about the fertility of the next year; the left hand was likened to a bow. Outerwear went down to the berets, which were made up of various types of trees and were so skillfully connected to the knees that only a close examination could distinguish the fugues. The legs were level with the ground, the foundation was made under the floor. In a small distance, the bridle and saddle of the idol with other accessories were visible. The viewer was most struck by a huge sword, a scabbard, the black of which, in addition to beautiful carved forms, was distinguished by silver trim ... In addition, this god also had temples in many other places, ruled by priests of lesser importance. In addition, he had a horse with him, completely white, from which it was considered impiety to pull out a hair from a mane or tail ... Svyatovit was symbolized by various signs, in particular, carved eagles and banners, the main of which was called Stanitsa ... The power of this small piece of canvas was stronger than the power of the prince. »

So, the idol of the God of Light is four-faced (it is possible that two heads are female), the symbols of Svetovit are a sword, a horn and, possibly, a bow, as shown in a number of medieval Polish engravings. Trebs to Svetovit and/or Belobog were brought in the form of a tall pie, which was cut into four parts, and possibly, and then spread on all four sides, in accordance with the direction of Svetovit's gaze. The wine was sweet, because insects flocked to its tart smell - witnesses of beliefs claim that the idol of Belobog was covered with flies. Because of this, he was identified with Beelzebub. In fact, we are only talking about the fact that the trebs were brought sweet, probably libations were made directly into the mouth of the idol or they were smeared with sacrificial honey. One of the main holidays of Svetovit-Belobog can be considered the calendar Tausen - the autumn solstice, when the harvest is harvested, and you need to take care of a prosperous new one - next year.

4. VELES and / or Chernobog

Chernobog is a Navi, an "evil" god according to Helmold's "Slavic Chronicle". In the Serbian-Lusatian pantheon, he was named Czernebog by A. Frenzel (1696), and the first in this pantheon was the opponent of the Black God - Sventovit.

Al-Masudi in the tenth century gives a description of the sanctuary of a certain god on the black mountain: “... in it (the building on the black mountain) they (the Slavs) had a large idol in the form of a man or Saturn, presented in the form of an old man with a crooked stick in his hand, with which he moves the bones of the dead from the graves. Under the right foot are images of heterogeneous ants, and under the left - black crows, black wings and others, as well as images of strange Khabash and Zanj (i.e. Abyssinians).

Peter Albin in the “Misney Chronicle” says: “for this, the Slavs revered Chernobog as an evil deity, that they imagined that all evil was in his power, and therefore asked him for mercy, they reconciled him, so that in this or the afterlife not he harmed them." Helmold describes that when the evil god Chernobog was honored at a feast among the Slavs, then when the guests were carried around with a cup, everyone uttered curses, not words of blessing. However, everyone understands to the best of their upbringing: “The amazing superstition of the Slavs, because at their festivities and feasts they surround a circular bowl, proclaiming words over it - I won’t say a blessing, but a curse, in the name of the good and evil gods, since they expect from a good god happy share, and from evil - unhappy; therefore, the evil god is even called in their own language the devil or Chernobog.

According to the myth cited by Sreznevsky, Satan (read Chernobog) will defile the soul of a person created by God, in fact, according to Christian dogmas, this is so. According to another myth cited by Afanasyev, Satan (Chernobog) created man from the sweat of God. There is a similar myth in the Laurentian Chronicle. Chernobog is the co-creator of the World.

In the mythology of the Balts, the black god is called Vielona, ​​Wellns or Vels, which actually means “devil”, “devil” is the constant opponent of the Thunderer and the owner of the world of the dead, the jester and the trickster. One does not have to be seven spans in the forehead in order not to notice the identity of this name and the similarity of this image with the Slavic Veles.

His name varies in the lists of chronicles and teachings against paganism - Veles, Volos, Vlas, Vlasiy, Vlas - "cattle god", "cattle", i.e. wild, fierce, bestial. This is confirmed by the fact that Veles is likened to Pan - the god of the Wild (Mater Verborum - "Veles: Veles - Pan, ymago hircina"). The correlation of Satan with the goat in the Middle Ages does not need proof.

Russian chronicles according to the treaties of Oleg and Svyatoslav with the Greeks: In the summer of 6415 (911): “Caesar Leon and Alexander made peace with Olgm, imishesya by tribute and company went between themselves, kissing themselves cross, and Olga led the company and his husband along Russian law and swearing by their weapons and Perunm, their gods and Volos cattle God and affirming the world. In the summer of 6479 (971). "... Yes, we have an oath from God, but we believe in him from both Perun and Volos, the cattle of God."

Probably Veles and the giver of wealth (through cattle, the main wealth of nomadic tribes is the “god of cattle” (“On the idols of Vladimirov”), and later simply the god of wealth, which is earned by labor throughout life.

There is every reason to believe that it is Veles who monitors the implementation of laws and treaties, he is the father and judge of truth, like Hermes and Odin. Therefore, “The second (idol) Volos, the god of cattle, was with them (pagans) in great honor” (“Gustinsky Chronicle”).

The mention of Veles in the contract, next to Perun, the patron of the prince and the squad, is not accidental. Mercury was also invoked by the Germans in tandem with the warlike Mars. And the sacred couple here is not accidental - a wise, old, not entirely positive in the Christian sense of the word "cattle god" and a strong, young warrior-ruler.

Despite the obvious attributes of blackness, Veles, like Odin, Mercury and Hermes, is the god of science and wisdom. In the "Word of Igor's Campaign" we find "Whether it was sung, prophetic Boyane, Velesov's granddaughter ...". His name is also found in the late recorded ritual text of the Macedonian Bulgarian-Pomaks, the so-called "Veda of the Slavs" in ed. Verkovich (see, for example, IV, 5. 5-13).

God le Vlas le
Alive ma Yuda taught
Yes, this is a Clear Book,
yes, sit down and write.
Taught ma, God, taught.
And you, God, yes ma teach
Yes, right, kusher-ta.
Yes, you will give me three hundred oxen,
Three hundred oxen, three hundred blood

In the apocryphal “Walking of the Virgin through the torments”, Veles is directly called a demon, but he is also called an “evil god”, almost like Helmold’s Chernobog in the “Slavic Chronicle” (it is understood that there were good gods, pay attention to the plural): pagans “these are those who were called gods; the sun and the moon, earth and water, beasts and reptiles, who in their hardness of heart gave names to the gods, as to people, and those who revered Utrius, Troyan, Khors, Veles, turning demons into gods. And people believed in these evil gods.”

Literally, according to another list: “God made a creature of faith, south of us, created a creature to work, then they all the gods called the sun and the month the earth and water, animals and reptiles, then it is more net and a member of the documentary of the Trojan chrsa veles peroun to the Gods, turning the evil demon into faith , hitherto obsessed with darkness by evil, for the sake of this, to urinate tacos.

Next to him, Veles, on the list are Troyan, according to Serbian legends, a giant who is afraid of sunlight and has goat ears, as well as Khors. “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” testifies to a certain night path of Khors, for Vseslav prowled in the form of a wolf precisely at night: “Vseslav prince is judging by people, he is a prince of the city, and he himself is a wolf prowling in the night; from Kiev doriskashe to the chickens of Tmutorokan, the path of the great Khorsov and the wolf is broken by a wolf.

The Czechs, even after adopting Christianity, remembered Veles as one of the most powerful "demons", sacrificing black chickens and pigeons to him. In "Word of St. Gregory" it is said about the worship of the Slavs "to the cattle god and companion and forest god". Those. Veles - the god of cattle, the patron saint of travelers, the god of forests.

The blackness of Veles is evidenced by the absence of his pillar in the pantheon of Prince Vladimir, the pillar of Veles stood separately, not on a hill, but on Podil. Meanwhile, they deal with Veles in Kyiv under Vladimir, sending them to the afterlife along the river, i.e. do not mutilate, but bury the old god. The “Life of Vladimir” says: “And the Hair of the idol ... led the Pochaina river into the river.” By this, allegedly, Vladimir sent Veles, as hitherto Perun, on a voyage to the kingdom of the dead. He put to rest, therefore, the two most famous Slavic gods.

However, in Rostov, much later, the stone idol of Veles was destroyed. In the life of Avraamy of Rostov it is said: "The end of Chud worshiped the stone idol, Veles." We pay attention to the sacred location of the idol - the Chudsky end. With Veles, a demon is directly compared, possessing knowledge of hidden treasures. And Abraham, who destroyed the “idol stone” of Volos in Rostov, “almost became a victim of a demon”, which was transformed into its opposite - “into the image of a warrior who slandered him to “Tsar” Vladimir ..”. The demon "accused Abraham of being engaged in sorcery, that he hid from the prince a copper cauldron with money he had found in the ground." This is truly a diabolical mockery worthy of the trickster Loki and the Navi god - Odin.

In the “Tale of the Construction of the City of Yaroslavl”, an 18th-century source dating back to an ancient record, “which, although updated later, nevertheless adequately reflected the true course of events,” it is directly stated that the Magi were priests of the “cattle god”: “To this same multi-executed idol and kermet (temple) was created the life and the Magi vdan, and this unquenchable fire Volos holding and sacrificial smoke to him.” The priest guessed by the smoke of the fire, and if he guessed badly, and the fire died out, then the priest was executed. “And these people, by an oath at Volos, promised the prince to live in harmony and give him dues, but they just did not want to be baptized: During the drought, the pagans begged tearfully for their Volos to bring rain down to the earth: In the place where Volos once stood, there are pipes, and the harp, and singing, heard many times, and some dancing was visible. When cattle walked in this place, they were subjected to unusual thinness and illness: They said that all this attack was the wrath of Volos, that he turned into an evil spirit in order to crush people, as they crushed him and kermet ".

H.M. Karamzin retells (without reference to the source, but this is essentially one of the variants of the Greater Poland Chronicle) “for the curious” “fables”, in one of which we find: “The Slovene-Russian princes, delighted with such a letter (from Alexander the Great), hung this in his temple on the right side of the idol of Veles ... After a few time, two princes Lyakh (Mamokh, Laloch) and Lachern rebelled from their family, fought the Greek land and went under the most reigning city: there, near the sea, Prince Lachern laid his head (where was created after the Blachernae Monastery ...) "

With a high degree of probability, we can say that Veles is a vodka and shepherd of the dead, like his Baltic counterparts, like St. Nicholas.

“The fiery river runs, across the fiery river the viburnum bridge, along that viburnum bridge there is an old mater man; carries in his hands a golden saucer, a silver feather ... relieves seventy diseases from the servant of God.

The werewolf god, the master of magic and the secret, the ruler of the crossroads, the Navi god, as we showed in our previous book, where a functional analysis of the images of Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Odin, Veles was carried out.

