Category Archives: Poles

Figle & Witze

PublishedAugust 8, 2023 Post authortorino

After a decade long effort, the Marek Figlerowicz (whose fame is being rapidly outshined by his progeny – all, like the parents, featuring M- names) group finally released its genetic study of medieval and pre-medieval (read: Roman times) remains found in Poland (“Genetic history of East-Central Europe in the first millennium CE“). This has set the blogosphere on fire but, frankly, the results (putting aside the 10 year wait worthy of Communist-era project timeframes) are underwhelming and the authors’ accompanying conclusions untethered from these meager results.

The project was supposed to – at least in the minds of those that followed its odyssey – firmly establish whether Suavs were present in Poland before, say 500 A.D., that is the study was supposed to resolve the age-old question of the origin of the Polish Suavic population. Were the Suavs “always” in Poland or did they arrive in the early Middle Ages from an original Suavic homeland somewhere in the “East”.

As a side note, at least the question in the above posited form was thought to have been the age-old question. But human folly knows no bounds so another Polish geneticist, Piotr Węgleński, recently restated the problem as follows: “as concerns the origin of us Poles, we have two theories. One says that we come from the marshes of the Pripyat river. The other states that when Genghis Chan moved West with the Mongols conquering Europe, he captured various peoples along the way and he picked up our forbears somewhere between the Don and Dniepr and, heading West, dropped them off in the lands of today’s Poland.” The Overton window was thus shifted from “between the Odra and the Vistula OR Polesie/Western Ukraine” to “Pripyat Marshes OR something, something, Genghis Khan.” Appropriately enough, a few years ago Węgleński gave a lecture entitled “The Newest Developments in the History of Stupidity in Poland.” Now, with the claim that Poles arrived in Poland first in the thirteenth century, Węgleński will be able to boast that he is not only a passive reporter of this alleged process but also a contributor to its development.

The Suavs were an important source of protein in a Mongol warrior’s diet

So what did Figlerowicz and his team find?

Well, it seems that the Iron Age (Roman Era, or IA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like older Scandinavian populations and the Middle Ages (or MA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like Suavs.

Take this chart where the more dark blue the samples are the more “Scandinavian” they are and the more red, the more Suavic. The top right hand corner represents IA samples and the lower right represents MA samples.

Or take this next chart where on the right you have female mtDNA haplogroups. The two columns (second from right IA and furthest right MA) are almost the same between IA and MA. On the other hand, the two left columns show male Y-DNA haplogroups. The furthest left column shows males from IA and the second from left shows males from MA. Although there are some Suavic haplogroups on the very left (though the color scheme is somewhat misleading – only about half of the red on the left is from haplogroup R1a), they are relatively few as a percentage of the overall.

Given that Scandinavian Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the IA samples and Suav Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the MA samples, if you were to try to answer the above query using this data the only reasonable conclusion is that male Suavs, one way or another, displaced male Scandinavians in Poland between IA and MA.

This makes the authors’ conclusions puzzling:

“The above results are consistent with the hypothesis assuming migration from north and genetic continuity in the region of contemporary Poland from the IA to the MA…However, high genetic contribution of the IA populations to the MA populations suggests not only the continuation of the common north European ancestry but also genetic continuation of the autochthon IA population which mixed with the incomers.”

And with respect to Y-DNA in particular:

“We found that all IA group individuals with Y-hg R1a belonged to the R1a-M458 lineage. These results, together with the earlier report on R1a-S204 lineage detection in an individual associated with the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (Haak 2015), strengthen the evidence that R1a-S204 Y-hg lineages, which are dominant in present-day East-Central European populations (Polish, Czech, Belarusian, Ukrainian) (Underhill aka Podgórski 2015), were already present in East-Central Europe, at least since the Late Bronze period.”

Then comes this nugget:

“There are many examples in history showing that a relatively small group of male immigrants can subjugate a local community (e.g. the history of the colonization of North and South America). Thus, a small number of individuals with Y-hg R1a in the IA group does not necessarily mean a low frequency of this haplogroup in the autochthonous IA population.”

I’m sorry but this is pure speculation relying on results from other older papers. The current Figlerowicz study is, shall we say, unambiguous.

