Signs of Lada

We have briefly mentioned the Polish or Slavic Goddess Lada here and here.  In at least one description she was “gardzyna“, i.e., a guardian of or to Yesse, the Jupiter of the Polish pantheon.

Recently, there has been a reinterpretation of of Polish numismatic history wherein a claim has been made that a coin previously assigned to Mieszko I is in reality that of his grandson, Mieszko II (if that’s confusing, that’s because Boleslaw I was in between).

We think not.  There are at least two reasons.  Both have to do with the fact that the baptism of Poland took place during the reign of Mieszko I.  Mieszko I ruled from about 960-992.  His baptism was in 966.

For one thing, as we already pointed out, it would be strange if a ruler like Mieszko II who ruled from 1025-1034, would feature a “fire symbol” on his coins – some sixty years after the country’s official acceptance of Christianity.

But there is something else.  There was a coat of arms in Poland called Lada and this coat of arms was associated by Jan Dlugosz with the Goddess Lada.  Here is the coat of arms in its oldest known form:

Oh, right.  We forgot.  It’s number 148.

And here is the aforementioned coin:

While it’s true that there was a so-called pagan uprising in Poland in the 1030s, that uprising was directed against Mieszko II too since he was, of course, associated with the new Christian faith his grandfather adopted.  So that’s what we think and we are sticking to it (at least for now).

Here is a note taken by Witold Taszycki in making his list of ancient Polish names.  It shows a A.D. 1414 reference to a Dadzbog of the coat of arms Lada.  Dadzbog is literally translated as “God give”.  Taszycki found another Dadzbog in the 15th century also of the clan Lada.

And, south of Warsaw there is this village named Lady (next to Magdalenka though that village’s name is much more recent and likely refers to Mary Magdalene) and has been there since at least 1526 or so:

Now, the name may come from Skarbek of the coat of arms Lada.  Earlier though the town may have been called Grąbnicze, Grombnicze, Grampnicze (1425 Stare Gramnycze, Grambnycze, 1451 Grambnycze alias Stara Vyesh, Cramnycze, Grambice).  So perhaps one can connect it to grom meaning “thunder”?  Or maybe not.

Besides that one there was also:

• a village called Lada the lands around which were ransacked by various Russian dukes in the 1240s;
•  village called Lada that was gifted to Dmitro of Goray by Ludwig the Hungarian (at the time, the King of Poland) in the 1370s.

Interestingly, Joachim Bielski’s version of his father’s Marcin’s “Polish Chronicle” contains the following reference to the “tamga” called “Pobog”:

And here are rock carvings from the Permian region about the city of Cherdyn.  They were copied into a book by the Swede Philip Johan von Strahlenberg regarding North-Eastern Europe (note the cross on the “horseshoe” and the sun symbol – the same symbol was found on one of the faces of the bottom portion of the Zbruch Idol):

Then, of course, there is Ve-leda but that’s another story altogether – or is it?

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