One of his names is Mokos - the husband of Mokosh, the goddess of fate (we know at least four mentions of Mokosh-Mokos in the masculine gender) - thus Veles himself, who appears in fairy tales as an old man with a guiding ball - the god of Luck. Note that in the Indo-European tradition, gods with similar names also had similar functions. For example, Roman Lares, Russian Mavkas, mermaids, Roman Fauns and Fauns, Indian Adityas, etc.

Perhaps he is the Chernobog of the Slavs, although he is also embodied in the Rule. Veles is identified by B.A. Rybakov with a three-faced image on the lower tier of the Zbruch idol, supporting the foundation of the world.

Among the Slovenes of the Priilmensky, Volos-Veles, probably also acted under the name of the Lizard or Volkhov. The veneration fell on December 19 - Nikolu the Water Volkh, Volkhov, Volkhovets - also the son of the Lizard, the werewolf god, the god of hunting and prey similar to Veles, probably the owner of the waters and, possibly, the patron saint of warriors, there are indications of him in the "Word of the Regiment Igor”, epics about Volkh Vseslavich and Sadko, the First Novgorod Chronicles, as Vuk the Fire Serpent is described by the Serbs. Ancestor - Gray prophetic Wolf from Russian fairy tales. Hypostasis of Veles. His day is celebrated in central Russia on October 2, this is the beginning of the hunting season. Volosins are the wives of Veles, the constellation Pleiades according to I.I. Sreznevsky (they are Vlasozhelishchi, Baba) with reference to his work by Afanasy Nikitin “Journey beyond three seas”: “Hairs and a stake entered the dawn, and the elk stands with its head to the east”.

Volosozhary - Milky Way - "Veles scratched and scattered his hair." According to ancient ideas (Egyptians, Germans, Slavs), the Universe appeared from a heavenly cow. The Milky Way is her milk. Veles is the son of the Cow of the Universe. Elk - Constellation Ursa Major - the palaces of Velesov.

1. The "cattle god" is the master of the Wild.
2. Vodchiy on all Roads, Mr. Ways, patron of all travelers
3. The owner of Navi, the ruler of the Unknown, the Black God
4. Posthumous judge and lifetime tester.
5. A powerful wizard and lord of magic, a werewolf.
6. The patron of trade, mediator in contracts and interpreter of laws.
7. Giver of wealth.
8. Patron of those who know and seek, teacher of arts, including skaldic
9. God of luck.

Veles Day - Wednesday, stone - opal or obsidian, metal - lead or mercury, wood - spruce, pine, walnut or ash (yew), it is from them that amulets, staves, idols and other items associated with the cult of Veles should be made. The myth of the northern sorcerer-god is, of course, somewhat different from that of the Southern Tradition. Places for the device of victims to Veles and dedications to him are dense coniferous forests. Often impassable with ugly trees and deadwood, Veles is volohat and loves mosses and lichens, as well as mushrooms, perhaps they set an idol for him or laid trebs at the fork and crossroads of three forest roads. Three evergreen trees (often pines - hence the “get lost in three pines”) and anthills are also signs of Velesov. If on flat terrain - then the same intersections, but with a lone tree or stone on them.

A black raven or an owl, a cat, a snake or already - all these are harbingers of Veles' look at a pagan during the ceremony.

On the temples of Veles could hang not only letters with letters, as in the legend, but also cattle skulls or horns. Probably, the idol Veles himself was crowned with horns - hence his identification with Satan, or a crooked stick. Veles was sacrificed with copper, for he is the god of well-being and prosperity, wool and fur, and they also poured beer and kvass - those drinks that he taught people to prepare according to one of the legends.

Images of Veles' idols may contain images of the same horn (or be horned), as well as a dead human head in the hand of a god. The idols of Veles, according to the reconstruction of D. Gromov, were placed not on the top of the hills, but on a slope or in a lowland, closer to the waters. His days, Velesov, were celebrated especially solemnly on December 22-24, December 31, January 2 and 6 - on the days of St. Nicholas the Winter, on February 24 they asked the "cattle god" to knock the horns off Winter. And they also honored him on the days of honoring St. Nicholas Veshny - May 22 (Yarilin Day, Semik). July 12 - when they put the first sheaf and begin to mow, harvesting hay for livestock. Between August 18 and 20, Veles was curled in a tuft on a harvested field “on a beard” - Nikolin's beard.

We believe that under the heity - the divine pseudonym - the Black God of the Slavs could be hiding exactly the wise ancient Veles, because the ethics of the peoples of the Northern Tradition is not the ethics of Good and Evil, it is based on the concept of justice. Throughout the ages, the pagan tradition of confrontation between the Black and White gods continues and manifests itself at all levels. The first - Old - pacifies nature, the second - Young - revives it, and with it he rises himself, full of strength. In the spring, the young replaces the old, and the New replaces the Former. Then the cycle repeats, and so it will be forever.

Veles is the patron of the zodiac Capricorns, who climb up, stubborn in their striving, and there is no such abyss from which they would not be saved, and there is no such peak that they would not take.

5. TRIGLAVE

From the "Biography of Otto of Bamberg" we learn about the existence among the Slavs in the city of Stettin "a three-headed image of a deity that had three heads on one body and was called Triglav."

Triglav - the highest deity, according to the medieval historian Ebbon - "summus paganorum deus", with a golden bandage on his lips and eyes (see "The Life of Otto, Bishop of Bamberg"):

“III.1. 1126 Szczecin: includes three mountains, of which the middle and highest is dedicated to the supreme god of the pagans Triglav; on it there is a three-headed statue, whose eyes and mouth are covered with a golden bandage. As the priests of idols explain, the main god has three heads, because he oversees the three kingdoms, that is, heaven, earth and the underworld, and covers his face with a bandage, since he hides the sins of people, as if not seeing or talking about them.

And according to the historian Gerbord, he rules over the three worlds - heaven, earth and the underworld, is involved in divination through a huge black horse. Stetin, visited by Gerbord himself according to his testimony c. 1120, like that of Ebbon, located on three hills, in itself was a place of worship for this god with three heads. Triglavu Temple was located on the highest of the three places. Having taken possession of the god pillar, Otto destroyed the body, and took the connected three heads as a trophy and sent it to Rome, as proof of the conversion of the Pomeranians. As we know, Belobog-Sventovita, also the highest deity, the god of gods, is in turn dedicated to a white horse, but the rite of divination is similar.

On the Zbruch idol there is a three-faced deity in the lower tier, and this leads us to believe that the German authors called Chernobog Triglav. This is supported by the worship of the Slavs of Stetin, according to the same Gerbord, to a nut, and this is a Navi tree associated with the lower world of the Lizard. Later Serbian sources say that Troyan is afraid of sunlight and has goat ears, this is also evidence of the character's chthonicity.

However, among the Western Slavs, many deities are many-headed and many-sided, however, only one is named in terms of "heads". Among the names there is neither Semiglav, nor Pyatiglava, nor Chetyrekhglav ... And what, it would seem, is easier - to call Svetovit - Four-faced. The conclusion suggests itself. The Germans decided that Triglav is a deity, but we believe that Triglav is not a separate, even the highest god, but the very principle of unity and opposition of its Three components. "Mater Verborum" characterizes this name in this way: "Trihlav - Triceps, qui habet capita tria capree."

According to medieval Polish sources, Triglav is a three-headed giant, from which the world is created by cutting off his head by God. Thus, Chernobog, Belobog and a certain Hambog, associated with the color red, allegedly appear, but the latter seems to us newspeak, although it does not contradict logic. In a treatise of the 17th century by the author - Abraham Frentzel - one of the chapters is devoted to a certain Trigla, one must think that this is just the way the image of Triglav is changed. De Trigla, Dea Poli, Soli Salique. The line about Trigle should probably be translated not as "Goddess of fields and earth", but "Goddess of heaven, earth and prosperity." Fields - from an erroneous interpretation of Poli from Slavic. Рolus - vault of heaven + solum - earth, soil + salus - well-being, security + -que - and.

Due to a similar misunderstanding, the name of Triglav began to move closer to the name of the ancient emperor Rome Troyan. Troyan is mentioned in one of the lists of the apocrypha "The Virgin's Passage through Torment", in the series "those who revered Utrius, Troyan, Khors, Veles, turning demons into gods"; in the semi-statutory manuscript of the Tolstoy collection among "Perun and Khors, Dy and Troyan", as well as in the "Word and Revelation of the Holy Apostles", where he is compared with the Roman emperor Troyan. In the Tale of Igor's Campaign, Troyanov's path, the Troyanov centuries and the land of Troyanov are mentioned, it is possible that there was such a prince who preceded even Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv - just three brothers. And if the third son in the family is called Tretiak, then the father of three sons is Troyan, Troyak. Perhaps, if such brothers really came to the Dnieper from the Carpathians, they called themselves descendants of the famous conqueror of the Dacians. Or the Trojan centuries - when three brothers ruled, and not some kind of Trojan? “O Boyana, the nightingale of the old days! Anyhow, you tickled the regiments, galloping, glory, along the mental tree, flying with your mind under the clouds, weaving both floors of glory this time, growing into the path of Trojan through the fields to the mountains!

“There were the days of Trojan, the summer of Yaroslavl passed; there were half of Olgova, Olga Svyatoslavlich. “Already more, brethren, not a merry time has risen, the desert has already covered the force. Resentment arose in the forces of Dazhdbozh’s grandson, she entered the land of Troyan as a virgin, splashed her swan wings on the blue sea near the Don: splash, lose fat times. "At the seventh age of Troy, Vseslav is the lot about the girl I love myself." It is obvious to us that the concept of Triglav and Troyan should not be brought together, these are different things.

In general, there is no god Triglav. Triglav we pagans call the idea of ​​the ancient Indo-Europeans about the threefold structure of the world.

6. Svetlusha

According to the Czech medieval dictionary "Mater Verborum", the Western Slavs have the goddess of Light - Svetlusha - "Lucina dea", and, as we assume, this is the female incarnation of the white god Sventovit, or his wife - he himself is "Ares, bellum", "Mavors : Mavortem poete dicunt martem.

There is also a certain Svetlonosha - the goddess of love according to the same "Mater Verborum". The Vendians were also called the spirits dancing in the meadows.

7. MAKOSH(b), Mokosch

The goddess of all Fate (kosh, kosht - fate, the syllable "ma" can be abbreviated as the word "mother"), the eldest of the goddesses of fate, was later considered the patroness of spinning. It can be correlated with the beliefs of the ancient Greeks in the spinners of fate - Moir, as well as with the Germanic spinners of fate - the Norns and Frigg - the wife of Odin, spinning on her Wheel. Due to the fact that the goddesses - the spinners of fate in beliefs appear in threes, she also probably had two sisters or incarnations - a happy fate and an unhappy one, lucky and unlucky.