What’s particularly perplexing are the statements of the group that apparently were made at the time of or right after the publication. They are a jumbled mess at best (they may have made these statements in the paper itself – can’t recall at the moment). Apparently, a conclusion of the team is that (paraphrasing) “it is not necessary to postulate further genetic infusion after IA to form the MA population.” In other words, Suavs have likely developed from the existing IA populations. I am not a geneticist and assume that this is certainly possible but the question – looking at the above charts – is how likely that is. If these are the representative samples for the time period (see below as to why they may not be), then surely – at least on the male side – things changed between IA to MA. Could the population have changed from IA to MA in exactly the way that is postulated? Maybe. But, again, how likely is that? Essentially, the people who had disproportionately large Scandinavian genetics must have departed and the population remaining must have been characterized by fewer “Scandinavian” features. Such a selection in who left and who stayed requires an explanation. You could say that the Goths left and the Wends (?) stayed I suppose. Even if this were the case, the majority of the population in the settlements studied by the Figlerowicz team would have shown itself as Gothic. Figlerowicz also said that he does not agree with Jozef Kostrzewski’s theories (Kostrzewski claimed that the Suavs lived in Poland since the Bronze Age at least, then the Goths came and then the Goths left and Suavs remained). But he seems to be saying exactly what Kostrzewski claimed. Except that this is based on evidence that can only support Kostrzewski under some very specific circumstances.

But there is more. Apparently, Figlerowicz’s team has claimed that basically the same people lived in Poland during the IA as the kinds of people that lived in northern Germany, Lithuania or Latvia at the time. This can be read to mean that you can’t really distinguish between such populations because they are all basically the same. But if the writers really believe that then the above claim of population continuity in the sense that most people took it to mean evaporates since the researchers and the general public are not in agreement on the meaning of the the underlying concepts. In other words, by claiming these populations are interchangeable (they are not), the Figlerowicz team really denies the point of the whole exercise. I guess they did not find evidence of Amerindians, Asians or Africans being present in Poland at the time but we kind of knew that they wouldn’t. Moreover, if Figlerowicz’s team can’t tell the difference between a Latvian, a Suav and a German then how can it confidently claim that an entirely new population from amongst those three groups did not appear in Poland sometime between IA and MA to replace or at least dwarf most of the Rest-whatever population that was left after Gothic departure?

There are ways of preserving Kostrzewski’s claims but they are not laid out by this paper nor are they supported by the paper’s data. Let’s take a more sober view of what we actually know.

The most level-headed part of the paper is the following (adding emphasis to a very relevant point):

“Here, we provide several pieces of evidence that the ancestors of the medieval populations lived in the region of present-day Poland during the IA. There are, however, several aspects that need further elucidation. Firstly, how and when the ancestors of the MA populations with Y-hg R1a appeared. The times when Y-hg R1a-M417 dominated in this territory are associated with the spread of the Corded Ware culture (from 3000 to 2300 BC) (Papac 2021). Later, it was replaced by the Unetice culture (from 2300 to 1600 BC) (Papac 2021) that was associated with the populations in which Y-hg R1a was very rare. From then until the IA, there were many archaeological cultures in this region from which no genetic data is available as cremation became the dominant burial practice. Here, we showed that the IA and MA populations inherited only a small percentage of genetic ancestry from the people associated with the Unetice culture. Therefore, the ancestors of the autochthonous IA populations with Y-hg R1a would have either had to be revived in the BA period or come from east during the BA or IA period. At this point, it should be noted that based on our results, one cannot explicitly rule out additional waves of migration after the IA. Thus, one of the reasons for the increase in the frequency of Y-hg R1a could also be migrations from Eastern Europe after the Migration Period. Although they seem less likely one cannot exclude the alternative scenarios that do not assume the presence of the ancestors of the medieval populations in the region of contemporary Poland during the IA. One possibility is the numerous waves of migration from northern Europe in both IA and medieval times.”

It may be true (apparently) that there have been no samples pre-dating Wielbark but post-dating Unetice. But the problem with this study is deeper.

The issue is the sample selection even for the period supposedly under study, that is, the Roman Era Iron Age.

The vast bulk of the samples collected appear instead to have been gathered from medieval Poland such that, Węgleński’s pioneering suggestions notwithstanding, there does not seem to be any reason to doubt that those would turn out to be Suavic – as indeed they have.

However, when we turn to the “Roman era” samples (IA) studied, they are either from a very small geographic area in Greater Poland/Kuyavia (three places total, including – the previously designated as Gothic – Kowalewko) or from two places in the Gdańsk region on the Baltic coast – areas where, it is entirely likely, Scandinavian peoples (e.g., Goths) may well be expected to have had a foothold. The only exception to this is Masłomęcz on the Ukraine border which, however, was already thought to be Gothic years before. (Somewhat notably, though, at least the maternal lines found in both Masłomęcz and Kowalewko appear to be the same as those found in Poland currently).