Makosh - the goddess of fertility, the mother of crops, has 12 annual holidays, sometimes depicted with horns (apparently the cult of Makosh - and the Lunar cult, then there are 13 holidays). A characteristic female horned headdress was worn as early as the 19th century at folk festivals. Mentioned in Russian chronicles and numerous teachings against paganism. “Teaching Spiritual Children” in the 16th century warns like this: “Steer before the God of the invisible: people praying to Rod and women in childbirth, Perun, and Apollo, and Mokosh, and Peregina, and don’t come close to any vile gods.”

The only goddess from the pantheon of Prince. Vladimir. The mother of the gods, perhaps the wife or incarnation of Veles-Mokos-Mokosh, correlated with Hekate (the name is often used in the masculine form).

“Mamai is the king ... he began to call on his gods: Perun, Salmanat, Mokosh, Rakliya, Rus and his great assistant Akhmet.” “They put the demand and create ... Mokosh diva .... they smear the goddess Ekatia, they create this maiden and honor Mokosh.

Thus, Makosh is the goddess of witchcraft and the mistress of the Transition from this world to the Other World.

In the lower incarnation, perhaps, she is the famous Baba Yaga (Hel, Kali), in this case we can say that she is the mother of the winds and the mistress of the forest world. Depicted on Russian embroideries between two moose cows-Rozhanitsa, sometimes depicted with a cornucopia. As a result of chthonicity, it has a disproportionately large head in the images. Perhaps Makosh is an image of the most ancient, even Neolithic origin, the Mother Goddess, who is known as the "Neolithic Venus". The most ancient Goddess was the giver of both life and death, the image of her face was considered taboo, had a large head.

Mokosh's Day is Friday, in Orthodoxy the image merged with Paraskeva Friday, i.e. she is the patroness of housewives and wives. One of the days on which Makosh is especially honored is the Friday closest to April 8 - Makosh's Proclamation. And also on October 27, actually Paraskeva Pyatnitsa.

Its metal is silver, its stone is rock crystal and the so-called "moonstone". Makosh the Beast is a cat. The symbol of this goddess is yarn, a ball of wool, a spindle, and they were brought to temples. Mokosh's idols could be made from "female woods", primarily from aspen. The idol of Mokosh could often be horned or have a horn in his hands:

The monk Alberich from the Three Sources in his "Chronicle" of the XI century (according to A. Frenzel, 1712) wrote: “II. 1003 Emperor Henry: subjugated the Vindeliki, a people bordering the Suebi. These vindeliki revered Fortune; having her idol in the most famous place. They put into his hand a horn full of drink made from water and honey:

A characteristic female horned headdress was worn as early as the 19th century at folk festivals. In any case, she appears to be a tall, portly woman, whose head is crowned with a cap with protruding edges. In her hand (but not the one that Veles has, but in the opposite one) is a cornucopia.

Share, Srecha, Sryashta (Serb.), Meeting, Happiness - a spinner, assistant or younger sister of Makosh, the mother of the lot, Yagishna.

Nedolya, Nesrecha, Nesryashta (Serb.), Misfortune is a spinner, assistant or younger sister of Makosh, the mother of the lot, Yagishna.

So, Makosh herself:

1. Goddess of all Destiny
2. The Great Mother, the goddess of fertility, is associated with the harvest, has 12-13 yearly festivals (and can be celebrated every full moon)
3. The goddess of magic and sorcery, the wife of Veles and the Mistress of the crossroads of the universe between the worlds.
4. Protector and patroness of mistresses.
5. In the lower incarnation, she is the famous Yaga, in this case we can say that she is the mother of the winds, that life and death are equally subject to her.
6. Mistress of Nature.

8. SYTIVRAT or Sytavrat

Mainly, the West Slavic god of fertility, likened in the original source to Saturn, the god of sowing and seeds, according to the Mater Verborum. "Sytivrat - Saturnum pagani illum esse ajunt qui primus ab Olimpo uenit arma Jovis fugiens, - Stracec Sytivratov syn - picus Saturni filius."

Saturn, in turn, is identified with Kronos. In the glosses of Vatserada, the deity of the Vagrians and Slovaks of the type of Saturn is called Sitivrat, Mount Sitna is associated with his name in Slovakia, where “there is an entrance to hell”, and he himself is called a propagandist and a perpetrator. At the same time, the name is associated with the "sower", "sieve" and "light". Serbian "sit" means "light". It is a whirlpool of light. He is the god who turns the sun wheel for the summer and restores the power of fertility to the earth. Its celebration falls on December 17 and coincides with the cronolia or saturnalia.

9. CRUT, Crodo

Also, mainly the West Slavic god, the son of Sytivrat, the god of sacrificial places and fire on them, the father of Svarog, the grandfather of Radegast-Svarozhich, according to "Mater Verborum" - "Radihost vnuk Krtov", was also identified with Saturn. Probably, "stealers" are what this ancient god is watching.

The remnants of the cult of Crodo were caught in the Harz. The idol of Krodov stood on a high, wooded mountain. It was an old man with a bare head, he stood with his bare feet on a fish, was girded with a white woolen bandage, held a wheel in one hand, and a vessel with flowers and fruits in the other (dey grote Duvel tour Harzborg). The presence of the wheel indicates that this god is associated with time, the change of seasons, the same circumstance is indicated by the fruits and flowers in his hands. Perhaps he could also be associated with the change of eras, the "golden age of the Slavs", like the Roman Saturn. Associated with the cult of ancestors and the burning of corpses, it was honored by the Vends on Radunitsa - March 9 and May 1. There is a well-known proverb among the Croats “not all of us will go to the kingdom of the Moles, others to hell”, which may indicate that the kingdom of Crodo corresponded to the “good times” of Saturn or the “islands of the blessed” of Kron, where the shadows of the best of heroes and titans reside.

Korochun, Karachun - a seasonal god from the retinue of Frost (the Novgorod Chronicle says: "the whole autumn rain stood from Mrs. Days to Korochun"). Kerechun or Krochun evening - Christmas Eve or Christmas time. To turn around, to roll a karachun - i.e. cool like a corpse. Perhaps somehow connected with the ancient cult of Krat.

10. SVAROG, Sovarog

The divine blacksmith, a descendant of Sitivrat and Krat, who took over all the chthonic features, leaving Svarog in possession of light, fire and ether, which quite often happens when the pantheon changes, when the once great demiurge gods are replaced by a younger generation of gods, as happened , for example, among the ancient Greeks, when the generations of Uranus (sky) and Kronos were replaced by the Olympians, led by the thunderer Zeus. Svarog is the god-creator and legislator, the father of the Svarozhichs (Perun, Dazhdbog-Radegast, Smagi-Fire and / or Rarog), the demiurge, correlated with Hephaestus, according to the worldview, dating back to the Orphic tradition. Therefore, he is the source of fire and its master. It has much in common with the Finnish Ilmarinen. He creates not with a word, not with magic, unlike Veles, but with his hands, he creates the material world. The difference between Veles and Svarog is akin to the difference between Väinämöinen, the “eternal rune-singer” and the forger Ilmarinen.

With a high degree of probability, we can also say that the pairs Targitai-Koloksai, Svarog-Svarozhich, Kuzma-Demyan go back to one mythologeme. The closest Vedic analogue is the god-creator of the material world Tvashtar. Any forge, any furnace is already the temple of Svarog, therefore, when arranging temples, a modern pagan should remember that. With the wooden idol of Svarog, fire should burn, metal should be heated, and the idol itself should be upholstered with metal. On the temple of Svarog there should be a hammer (or a heavy iron stick-crowbar) and an anvil. It was Svarog who started the Iron Age and taught people how to use iron tools. Sounds pleasant to Svarog - because. he is the first patron of crafts and all craftsmen - blows of hammers, ringing of chains and howling of fire. Trebs of Svarog are brought either with cheese (syrniki) and cottage cheese. The word “cottage cheese” means created, it has the same root as the name Svarog, and is a symbol of heavenly bread. The role of the idol of Svarog can be played by a huge stone, on which the symbols of fire are applied.

Its celebration day falls on November 14 - Svarozhki (the day of Kuzma and Demyan). They honor both father and son - Svarozhich-Fire.

10. LAD and / or LADA - LAD (?)

Lada is the pan-Slavic goddess of love, the female way of life in the family, the goddess of marriage, according to the Czech “Mater Verborum”, (correlating there with Venus) and “Synopsis”, as well as “The Tale of the Construction of a Benedictine Monastery on Bald Mountain” (XVI century records), under the name Gardzyna ("Guardian"). Mentioned in the Polish church prohibitions of pagan rites of the early fifteenth century. Her month is April. She, apparently, is one of the Elk Ancestors. Corresponds with the ancient Greek Lato from the country of the Hyperboreans in the upper hypostasis, and Demeter - in the lower hypostasis. One of the Rozhanitsy. Wife of Lada and / or Svarog (Mars was Aphrodite's lover, Hephaestus was her husband). Its metal is gold, copper or bronze, and its stone is emerald.

Lad, Lado, Lyado, Ladon - the god of war, the god of fun, the god of marriage, the god of hell. According to the opinion accepted in modern science, Lada and Lad are one deity, such a well-known researcher as Faminitsyn was scolded for highlighting the god Lad, but the authors of the book have a different opinion on this matter, since a significant number of references to the god Lad are in the primary sources: Lad ("Synopsis"); Lado or Lyado (“Gustinskaya chronicle”, “On the idols of Vladimirovs”); Ladon - "Polish Chronicle" by Jan Dlugosh; Alado (in Polish ecclesiastical prohibitions of pagan rites of the early fifteenth century). The deity Lado has signs of hermaphroditism, as well as the ancient Greek Apollo - Dedis Dewie (Did-Lado - our great deity), Dlugosh is echoed by other researchers Strykovsky, Belsky, Mekhovsky, Prokosh.

“Gustin Chronicle”: “The fourth (idol) Lado (si is Pluton), the god of hell, this was believed to be the god of marriage, fun, consolation and all prosperity, like Elina Bacchus; to this, sacrifices are brought to the Shah who want to marry, so that with his help a good and loving marriage would be. This Ladon demon, in some countries, and to this day at christenings and brothers is called, singing his own certain songs, and splashing his hands on his hands or on the table, Lado, Lado, weaving his songs, they commemorate many times. By the consonance of names, as is always the case in mythology, Lad and Lada make up a married couple. May be identified with the Roman Venus or the Greek Persephone. In this case, if the goddess Lada is identified with Venus, then Lad is close to Mars. If Lada is close to Demeter or Persephone, then Lada is related to Hades.

12. LIZARD, Yasha, Yassa, Iassa, Issaya, Yesha

Common Slavic hellish god. World Serpent. Mentioned more than once in the Polish church prohibitions of pagan rites in the 1420s. Perhaps it is one of the incarnations of Veles-Chernobog (as the son of Loki was the Midgard Serpent, and Azhi-Dahaka was the son of Anghro-Mainyu). In the Western Slavic medieval sources, it is mentioned together with Lado (see Lad).

The lizard is a hellish god.

However, according to the "Polish Chronicle" by Jan Dlugosh, he - Jessa - is correlated with Jupiter. And Famintsyn compares this deity, having nothing but a name, with Belobog, supposedly this is a “clear” god.

We believe that there is no god Jason - this is the fruit of the imagination of interpreters. In "Mater Verborum" we find, however, such a "namesake": "Jesen, jasni: Iesen, Yasni - Isis lingua egiptiorum terra dicitur".

Probably, there is just the owner of the depths and / or the kingdom of minerals, maybe the sea king - Yesha, the Lizard. It is characteristic that it was Poseidon of the Greeks who was called the "shaker of the earth." According to Dlugosh, "Jesus was prayed for the gift of earthly blessings." Music in the myth of Sadko is a worship service to the Sea King, and the harp had a lizard-like shape.

The Belarusian song has survived to this day:

Sit the Lizard under the fireworks
On a walnut bush
Where is the walnut lusna ...
(I want to get married)
Get yourself a girl
Which one do you want...

We know of other variants of it:

sit sit Yasha
Under the walnut bush
Gnaw-bite Yasha

Chok-chok, piglet!
Get up Yasha, you fool.
Where is your bride
What is she wearing
What is her name
And where will they bring...

Recorded several years ago in the village of Frolovo, Moscow Region, by Konstantin Begtin.

Side-sede Yashsha
At the willow bush
Gnawing Yashsha
Knee nuts, sweetly presented.
Tsok-tsok, lollipop,
Get up (beep) Yashsha, well done.
Come your bride
What is she wearing
What is her name
And from where they will bring ...

Academician Rybakov B. A. in “Paganism of Ancient Russia” writes: “... the Slavic Lizard, who married a drowned girl, corresponds to Hades, the god of the underworld, the wife of Persephone. And the sacrifice was made not to these forces of seasonal action themselves, but to the constantly existing ruler of all underground-underwater forces that promote fertility, i.e. Lizard, Hades, Poseidon.

The toponyms of many lakes and rivers of the North-West remain traces of the habitation of “Russian crocodiles”: the Yaschera River, Lake Yaschino, the settlements of Yaschera, Malaya Yaschera, etc. In the vicinity of Moscow, one can point to the Spas-Crocodile Monastery near Klin (now the village of Spas-Krokodilino) . In the Novgorod region, there may have been a temple in the area of ​​​​the ruins of the Rdeisky monastery. In the same place, the Lizard was considered as a father or Volkhov himself.

The Lizard was especially honored on the Nut Savior and generously poured nuts into the mouths of the Lizard's idols. Perhaps, as a pallet ruler, a girl's doll (or even the girl herself) was thrown into the water.

13. LELYA, Lyalya.

Goddess of fertility. The second Rozhanitsa, daughter of Lado, who, according to the Synopsis (1674), is Lelev's mother. A virgin, but a goddess of childbearing, similar to Artemis (“The Tale of the Construction of a Benedictine Monastery on Bald Mountain” (XVI century records): “Bald Mountain is named after the Lysets castle, which was on it, so named because it was white. In that castle "one lady lived before. Exalted with pride that she defeated Alexander the Great under that mountain, she ordered to venerate herself as the goddess Diana: in the same place there was a temple of three idols whose names were Lada, Boda, Lelya. To them ordinary people converged on the first day May, pray to them and offer sacrifices to them.” By order of Princess Dubravka, the church was destroyed, and the Trinity Monastery was built there.

Since the celebration of Lelya and Lada fell on the first days of May, this gives reason to say that they are still goddesses, because on the night of May 1, on Bald Mountain, witches, according to the views of Christians, spend their Sabbath - Walpurgis Night. We learn a little earlier, in the Czestochowa manuscript of Jan from Mikhochin "(1423) we learn that" on these three days (Trinity holidays): old women, women and girls converge, but not to the temple, not to prayer, but to dances, not God, but the devil, that is, Yesha, Lado, Lelya, Nyya. Such, if they do not repent, let them go with "Yassa, Lado" to eternal damnation. And in a number of other Polish teachings against paganism of the 13th-14th centuries it is said that it is the girls who worship idols, and precisely in these days. Thus, Lelya is a goddess, and only in the fantasies of the authors of the 16th-18th centuries did she become the boy Lelya.

On Russian embroideries, it is possible that Lelya the woman in labor is presented as one of the two Elks, between them is Makosh, often mentioned next to Lada and Lada. Her day is Monday. Most likely the daughter of Lada (Boda) and Lada. Her tree is a mountain ash, but more often a birch ("In the field there was a birch - Lyalya, Lyalya stood"), metal - silver. The cult of Lelya and Lada is considered in detail by B. A. Rybakov. Lyalin Day also fell on the first days of October, when the hunting season began from October 2 to October 7. And also on Pokrova on October 14, if snow falls inadvertently. In the lower hypostasis is correlated with Persephone.

14. DY, DY, DIV

In Vedic and Sanskrit, deva is a derivative of the verbal root div, one of the meanings of which is “to shine” (and in general, there are a lot of them). It is from the same root that the words div and diy come, which have common indirect forms in Vedic (for example, dyaus in the nominative and vocative (with different accents), dive in the dative, etc.), and the stems of which alternate in Sanskrit. So, both div and diy mean "sky", "day", etc. Accordingly, these words also have a lot of derivatives. By the way, the literal meaning of the word deva is "heavenly". It is quite logical to assume that the Slavic divs and dyy are closely related to each other. Dyy is a god, according to the Dyevoy Ministry and the Word and Revelation of the Holy Apostles.

He is the Div bird from The Tale of Igor's Campaign. “Running Div, calls to the top of the tree - orders to listen to the unknown land” “Already blasphemed to praise; I will already crack the need to freedom; Divi is already falling to the ground.

Perhaps the god of heavenly waters is the next primordial sky, and not the one that was forged by the divine blacksmith Svarog. Since Deva in Sanskrit means "God", it can be compared with Rod as one of his names, meaning the abstract "God", the sky and the light of day.

“According to the Letovnik of George Amartol,” Galkovsky tells us, Diy was the son of Kron and the brother of Nin. Diy was named in the imelstye stars. The Persians had a law to take their mother and sister, which is why Diy was married to his sister Ira. In honor of Diya in Egypt, goats and other animals were slaughtered. Amartol says that Serug was the first to introduce the Hellenic doctrine in the Babylonian land to honor the exploits and deeds of the ancient former warriors or princes; later, non-leading people began to revere the famous ancestors for the gods: “like the gods of heaven, honor the gods, and zhrehou them, and not like a man who was dead.” Thus, people began to deify people who made some kind of discovery or invention - such, for example. Posidon - the inventor of shipbuilding, Hephaestus, the forger of copper, etc. But these deified heroes were ordinary people. “And of old, oubo, even from the creator of the gods, dia and krona and apolon, and iroya, more, human gods to be, deceitful things.” Then poems began to be deified under these names. “Dia dzhda decide to be”, i.e. Di is rain. Below it is said that people served the creature more than the Creator, idolized the sky, the earth, animals, birds and reptiles. "Imenovahow Dia sky". So, in Amartol, Diy means the deity of rain and sky, i.e. Zeus. We believe that the compiler of the Russian word was familiar with the Hellenic Chronicler of the first edition. According to the Chronicler, Diy was the son of Kronos (i.e. Chronos), who reigned in Assyria, who devoured his children; but Diy was saved thanks to the cunning of his mother Aria, who gave Krona a stone instead of a child. Diy in the Chronicler is identified with Zeus: “When would it be time for her to give birth to the Peak called Zeus, izhi es Diy”. A few lines below we read: “Kron, leave your son Peak Zeus, those who are, leave them in Asuri,” he took possession of the western countries. In the Chronograph of the second edition, Diy is also identified with Zeus: “there is Diy about Zeus.” Smoke is the same as DY. Diy also had a feminine form: “to eat the ov, and the other divi”. The conversation of Gregory the Theologian about the beating of the city, - Slavic insert. So, Diy or Dyy is the god of rain and sky, i.e. Zeus".

15. DIVA, DIVA

Goddess of the earth, wife of Dyya: “Oh, make demands on the stauden, jda lawsuits from him, forgetting like God from heaven to give. Eat the bearers of God, and make the God who created heaven and earth unfriend. She calls the river a goddess, and the beast living in it, like calling a god, demands to create. Eat sheep, and the other Divi. And read the ingrad. Ov shit vskrosch, laying on the head, the oath to create; ov oaths to create human bones. Ov kobeni bird watch. Ov meeting doubt. Ov muschn cattle, creating to kill. Ov in the week and on holy days to do, profit to yourself, creating your own death, but to do it this week, kill those days. I swear on my best lies"

Since in almost all Indo-European mythological systems there is an earth-sky pair, it is quite logical to assume that Div and Diva are such a pair, since Div corresponds to the sky and the light of the sky. Divya is the goddess Mother-Cheese-Earth, fertilized by the heavenly waters of Dyya. Divya, divitsa and other derivatives from here.

GODS AND GODDESSES OF A NEW GENERATION

16. YARILO, Yarovit and Ruevit

These are different incarnations of the same deity of fertility (“yar”, “spring”), the ardent god of awakening matter (“fury”), strength and youth (“yarka” - a young strong sheep) and spring light (“bright”) (Eastern Slav Yarilo; Zap.Slav. Yarovit, Zap.Slav. Yaromir according to the unrecognized "Kraledvorskaya Manuscript"). The god of war Yarovit, whose temple was in Volegast (Volegoshche), is functionally similar to the violent, zealous Tour of the Eastern Slavs, Mars - the Romans according to eyewitnesses, Arey - the Greeks, Tyr - the Scandinavians.

It is possible that Yarovit and Ruevit - Yariy and Zealous - are two names of a single deity among the Western Slavs. Rugevit or Ruevit - among the Rug-Ruyans, the seven-faced god of war, an idol stood in the city of Karenze (Kornitsa) on Rügen. Saxo writes: “(The city) is famous for the temples of three glorious temples. The main temple was located in the middle of the front part of the temple, which, like the temple, having no walls, was bequeathed with a purple cloth, so that the roof lay on the same columns. When both covers were torn off, the oak idol of Ruevit ugly opened up from all sides.

Ruevita's idol was exterminated by Bishop Absalon in 1168. He had eight swords and seven heads and was gigantic in stature. Four heads were male and two female, the seventh animal was on the chest. Unless the paraphernalia says that these are different gods in the understanding of the Rugs and Stetins. The symbol of Yarovit was a huge shield, most likely personifying the sun, since holidays were held in honor of it before the start of summer (as with Yarila, invoking fertility on the fields).

It is quite characteristic that Yarilo participates in Belarusian holidays either in the form of Yara-Yarilikha, or in the form of a man with a huge phallus. Meanwhile, the root "yar" is present in such specifically "female" words: spring sheep - bright, yoke, spring wheat, spring bread, but the use of this root in the feminine: rage, milkmaid, yar, yarina (sheep's wool), yara (Spring).