The only “new” (as in not previously leaked) Roman era samples are from:

Gąski, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship – this consists of 2 samples – neither of which has any Y-DNA
Czarnówko, West Pomeranian Voivodeship – same as above: 2 samples and none have Y-DNA
Pruszcz Gdański, Pomeranian Voivodeship – this has a smattering of I1s, R1bs but also I2s

Take a look at this map. The MA samples are in red, the IA Roman Era samples are in blue.

Altogether there were only five Roman-era sites studied it seems. The analyzed medieval sites and samples outnumber the Roman-era ones in the study by about 4:1.

In the Roman-era samples, we have nothing from Western Pomerania, nothing from Mazovia, nothing from large swaths of Greater Poland, nothing from Lesser Poland (save Masłomęcz if you count it as such), nothing from Silesia, nothing from ancient Prussia and nothing from Polesia.

Compare the above blue Wielbark samples with this map from Henryk Machajewski’s paper (1992):

The green sites have been connected with Przeworsk. The red are supposed to represent Wielbark. Pruszcz Gdański is 91, Masłomęcz is 71, the other Figlerowicz Wielbark sites don’t seem to be shown.

In other words, Figlerowicz’s team knew there had been Goths in Poland around the same time, it looked for Goths and it found something that looks like Scandinavian, possibly Gothic, DNA.

The team does not appear to have figured out how to deal with the lack of body parts necessary for DNA studies (presumably given the prevalence of cremation in most of Poland prior to the introduction of Christianity). This means all of the Przeworsk culture is simply excluded from the study. Naturally too, this is not unexpected but is nevertheless disappointing given the fanfare that surrounded this effort.

In fact, take a look at this graph from the same paper. Strictly speaking, if you were to analyze the results of only this study, not only isn’t there any evidence of Suavs in Poland during the IA but also there really isn’t any evidence for them during the period from about 450 A.D. to about 950 A.D. They just have no samples for that period.

Plus, as pointed out already above, the samples for the Y-DNA portion of the study include only three sites: Pruszcz Gdański and two sites which were known to be Gothic before – Kowalewko plus Masłomęcz (and Kowalewko does have someone with an R1a haplogroup though it’s not obvious whether its subclade is “Suavic”). Many more Wielbark sites could have been part of this study (see map above), most notably from Mazovia and Polesie but they were not. So while the conclusions above seems unambiguous, the sample size on which they are based is sparse to say the least. In fact, to be honest, we can’t even draw full conclusions about the Wielbark sites either just based on this study. This too is disappointing and, frankly, I don’t see a reason for such a narrow scope of the Wielbark sample size.

To put the project’s IA range in some perspective take a look at this map. The yellow area is the area of Poland from which Roman Era Iron Age Y-DNA samples have been recovered and analyzed. The area in red is the portion of Poland that archaeologists and geneticists still have some work to do on:

Now this took about a decade. Someone with better math skills can figure out when we will be done at this rate but I worry that by then future geneticists will need another DNA study just to figure out what ethnic group actually started this project.

Figlerowicz and his team may be commended for undertaking this project but they really should have kept expectations far lower. It’s not that their results are equivocal. It’s more that they simply don’t have enough results to derive any definitive conclusions.

Anyway, when and if a broader study is done at some point, covering all Roman Era sites in Poland as well as the pre-Roman period we will know whether Suavs (in the sense of the typically Polish Y-DNA haplogroups) lived in Poland during or prior to Gothic migrations.

It seems the answer to this question may be ‘yes’ – at least for southeast Poland – albeit here too the Y-DNA haplogroup frequency split does not correspond to current percentages (more I2a than R1a) as per a new Maciej Chyleński & others article (“Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry of populations in East-Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age“).