We consider Yarila as a dying and resurrecting son or a reality hypostasis of Veles, who acts as Frost in winter, and in spring as Yarila. His day is Tuesday. Its month is March, named after the god of war - Mars, its metal is iron, stones - amber, ruby, garnet, hematite.

It seems interesting to us that this god had its analogues among a number of peoples. And, although a number of researchers hastily write down Yarila in late medieval fiction, this cannot be so since the root “yar” is the oldest common Slavic and even Indo-Aryan root. Recall that, etymologically and functionally, the Slavic Yaril correspond to the Roman Eryl, who has several lives, like Mars, the god of the ardent power of the rebirth of nature, the Hitto-Hurrian god of war Yarri, the Akkadian god of war Erra, the Greek god of war Ares-Arey.

The celebration of Yarila firstly falls on March 21, the beginning of the first month of the pagan year, this is due to the fact that "the cattle god raises Winter on his horns." Perhaps on the same day the gods awakening life were honored - Zhiva, Dazhdbog and Svarog. They honor Yarila and Yuri Zimny ​​- December 9, together with Dazhdbog.

17. DAZHDBOG, Dazhbog, Dab, RADEGAST, Radigosh, Svarozhich

They are different variations of the same name. God of fertility and sunlight, life-giving force. We correlate with Helios, the son of Svarog. The ancestor of the Slavs (the Slavs, according to the text “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, are God's grandchildren) “Then, under Olze, Gorislavlichi sown and spread strife, perish the life of Dazhdbozh’s grandson, in princely sedition, the vezi dwindle a man.”

“Resentment arose in the strength of Dazhdbozh’s grandson, she entered the land of Troyan as a virgin, splashed her swan wings on the blue sea near the Don: splash, lose fat times.”

According to the "Word of John Chrysostom ... what was the first trash they believed in idols and they laid trebs on them ...", the god of the sun and life-giving power.

Probably, Dazhdbog could, following the white Sventovit, correlate with Apollo (Targeliy) as the god of sunlight. In the teachings against paganism, among other gods, they are mentioned next to Artemis: “and having started to the idol and began to eat lightning and thunder, and the sun and the moon, and friends to Pereun, Hours, vilam and Mokosh, we rest and coast, they also call distant sisters, and others we believe in Svarozhitz and in Artemis, whom the unknowing people pray, and they cut chickens ... and we drown the essence in the waters. And friends come to the wells to pray and throw into the water ... offering a sacrifice, and friends fire and stone, and rivers, and springs, and banks, and firewood - not only before in filth, but many and now they are doing it.

Dazhdbog. He, apparently, is Radegast, Radogost - among the Western Slavs, according to the German chronicles; Radigoshch and Radogoshch - among the Vyatichi. The son of Svarog, the grandson of Krat, the god of the sun and the real Light (also correlated with Mitra), his day is Sunday, his metal is gold, his stone is yahont. The celebration may fall on the day of Rodion the Icebreaker. The largest cult center of Svarozhich was located on the lands of the Lutich Retarii, was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt again - in 953 it was ruined by Otto the First, in 1068 by the Saxon Bishop Burchardt the Second and was finally burned by the Germans in 1147-1150. during the crusade against the pagans of the Bavarian Duke Heinrich the Lion. Bronze images of the Lutich gods and ritual objects from the Retrinsk temple were found in the soil of the village of Prilwitz at the end of the 17th century. The figurines are covered with Slavic runic inscriptions. On the lands of the Vyatichi people, settlements were also named in honor of the god Svarozhich. The name Radegast would sound like Radigosh here. Radogoshch - two settlements claim its role - this is either Pogar on the Sudost River (a tributary of the Desna), west of Trubchevsk and north of Novgorod Seversky, or Radogosh proper on the Nerussa River, north of Sevsk and west of Krom. The sacred animal of Dazhdbog - Radegast was considered a lion (like the Persian god of the Sun - Mithra), Svarozhich was depicted either with a lion's head or riding a chariot drawn by lions. Note that the root "rad" meant sunlight among the Slavs, hence the "rainbow" - the solar arc. The same "solar" root and the word "joy, joy" - that is, given by the rays (cf. lat. radio) of the sun.

Hence the names Radegast, Radogosh consist of three words: Rad - sunny, "yes", before" by analogy with Dagbog, Dazhdbog can mean donation, gift, and "gast", "gosh" are semantically close to the word "guest". In other words, these names, perhaps, mean: "a guest who gives the sun and sunlight", or a messenger of the gods, who brought the power of light and the sun as a gift. In this case, the East Slavic Dazhbog and the West Slavic Radegast are different names for the same god - Svarozhich. Frenzel speaks of him as "De Radegastos. Marte Soraborumque altero supremo Deo ”- Radegast in the Serbo-Lusatian pantheon is no less significant than even Sventovit himself.

The symbols of Svarozhich are not only royal lions, but also wild boars (boar is also the embodiment of Indian Vishnu and Scandinavian Freyr). One of the attributes is a sword, later an ax, and also a spear, possibly a scarlet banner: “Does the devil Svarozhich and the leader of the saints converge in this, yours and ours Mauritius? Those. Who in front raises the sacred spear, and those who stain the diabolical banners with human blood?

Radegast's bird is a rooster that heralds the coming of the sun with its cry. On the idol, the Venedian runes wrote the name of God, perhaps there was also solar symbolism. The head of the idol is placed at sunrise or southeast so that he can follow its progress.

Dazhdbog was called the Savior, i.e. Savior, but not in the sense of saving the lost sheep of Israel, but in the military sense - a protector. Therefore, the apple (August 19) and honey Savior (August 14) are the days of honoring Svarozhich. He, along with Yarila, is also honored on Yuri Zimny ​​(December 9).

18. PERUN, Perunova

The god of thunder and lightning, like heavenly fire, is mentioned in the annals in the treaties of the Rus and Slavs with the Romans (Prince Oleg - 907, Prince Igor - 945, Prince Svyatoslav - 971). Svarozhich (Perun - in Russian chronicles, Perunova, Perun, that is, Jupiter - in "Mater Verborum", Peroun - in the "Word and Revelation of the Holy Apostles" from the teachings against paganism of the 14th century). How the Elinsky god (a hint of Zeus) is mentioned in the "Word of Bribery" (list of the 16th century) and in the "Word of Repentance" (list of the 16th century). The supreme god of the pantheon Vladimir is the god of the ruling military elite, the prince and the squad. God punishing for non-compliance with the laws of Reveal and Rule. Comprehensive information about the idol of Perun is contained in the “Gustinskaya Chronicle”: “Firstly, Perkonos, this is Perun, they had an elder god, created in the likeness of a man, in his hands there was a valuable stone like fire, he, like God, offered sacrifice and fire unquenchable from the oak tree incessantly fire; if it would happen due to the negligence of the serving priest when this fire is extinguished, the same priest without any warning and mercy will kill.

And also in the teaching “On the idols of the Vladimirovs”: “In the first place put the most basic idol. In the name of God's perun, thunder i lightning i rain clouds on a hillock high above a storm stream like a little man. his bodies were cunningly carved from the tree; In the hands of holding a stone in the likeness of a perun, a burning one. rubies. And decorated with a carboucle: "Further, the story with unquenchable fire is repeated word for word. According to Frenzel - "Percuno, Deo tonitru & fulguru".

Perun is also mentioned in the “Tale of the (Mamaev) Massacre led. book. Ditriy Ivanovich Donskoy "together with Mokosh among the pagan gods of the impious "Tatars". But, most likely, the compassionate compiler of the narrative wrote down the main pagan gods as assistants to the wicked, which, undoubtedly, he knew even then - Mokos (Veles) and Perun. It must be admitted that among the supporters of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, then an ally of another Khan Takhtamysh, there were baptized Tatars, and, perhaps, not only baptized ones. The ruin of Moscow by Mamai's successor in 1382 forced this fact to be hushed up in Russian history in every possible way and the Battle of Kulikovo field was filed with a clearly religious connotation in the interests of the Orthodox Church.

Perunov day - Thursday. The day of Elijah the Prophet (August 2) and the period from July 20 to August 2-4 are especially celebrated. They also celebrate Perunov's day on June 21 ("Fedor-Stratilat is rich in thunderstorms")

Its metal is tin, its stone is belemnite (devil's finger-perun's arrows), sapphire, lapis lazuli; tree - oak, beech. He was associated with fertility, in Orthodoxy it is correlated with Elijah the Prophet, as the defender of the real world from the Navi, literary in later times is correlated with Zeus, who owns a perun. Correlates with Perkunas of the Balts, Thor of the Scandinavians, Tarinis of the Celts.

So, Perun, the elder son of Svarog:

1. God of thunder and lightning as heavenly fire
2. The patron saint of warriors and the princely squad.
3. God-ruler, god punishing for non-compliance with laws.
4. Defender of Yavi.
5. Giver of male power.

The symbols of the temple are an oak idol, a stone, or two stones on either side of the idol, a sacrificial fire lit in front of the idol, a six-beam wheel on the idol, a symbol of lightning or an arrow, or even a thunder arrow itself with the idol. Probably the pagans did not cut living trees for idols - a live, but an old, powerful oak was already a symbol of worship for them, putting facial features on it with gold and silver paint. Oak struck by lightning was especially revered and amulets, staves, wands, arrows made from it were considered the best guardians from Navi.

19. SIMARGL, SEMARGL

Fire god. First of all, his name is mentioned in Russian chronicles - the pantheon of Prince. Vladimir, it came, presumably, from the old Russian “smag” (“I’ll call Karn after him, and Zhlya jump across the Russian land, Smag mooing in a rose flame”) i.e. fire, tongue of flame, Fire-Svarozhich - half dog, half snake. Probably, the mediator between the real world and the world under heaven, which in the Vedic tradition is the god of fire - Agni. He is a penezhny (fiery) snake from conspiracies. Mentioned in the Paisevsky collection of St. Gregory (14th century) and the Chrysostom collection of 1271 Ognebog-Yognebozhe, according to the Veda of the Slavs by Verkovich, among the Pomak Bulgarians;

Fala ti Yogne God!
Fala ti Yasnu Sun!
You heat up on the earth.
Having baked a chick to the ground ...
... Pokrivash e tsyrna Muggle,
that sa niche and look.

He, quite possibly, is Rarog, Rarozhek is the son of Svarog, according to Czech medieval sources. Already in Orthodox times in PJJ, according to ak. B.A. Rybakov, Pereplut is named - the god of soil, plant roots, plant power, but there are no grounds for identifying Pereplut and Semargl. Such a correlation, of course, has a certain sacred meaning, since plants under the influence of sunlight, as it were, pierced (horn) the soil and went out to the sun, but Semargl is also not connected with the sun.

Identification of this god with the Iranian Senmurv (a giant magical bird) we believe is unjustified, but, probably, there is a connection with the firebird (a fiery herald of happiness) that brings his happiness.

In the Middle Ages, it was incorrectly understood under the name of two gods at once: “For the sake of it, it is not appropriate for Christians to play bezovsky games, even eating dancing, gudba, songs of the Myr and eating idlskaya, even praying fires with a barn and pitchfork and Mokoshiya and Sim and Rgl and Perun and Rod and Rozhanitsy" ("Word about bribery" according to the list of the 16th century).

The interpretation of Rugla as a separate lizard-like deity is not justified. Recognizing him, it will be necessary to prove that Prince Vladimir established the pillars of both Sim and Rugla, while there is no indication of this.

Semargl also spoke under his own name, say in the Word of a certain Christ-lover of the XIV century: “they pray to fire to Svarozhich, i to the garlic - to God, but they create it - when there is a feast for someone, then they put it in buckets i and bowls, and drink about their idols rejoicing is not worse than the essence of heretics.

Semargl-Svarozhich was honored on all those days when the folk calendar is replete with signs of a fire and fire. On April 14 Marena burns down in a ritual flame and together with her Semargl drowns the last snows. September 17 - Burning Bush, possibly Podaga. Semargl-Svarozhich is honored from November 14 to 21 in Svarozhki, the image of Svarozhich-Fire merged with the image of the Archangel Michael with a fiery sword.

20. HORS, HOROS

God of the solar disk. Note that the veneration of the sun separately as a planet and sunlight is found among many peoples. So, among the Etruscans, the god of the solar disk is Strength, and the god of light is the god Kave; among the ancient Greeks, the solar disk is Helios, and the light of the sun is Apollo; among the Russians, the god of sunlight is Dazhdbog, and the god of the solar disk is Khors.

The cult tends to the steppe and forest-steppe zone of the Slavic lands, the name of this god is mentioned in the Russian chronicles of the pantheon of Prince. Vladimir, in the apocryphal "Walking of the Mother of God through the torments", in the PJP "On the idols of Vladimirov", "Memory and praise to Vladimir" and the life of "blessed Volodimer", "The word of a certain Christ-lover", "A word about how the first trash existing tongues bowed to an idol ”, he is commemorated in the “Conversation of the Three Hierarchs”.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” testifies to a certain night path of Khors, for Vseslav prowled in the form of a wolf precisely at night: “Vseslav prince is judging by people, he is a prince of the city, and he himself is a wolf prowling in the night; from Kiev doriskashe to the chickens of Tmutorokan, the path of the great Khorsov and the wolf is broken by a wolf.

“The word and revelation of the holy apostles”: “the gods of many Peroun and Hors Dyya and Troyan and other many will not enter into the delusion of greatness, for as if the people were the elders of Peroun in Elinakh, and Khors in Cyprus, Troyan was the king in Rome.” “... others around the borders pray to him, the damned fool Perenou, Khorsow, Mokshi, vilam ...”

Welcoming Khors, the Slavs danced and built Sanctuaries for him - mansions, mansions. In Orthodoxy, he is associated with George the Victorious and, as a solar deity, he should be a horseman and a serpent fighter, he is probably the god of the world order in something similar to Mithra.

The German Wunderer, who traveled around Russia later than 1581, described the image of Khors near Pskov: “Kors (i.e. Khors), who stands on a snake, having a sword in one hand, and a fiery ray in the other.” It should be noted the undoubtedly significant work of the Russian researcher Alexei Bychkov, who drew on a lot of Western sources that were previously inaccessible to us, describing Khors in a similar way (and a number of other Slavic gods in the late Middle Ages).

The following words are probably associated with the name of Khors in Russian: good, khoruv, chorus, associated with the true order of things (right) and joint work. Khors is the god of the world order associated with the course of the sun. Khors and Dazhdbog correlate as Greek Helios and Apollo. God Navi could be called, in contrast to him, Black Horos, i.e. the same solar disk, but located on the night side of the world. The image goes back to ancient times and the serpent-fighting myth. Perhaps, among the Skolots, this is Koloksai (Sun-king) - the son of Targitai (blacksmith Svarog), and then the god Khors - Svarozhich.

Note that the roots "horo" and "kolo" are semantically associated with the concept of round. A round dance is a circle of people holding hands walking in a circle, mansions are a circular building, a banner is something that unites the military circle. Such round objects as a bell, a kolobok (round side), a stake, a brace are associated with the root “kolo”. The latter concept is directly related to the change in solar cycles. Horse's Day is Sunday, like Dazhdbog's, metal is pure gold. The days of Khors coincide with any solstice, for example, summer - June 21 to 25 (Kupala), autumn - September 21 - 23 (Ovsen Small, Tausen, Autumn Horos). An indispensable attribute of the veneration of Khors is round dances.

21. MARA, MORENA

Marzhana, Martsana, Morena, Morana - the pan-Slavic goddess of fertility and harvest. According to the "Chronicle of Poland" by Jan Długosz and "Mater Verborum", correlated with Hekate ("Ecate, trivia vel nocticula, Proserpina"). She is also Mara - the goddess of death according to the late origin of the "Kraledvorskaya Manuscript" and Marzava according to A. Frenzel ("De Marzava, Dea Morte, Dea Mortis"). Morana among the Czechs in the late Middle Ages is the goddess of not just death, but also winter.

For the expulsion of Mary, a poker and plowing of the settlement were used. The dark side of the goddess is associated with such concepts as pestilence, haze, the sea, as a dangerous environment, a nightmare. The goddess herself is the hypostasis of the most ancient Great Mother — the mistress of life and death, and in this case is the dark side of Mokosh or Yaga in her dark hypostasis. It is no coincidence that Makosh was compared with Hecate. Madder is honored at the Meeting - Wednesday, February 15, they appease her so that she does not linger, and spring is called. Maslenitsa is considered the culmination of the celebrations of Marena days.

22. ALIVE

Slavic goddess of life and fertility. In "Mater Verborum" we meet "Ziva: Alive - dea frumenti Ceres, - Diva Estas". Dlugosh says that Zhive is the god of life. This is the fifteenth century and it is not so far from the truth. In the Serbo-Lusatian pantheon of A. Frenzel, there are more variations of this name: “Siwa Polon. Zyvvie, Dea vita".

Her name is also the beautiful lady (Krasopani), as well as Milka or Milda (Mila). Zhiva's largest sanctuary was in the Polabian town of Ratibor. Foreign authors of the 15th-17th centuries redraw each other's image of her in the form of a buxom naked woman with fruits in her hands. In semantics, the name of the goddess is close to the word "life" and is associated with the idea of ​​prosperity, as in the words: profit, profit. Stryjkowski connects a certain "god of the noisy wind Zhiva" and the Weather, "the god of clear and cheerful days." Two centuries later, Prokosh speaks of the god Zhiva as the supreme one, and the son of a certain god Trzha. Live with Prokosh "the creator of life, long and happy well-being, especially worshiped by those who hear the first cry of the cuckoo: It was believed that this supreme ruler of the Universe turns into a cuckoo in order to announce their life span:". However, this is a later myth-making.

23. PORVATA

Zap.-glor. goddess of spring. Opponent of Mary Morena, goddess of fertility according to the Mater Verborum, also correlated with Proserpina. Probably, it is she who meets with Mara at the Candlemas. Etymologically connected with Porevit, Porenut and Prove. Perhaps etymologically connected with Parvati, the wife of Shiva (our Veles), who has the same functions, the mother of Skanda (our Yarila).

24. PERUNITSA-LETNITSA

Letnitsa (western-glorious) goddess, wife of Perun, according to the Mater Verborum, she is probably Perunitsa, Gromovitsa, Melania, the Lightning Queen. Honored on the same days as Perun.

25. CORUNA

Mother of the gods, according to the PJP "Word of St. Gregory"; perhaps this is one of the epithets of Lada or Diva. It is quite possible that her name is associated with the word crown and crown, as the designation of the supreme and upper (see roof, roof).

26. PROVE

Prono, Provo, Prove (Рrovo) (Zap.-Slav.) - the god of law, the god of oak groves, was revered by the Wagrams, the god of the Aldenburg land according to Helmold: “... we went further along Slavia to visit one powerful man, whose name was Teshemir because he invited us to his place. And it happened that on the way we came to a grove, the only one in this region, which is entirely located on the plain. Here, among very old trees, we saw sacred oaks dedicated to the god of this land - Prova. They were surrounded by a courtyard surrounded by a skillfully made wooden fence, which had two gates. All cities abounded with penates and idols, but this place was the shrine of the whole earth ... The Slavs have such respect for their shrines that the place where the temple is located is not allowed to be defiled with blood even during the war. It is also reported by Shchediy Mikhei (“On the German Gods” (c. 1750), “De Prove, deo sive praeside Justitia ac fori” - A. Frenzel (“History of the Peoples and Customs of Upper Lusatia”, 1696). The “Saxon Chronicle” by Conrad Botho (1495) says this: “1123 In Oldenburg there was a god called Prove, and he stood on a pillar, and had a red iron of trials in his hand, and had a banner and long ears, and a pair of boots, and under the foot is a bell.

27. PORENUCH

Porenut (Porenutius) (West-Slav.). With regard to Porenuch or Porenut and Porevit (Porevith), little can be said for certain, except that both have five faces, five heads. Frenzel defines it like this: "De Porenuito, Deo embryonis"

(C) "Circle of Bera" from "Circle of Pagan Tradition", 2003

Genus- the supreme deity. Creator of the Universe. Source of Everything. Father of Svarog and Lada. Lord of the Earth and all living things, he is the creator god. The most revered and mysterious god. for a long time, the Slavs had a sacred veneration only for them genus others, with genus s and on genus a. The root "genus" means kinship and birth, water ( genus nickname), profit (harvest)... The clan is associated with agricultural production, in which the main process was to obtain a crop. This patron, with his assistants Rozhanitsy, was next to the farmer during the entire growing season of plants - from sowing to harvesting. In Russia, in the autumn, after the threshing of bread, ritual feasts were noisy in honor of the Family. And today the proverb is in use: "What is written in the Family - that cannot be avoided."

SVAROG

Svarog- the supreme god of the Slavs. The Slavs considered Svarog the god of fire and blacksmithing. Heavenly blacksmith and great warrior. Svarog sent fire to the earth in the form of lightning, and also showed where and how to look for ore. Svarog forged the first plow weighing forty pounds. He taught people to plow and sow the land. People blessed him and said: "Not the earth will give birth, but the sky." Only with the help of their solar-fiery patron Svarog could they get a rich harvest and provide themselves with food.

LADA

Lada- Slavic goddess of love and beauty. In the name of Lada, the ancient Slavs called not only the original goddess of love, but also the whole system of life - a way where everything should have been fine, that is, good. All people should be able to get along with each other. The wife called her beloved Lado, and he called her Ladushka. “Ladi,” people say when they decide some important matter, and in ancient times they called a dowry agreement: frets - engagement, ladilo - matchmaker, ladkanya - a wedding song.
And even pancakes, which were baked in the spring in honor of the resurgent life, from the same root.