Here are the results from that paper:

As can be seen there are plenty of R1a’s, particularly in the Strzyżów culture but also in the Mierzanowice culture plus the Komarów culture which is in Ukraine including:

R1a1a1b1a2a aka Z280>Z92 in Komarów
R1a1a1b1a2b aka Z280>CTS1211 in Strzyżów and Trzciniec
R1a1a1b1a1a aka M458>L260/S222 in Trzciniec

In fact the R1a percentages run as follows:

Iwno – 0%
Komarów – 50%
Mierzanowice – ~67%
Strzyżów – 80%
Trzciniec – 16%

Here you can see the geography of the samples:

Now are these the specific Suavic downstream clades? We will probably never know as you’d have to dig deeper in the DNA and these samples are what they are. Nevertheless, if you asked for Western Suavic DNA at this level today, it seems that you would get this. (There seems to be some confusion with their Mokrzec site which the dataset shows as R1b but the supplementary data paper claims is R1a.)

Incidentally, after R1a, the biggest Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland are I1 and R1b. Maybe these are from former Gothic tribes (or Celts or even Germanic tribes) but they might as well be remnants of R1b (and perhaps I1) wanderers who never made it to Scandinavia (or maybe who wondered back out years before the times of the Roman Empire).

It is curious that Trzciniec is mostly I2a and, particularly, more southern and western form of it but even here in Trzciniec you see two I2a1b2a’s aka CTS10936 which has been found all over the continent but its preponderance is in eastern/southern Europe.

In any event, if the answer were ‘no,’ then the next question will have to be where did they come from? To answer that you would need samples from southern Swabia around the Bodensee, the Elbe country, Pannonia, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Belarus and, perhaps even the territories from Lake Lacha to Lake Pihkva.

Note that the same Figlerowicz group is also going after the origins of the Piast dynasty – Polish, Scandinavian, Czech, Hungarian or, maybe Ukrainian (probably hg N BTW)? This seems like it ought to be an “easier” project but here too the team seems to have hit a stumbling block as the Church and local antiquities authorities apparently refused to allow the researchers to access some of the few known graves of actual Polish kings. Given the alleged importance of this project, this refusal seems absurd but, of course, the monarchs aren’t, hopefully, going anywhere so there is always potential for someone changing their mind given, perhaps, some future less invasive method of analysis.

Galician Lelia Doura

PublishedDecember 26, 2022 Post authortorino

An interesting Divine Name appearing in Długosz’s Pantheon is Dzidzilela (a mispronounciation of a Baltic Didis Lela?). Indeed, in addition to Yassa, Lado and Nia, we frequently see in the earliest sources the Name Lela or Leli. Długosz characterized Dzidzilela as the Polish Venus. And indeed, it appears that Venus in its function as the Moon’s (Jasień’s) companion may be connected with Lela. As discussed, the Polish Leliwa coat of arms features the crescent moon and what appears to be a star but is likely Venus. More broadly, in European (and not only) languages, the leli sound is frequently associated with the night (for example, think of a lullaby). Curiously, layl in Arabic and layla in Hebrew each mean “night”.

Of course, the Alcis are the Lugian Castor and Pollux as per Tacitus (the alleged Polish Lel and Polel) while elkas in Latvian and alkas in Lithuanian may refer to an idol. Then, we have the Polish lalki for puppets/dolls (though lala may also mean a young, attractive woman). All these have been connected with the supposed IE Horse Twins.

We’ve discussed some of this before.

Who is Lela? In Suavic vocabulary the name most frequently refers to an aunt or an older female relation. Although Lada has been identified as the mother of Lel and Polel (supposedly being the same with the Greek Leda) a question arises: could the Horse Twins be the children of Lela instead in her function as the, well, Mother of the Gods (meaning the Horse Twins)?

Plenty of ink may be happily spilled answering that question (likely to no avail) but, in the meantime, let us note something strange. A curious refrain from a 13th century Galician poem by Pedro Eanes Solaz speaks these very same names in much the same way as the words Leli, Leli or Lado, Lado were sang by Suavic peasant farmers.

The poem has been preserved in three copies written down sometime in the 16th century as part of a compendium of other early Portuguese poetic works.

The Portuguese text is as follows (generally following Cohen and Corriente) in eight strophes:

Eu velida non dormia
lelia doura
e meu amigo venia
edoy lelia doura.

Non dormia e cuidava
lelia doura
e meu amigo chegava
edoy lelia doura.

O meu amigo venia
lelia doura
e d’amor tan ben dizia
edoy lelia doura.

O meu amigo chegava
lelia doura
e d’amor tan ben cantava
edoi lelia doura.

Muito desejei, amigo,
lelia doura
que vos tevesse comigo
edoy lelia doura.

Muito desejei, amado,
lelia doura
que vos tevess’a meu lado
edoy lelia doura.