YARILO

Yarilo- the ancient god of spring, the god of the spring sun, perishing and reborn. Yarilo among the Slavs is the god of fertility, reproduction and physical love, childbirth, brewing, agriculture, rage, war, animals.

VELES

Veles- the patron of livestock and wealth (the embodiment of gold), the trustee of merchants and cattle breeders, hunters and tillers. Dealt with earthly affairs. He was revered as the lord of forests and animals. He is the god of poetry and prosperity, the Moon God and the Great Ruler of Rule.

DAZHDBOG

Dazhdbog- among the pagan Slavs, the god of the sun, sunlight, heat. His name is “Giving God”, “giver of all blessings”. The Slavs believed that Dazhdbog travels across the sky in a wonderful chariot drawn by griffins.

ALIVE

Alive- the goddess of life, spring, fertility, birth, life of grain. Daughter of Lada, wife of Dazhdbog. The giver of the life force of the Family, making everything living and actually alive. She is the goddess of the life-giving forces of nature, spring bubbling waters, the first green shoots, the patroness of young girls and young wives. She embodies the life force and opposes the mythological incarnations of death. Alive resurrects nature dying for the winter, gives fertility to the earth, grows fields and pastures.

kolyada

Kolyada- the god of prosperity and harvest, which the Slavs honored in winter at the festival of his name. Also the god of feasts, food, fun, sacrifices. Horse face.

KUPALA

Kupala one of the most famous gods. He was revered third after Perun and second after Veles. Deity of summer, wild flowers and fruits. Also considered the god of lust, love and mating couples. In Slavic mythology, it is the main character who is at the center of ritual actions and performances of the summer solstice holiday, which was celebrated from June 23 to 24 according to the old style. The Kupala holiday was associated with the veneration of fire. It was believed that the connection of fire and water personified the dependence of fertility on the bright sun and good watering.

LELYA

Lelya- Goddess of girlish love. The patroness of lovers, beauty, happiness, the goddess of spring and the first greenery. Daughter of Lada, wife of Semargl.

MADDER

Madder(Mara) - the goddess of Winter, the world of the dead and the fertility of the earth. Also the goddess of Death, disease, cold, night, sorcery and anger. Daughter of Svarog, wife of Koshchei.

MOKOSH

Mokosh(Makosh) - the goddess of fate, happiness and misfortune, the female lot, fortune-telling, needlework, the patroness of springs and holy wells. Spinning the thread of fate. Connected with the underworld. Veles' Wife is also connected with the Earth and water.

LADA

Lada- Theotokos, mother of the gods. The female incarnation of the Family. The wife of Svarog, the goddess of the Earth. The patroness of childbirth, women, children, marriages, love, women's affairs, couples, fertility.

PERUN

Perun- the god of warriors and knights, strength, power, law, martial art. Perun is also considered the god of thunder and thunder. Perun is a zealous master who takes care of his "subjects" - farmers and cattle breeders. Closely associated with the cult of fire, water, wood, stone. The ancestor of heavenly fire, which, descending to earth, gives life. Son of Svarog, rival brother of Veles.

Every nation knows its first god - a living and infinite in space and time universe, created by the power of thought. All peoples had one cosmos, but, at the same time, there were infinitely many of it. So God was one and many at the same time. And everything that existed in the world was only a small part of this god. Among the ancient Slavs, Rod was the main god. He was the creator of the world, the cause of all causes, the primary spirit that created everything that exists.

The ancient Slavs believed that Rod was originally located inside a certain space-time unit that existed outside of being. However, before the Rod, there was no existence, just like non-existence. Light, darkness and everything that exists was created by Rod. As the Slavs said - gave birth. From this word came the name of this supreme god. Although Rod had many names, for example, the Supreme (or Supreme) god, Sventovid, Belbog. Precisely

Rod created the world as we know it today: sky, earth, rivers and mountains. He peopled it all with fish, insects and animals. He also divided the whole world into three parts: the Upper (or Rule), in which his children and all other gods lived; Middle (or Yav), which was inhabited by animals, and then people; Lower (or Nav), which was considered the world of the dead, a stronghold of darkness. The World Tree, which Rod planted, enveloped the upper world with its crown, pierced the earthly world with its trunk, and went into the underworld with its roots. The goddess of love, Lada, who appeared from the breath of the Family, in the form of a bird flew around the Middle World and conveyed the will of the supreme god to all life on earth. In the process of the creation of the world by Rod, the goddesses Dolya and Nedolya appeared. Later, she, along with Makosh, patronized human destinies, and also wove the threads of divine destinies. And everything in that world was good and calm. But disorderly, since there was no one to follow his laws. Therefore, the god Rod created the great blacksmith god Svarog, who forged steel chains. These chains connected all the elements of the universe with each other. Thus, order appeared in the world. Svarog (the only son of the Family) helped the Almighty God to complete the work that had begun. And now the god Rod, having fulfilled his mission, could rest in peace outside the universe. In Slavic mythology, in addition to Lada, other female deities are also associated with Rod - women in labor (Lelya and Zhiva).

Our ancestors have revered Rod for a long time. They considered him the ancestor of everything. He alone was the embodiment of a diverse and diverse world. Therefore, today the most important words in the Russian language are considered to have come from the name of this supreme god (parents, Motherland, nature, native, etc.). In the name of the Family, the ancient Slavs also called the smallest structural units of society - childbirth. Interestingly, the word "freak" among the Slavs of ancient times had a meaning very different from the one we give it now. The first-born, the person at the head of the family, the first child in the family, was considered a freak. And the ancient Slavs denoted a terrible and stupid person with the word "geek".

Since the god Rod did not have a specific appearance, idols were never set for him. He was everything. In fact, Rod is considered the most ancient archetype of the immortal and uniform Creator in time and space, who created absolutely everything from the earth to the stars. Since it is impossible to designate the whole surrounding world with any one symbol, the symbol of the god Rod does not exist. However, according to some sources, the image of the World Tree (oak) or a stylized swastika (the emblem of the universe among the Slavs) can be considered a symbol of the Supreme God of the Slavs.

Painting by Boris Olshansky.

A long time ago, in Soviet times, I somehow thought about this. I know Greek myths well, Hindu, Arabic, Chinese and Scandinavian myths are a little worse, I have an idea of ​​some others. I asked myself the question: do I know Russian mythology? At first I even doubted: is it there? I thought that there should be one, but I did not know her at all. Almost nothing.

Then I could name several dozen heroes of Greek myths, I tried to remember the names of Russian gods. I strained my memory and realized that I remember only two or three. I even felt ashamed myself.

They say that every cultured person for general development should know Greek myths. I will not argue, probably this is so, but each person first of all needs to know HIS, native, primordial. And you need to know your mythology at least twice as well as any other.

But in those days it was almost impossible to learn anything about Russian mythology. I had to wait for better times.

About seven years ago, finally, I discovered the wondrous world of Russian myths, and was simply stunned by the enchanting picture that opened up to me - as if in front of me from unknown waters, the indescribable beauty of the City of Kitezh surfaced. There was a truly Russian spirit here, there was a smell of Russia.

Almost immediately I found paintings by great artists who painted on these topics: Boris Olshansky, Viktor Korolkov, Vsevolod Ivanov, Andrei Klimenko, Vladimir Suvorov, Nonna Kukel, Viktor Krizhanivsky. The brilliant Konstantin Vasiliev became clearer to me, he also has images of mythical Russia ...

Below is very briefly about the main gods and goddesses of Russian mythology:

"Kind of heaven" - artist Nonna Kukel.

GENUS. Born from the Golden Egg, created by the thought of the Almighty. He, in turn, created the entire visible world. He divided the world into three parts: upper, middle and lower. The top one is in the sky. There are gods who rule over people. They do the right thing, and therefore the inhabited heavens are called Rule. Below is the human world, which we clearly see - that's why its name is Yav. The lower one is the world of the past, Nav. The ancestors went there.

"Svarog" - artist Viktor Korolkov.

SVAROG. Creator of earth and heaven. Svarog is the source of fire and its master. He creates not with a word, not with magic, unlike Veles, but with his hands, he creates the material world.

TRIGLAV. This is a tripartite god. In this most important symbol, the very essence of our ancient faith was expressed: God is one, but he has many manifestations. Most often, it combined three main essence-hypostases - Svarog, Perun and Svyatovit (Sventovit). It was believed that Triglav vigilantly monitors all the kingdoms: Rule, Yavu and Navu.

Great Horse" - artist Viktor Korolkov.

HORSE. Ancient Slavic god of the Sun, son of Rod, brother of Veles. Khors is the god of solar, yellow, light. In Russia, at least three sun gods simultaneously existed: Dazhdbog, Khors and Yarilo. Their difference was as follows: Dazhdbog personified the heavenly light shedding on the earth, into the world of Reveal. Khors is the god of solar, yellow, light. Yarilo was the gods of spring light, sometimes personified the sun.

"Veles" - artist Andrey Klimenko.

VELES (Volos). One of the greatest gods of the ancient world, son of Rod, brother of Svarog. He set the world created by Rod and Svarog in motion. He was called the god of material wealth, wealth, prosperity, the patron of domestic animals, fertility, was considered an underground god, the Serpent, the ruler of the Lower World. Veles is the master of wildlife, the master of Navi, a powerful wizard and werewolf, interpreter of laws, teacher of arts, patron of travelers and merchants, god of luck.

"Dazhdbog" - artist Nonna Kukel.

DAZHDBOG. The giver of heat and light, the god of fertility and life-giving force, the time of the ripening of the crop.

"Perun" - artist Nonna Kukel.

PERUN. Perun - the god of thunderclouds, thunder and lightning; the ruling god, the god who punishes the disobedience of laws, can cause rain. The most famous of the Svarozhich brothers. The god of thunder Perun was represented as a middle-aged strong man with a gray-haired silvered head, with a golden mustache and beard. He rode across the sky on a horse or on a flaming chariot, armed with lightning bolts, axes or arrows. He commanded the clouds and heavenly waters.

YARILO. God of spring, spring light, warmth, fun; young, impetuous and uncontrollable force; deity of passion and fertility.

"Stribog" - artist Viktor Korolkov.

STRIBOG. The lord of the air elements, the lord of the winds, shoots them with arrows from the sea. He can summon and tame a storm and can transform into his assistant, the mythical bird Stratim. The air in Russia was considered as a container of seven winds, seventy whirlwinds and seven hundred winds.

"Sventovit" - artist Konstantin Vasiliev.

SVYATOVIT (Sventovit). The four-headed god of prosperity and war. His symbol is the cornucopia. And although Dazhdbog commands the sun, he is not as influential as Svetovit. The four heads of Svetovit watch the universe in all directions. Svetovit counted on the supreme power, but Perun thought the same: they are eternal rivals.

ROOF. Among the ancient Russian gods, Rod, Svarog, Perun and others, Kryshnya is usually missed, but meanwhile, he is one of the main ones. The son of the Almighty and the goddess Maya, is brought as a brother to the very first creator of the world Rod, although he was much younger than him.

"Semargl" - artist Anna Zinkovskaya.

SEMARGL (Simargl). Son of Svarog, god of fire and moon, fire sacrifices, home and hearth, keeper of seeds and crops. Could turn into a sacred winged dog. Satellite of the sun Dazhdbog.

"Belobog" - artist Nonna Kukel.

BELBOG (Belobog, Belun). The embodiment of light, the personification of the daytime and spring sky. The God of good luck, happiness, kindness, goodness, He is also considered the giver of wealth and fertility.

CHERNOBOG (black Serpent, Koschey). God destroyer. God of cold, destruction, death, evil; the god of madness and the embodiment of everything bad and black. Chernobog is the lord of Navi, Darkness and the Pekelny kingdom. The Slavs believed that the brothers Belobog and Chernobog are eternal rivals - like good and evil, light and darkness, life and death. They follow a person everywhere and write down all his deeds, good and evil, in the books of fate.

KITOVRAS (Polkan). Half-horse - centaur. This is the god-builder, wizard, scientist and inventor. Has supernatural power. The legends about Kitovras belong to the ancient times of the all-Aryan unity and therefore are known to many peoples. The Slavs believe that Kitovras guards the solar horses of Sventovit.

KOLYADA. The ancient god of merry feasts. Teacher of the Third Law of Life. He told people about the Great Kolo of Svarog, about the Day and Night of Svarog, and also established the first calendar.

FALL. The younger twin brother of Kolyada. He got the role of putting into practice the divine knowledge that Kolyada taught people.

"Number God" - artist Viktor Korolkov.

NUMBERBOG - the ruler of the current time.

"Lel" - (there are doubts in the artist's name, sorry, that's why I don't write (.

LEL (Lel, Lelya, Lelyo, Lyubich). In the mythology of the ancient Slavs, the god of love, the son of the goddess of beauty and love Lada. He was portrayed as a golden-haired, like his mother, winged baby: after all, love is free and elusive.

"Makosh" - artist Nonna Kukel.

MAKOSH (Mokosh). Goddess of the earth, fertility, mother of crops, Fate, as well as the patroness of sheep breeding, women's needlework and prosperity in the house. The mother of the gods, perhaps the wife or incarnation of Veles-Mokos-Mokosh.

"Bereginya" - artist Boris Olshansky.

BEREGINYA. The great ancient Slavic goddess who gave birth to all things. She is accompanied everywhere by radiant riders, personifying the sun.

"Lada" - (the artist is unknown to me, alas).

LADA. Goddess of love and beauty. In the name of Lada, the ancient Slavs called not only the original goddess of love, but also the whole system of life - a way where everything should have been fine, that is, good. Perunitsa is one of the incarnations of the goddess Lada, the wife of the Thunderer Perun. She is sometimes called the thunder maiden, as if emphasizing that she shares power over thunderstorms with her husband. Lada is the goddess of marriage and love, abundance, the ripening time of the harvest.

"Marena - Mother Winter" - artist Nonna Kukel.

MARENA (Mara, Morena, Marana). Goddess of winter and death, the world of the dead. Daughter of Lada, sister of Zhiva and Lelya. She is the wife of Koshchei.

"Devana" - artist Pyotr Orlovsky.

DEVANA (Zevana, Dzevana). Goddess of the hunt, wife of the forest god Svyatobor. The ancient Slavs represented Devana in the guise of a beauty dressed in a rich marten fur coat trimmed with a squirrel; with drawn bow and arrows. Instead of epancha (outerwear), a bearskin was thrown over, and the head of the beast served as a hat.

"Rusalia" - artist Boris Olshansky.

Sobral A.Ziborov

(According to Russian media)

More than two thousand years ago, scientists of ancient Greece and Rome knew that in the east, between the Baltic Sea and the Carpathian Mountains, numerous peoples lived with their own religion. Our ancestors lived side by side with Indo-Iranian tribes, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Scythians, Vikings, Tauris and many other peoples. Such a neighborhood could not but affect the religion of the Slavs, so the pantheon of Slavic gods arose. The list is quite impressive, the pantheon implies diversity, totality, multitude. The pagan religion did not arise spontaneously, the neighborhood with various peoples had a great influence on it.

Rod is the creator of the whole world, the progenitor of the gods and the beginning of the life of everything. Beregini-Rozhanitsy - his assistants, patroness of children and the elderly, newlyweds. Keepers of the home. Bereginya-Rozhanitsa, in turn, also had assistants - this is a brownie, a bannik, a barn. The symbol of the goddess is a duck.

Rod is considered the god of fertility, and the Slavs also believed that Rod sends souls to earth when a child is born. The second name of Rod - Stribog, represents Saturday, which today is called parental day.

Belobog

A good god with many names, he was also called Svetich, Svyatovit. Belobog gave fertility to the lands and souls of people. It was presented in the form of a white horseman, dispersing darkness, accepting the laws of goodness and light.

The symbols of Belobog are the horn, sword and bow. The day of the autumn solstice is considered a holiday of God, on this day sweet pies were presented to him as a gift.

Veles

Veles is considered the keeper of antiquity, the patron saint of animals. Most often, God is represented in the form of a bear. Veles was especially revered, like all the ancient Slavic gods. The list of his knowledge is inexhaustible, he has the wisdom of ancestors, animals. Memorial Day is his holiday. On the last night of October, our ancestors saw off their dead relatives.

pulp

What female Slavic gods existed? The list of names is headed by the goddess Myakosh, the wife of Veles, the goddess of the earth. Protects fertility, is the goddess of fate and witchcraft. She is also considered a conductor between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The goddess helps housewives, conveys the ability to raise and educate children, work in the garden, field, at home, reveals healer secrets, teaches her to understand herbs.

October 28 is considered her holiday (according to the Christian calendar Paraskeva Friday), on this day the pulp protects the hostesses and wives. One of the symbols of the goddess is a headdress with horns, her tree is an aspen.

Crodo

The second name of the god is Krt, the ancestor of Svarog, the lord of the sacrificial fire. Protects sacred and sacrificial places. Crodo was represented in the form of Frost, cold and darkness follow him, it was believed that God brings death with him.

Svarog

What are they, the male gods of Slavic mythology? The list is headed by Svarog, perhaps the most famous of all pagan gods. He is considered an ancestor, a progenitor. This is the god of the sun, who gave people speech, knowledge.

This wise god appears to be sitting in a chariot, surrounded by ancestors, intelligent animals and birds. Svarog is in everything around, it can be heard and seen, touched.

Dazhdbog

The first son of Svarog is Dazhdbog. Gives warmth and light, vitality. The patron of light and heat. Commands the rains, gives life-giving moisture and fertility. Sunday is considered the day of Dazhdbog, its stone is yahont, and its metal is gold. The Russians considered themselves descendants of Dazhdbog, in every house there was certainly a sign of the deity - the Solstice.

There were also kind and patient Slavic gods. The list is crowned by the goddess Lada, the patroness of love and family well-being, she protects the hearth. The symbol of the goddess is a swan and a dove, we associate these birds with fidelity, tenderness, affection. The time of the goddess Lada is spring, the time of the awakening of the spirits of nature, mermaids, mermen, goblin.

Moraine

Morena comes from the words "haze", "mara", "haze". Goddess of cold, winter, snow. Brings severe cold, darkness, death. But this goddess is not so terrible, she personifies the harsh Russian winter, which, as it were, tests people for strength. Morena's symbols are the moon, the lynx and the owl.

Our ancestors were very sensitive to faith, Slavic gods and their meaning were inseparable from everyday life. The list of gods is very diverse, it is difficult to separate them by seniority. Each was important, they lived side by side with each, because the gods were, as it were, symbols of nature, the elements, and were inseparable from people's lives.

Yarilo

God of youth and fertile land, lord of the sun. Some consider him one of the faces of the god Veles, in his spring incarnation. Its month is March, the day of the week is Tuesday. The symbol is iron, the stones are garnet, ruby, amber.

Perun

Perun is the god of war and thunder, the lord of the elements. Thunder was perceived as the voice of Perun, lightning - his arrows. They imagined God racing across the sky in a fiery chariot, with a mace in his hands. Our ancestors believed that Perun protects the manifest world from the invisible, Navi world.

Perun's Day - Thursday. His holiday was celebrated on August 2 (according to the Orthodox calendar - the day of Elijah the prophet). From metals, God prefers tin, his stones are sapphire and lapis lazuli.

Here, perhaps, are all the main Slavic gods. The list of minor gods is even longer. Although it is difficult to call them secondary. Russia is a northern land with a harsh climate, cold winds and severe frosts. And the gods of the Slavs personified the forces of nature.

Slavic pagan gods: list

Khors, Horos - the ruler of the solar disk, observes the world order. Depicted as the sun. His day is considered the day of the winter solstice - December 22. According to the Slavs, on this day the old sun completed its course and gave way to the new sun, as if opening the beginning of a new year. Sunday is considered its day, its metal is gold.

Viy

There were also dark Slavic gods. The list, perhaps, can be listed for a long time, the struggle between good and evil has always taken place. The personification of dark forces is Viy, the god of the underworld, the lord of sinners. According to legend, Viy had a deadly look, not a single person could withstand it. They represented him in the form of an old man with huge heavy eyelids, which he could not lift on his own. The legend of Viya was preserved in Gogol's story, later a film was made based on it.

Kolyada

Kolyada, the son of Dazhdbog, embodies the New Year cycle, this is a festive god. Symbolizes the departure of the old and the arrival of the new year. They began to honor Kolyada on December 20, and from December 21, a festive ceremony dedicated to the god - Kolyada began.

Noon

There were also playful, playful Slavic gods, the list is headed by Noon, the goddess of Slavic myths. Appeared as a playful spirit. It was believed that she was fooling travelers, bringing confusion to them. It was also the duty of the Midday Lady to see to it that no one worked at noon. She severely punished those who violated the ban, she could tickle to death.

So, we can conclude that the gods were not bad or good. They were the personification of nature and the surrounding world, in all its manifestations. Each god had two hypostases. So, for example, Yarilo gives warmth, warms the earth, but on occasion he can punish (sunstroke). Morena, although it brings cold and severe cold, helped Russia more than once, for example, the cold stopped Napoleon's troops in 1812, and during the Great Patriotic War it significantly complicated the movements of Hitler's troops. You can also recall the Russian folk tale, where Frost generously endowed a good girl and punished a bad one. Not all Slavic gods are listed here, it is quite difficult to make a list. Each phenomenon, each aspect of life had its own deity, which was responsible not only for its space, but also for life in general.