Leli, leli, par Deus, lely
Lelia doura
Ben sei eu que<n> non diz leli
Edoy lelia doura

Ben sei eu qu<n> non diz lely
Lelia doura
Demo x’ é quen non diz leli
Edoy lelia doura

Here is a copy from the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional aka the Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti (codex 10991, number 829).

An English translation of the text is as follows (from 2005’s Songs of a Friend: Love Lyrics of Medieval Portugal: Selections from Cantigas de Amigo):

I the lovely one, didn’t sleep,
lelia doura,
but my friend was wont to come to me,
e doi lelia doura.

I didn’t sleep and was always grieved,
lelia doura,
but my friend was wont to arrive for me,
e doi lelia doura.

My friend was wont to come to me,
lelia doura,
and he’d speak so beautifully of love,
e doi lelia doura.

And my friend was wont to arrive for me,
lelia doura,
and he’d sing so beautifully of love,
e doi lelia doura.

I ardently desired, my friend,
lelia doura,
that you would be together with me,
e doi lelia doura.

I ardently desired, my love,
lelia doura,
that you would be close at my side,
e doi lelia doura.

Leli, leli, by God, leli,
lelia doura,
I know very well who doesn’t say leli,
e doi lelia doura.

I know very well who doesn’t say leli,
lelia doura.
A demon is he who doesn’t say leli,
e doi lelia doura.

And here is the same in the Cancionerio Vaticano (codex Latinus 4803, number 415).

The refrain was not intelligible to those who discovered these manuscripts in the 19th centuries and so much has been written about its meaning. Two theories prevail. First, that the refrain is onomatopeic or, in this case, basically meaningless singalong gibberish. However, more recently, a theory has been put forward that it is of Arabic origin. This was suggested in 1964 by Brian Dutton (“Lelia Doura, Edo y Lelia Doura, An Arabic Refrain in a Thirteenth-Century Galician Poem?”) and reproposed in 2002 by Rip Cohen and Federico Corriente (“Lelia Doura Revisited”). Lelia Doura would mean something like the “night turns”. Why Arabic? Well, as mentioned above, layl refers to night or nighttime and we know that Muslims had conquered portions of the Iberian peninsula at some point.

But this is rather strange. The poet in question is Galician and Galicia had never been conquered by the Muslims. The local Muslim population was nonexistent save for Muslim serfs captured by Galician rulers raiding parts of Al-Andalus to the south (serfs who may well have been Christian in any event). Perhaps most well-known was Alfonso II who more or less successfully fought off both Muslim marauders only to succumb for a time to Charlemagne.

It is safe to say that of all parts of the Iberian Peninsula the Asturian Kingdom of Galicia seems the oddest choice for preserving fragments of the Arabic language. And this is even more so if we are talking about the 13th century when the poem was composed by Pedro.

Galicia, however, had been, the home of:

Celtic Luggones
briefly of the Hasdingi Vandals (of whom the Lugii are suspected to have been a part), and
Suevi

In the south Al-Andalus was also a major site of Suavic slave trade and, later, integrated many of the imported Suavic slaves into the local polity.

So a Central European connection seems better suited as an explanation of this refrain. Leli may not refer to “my night” but rather to either the Great Lela or, perhaps, Her Divine Twins.

Why Great Lela? Well, Didis Lado was supposed to mean Great Lado in Lithuanian but we also have Dzidzilela, perhaps a rendition of Didis Lela. It is interesting that the Polish word for “large” , “great” or “big” is durzy or, feminine, durza (see here, for example). This might be an explanation for the word doura. An alternative may be dobra meaning the “good”. And, frankly, these words may themselves bear a mutual relation.

Curiously, Cohen and Corriente use another poem by Pedro Eanes Solaz to conclude that the whole song has to do with a competition between two different women for the affections of a man. The other poem reads as follows:

Dizia la ben talhada:
“Agor’ a viss’ eu penada
Ond’ eu amor ei!”

A ben talhada dizia:
“Penad’ a ciss’ eu un dia
Ond’ eu amor ei!”

Ca, se a viss’ eu penada,
Non seria tan coitada
Ond’ eu amor ei!

Penada se a eu visse,
non á mal que eu sentisse
Ond’ eu amor ei!

Quen lh’ oje por mi dissesse
Que non tardass’ e veesse
Ond’ eu amor ei!

Quen lh’ oje por mi rogasse
Que non tardass’ e chegasse
Ond’ eu amor ei!

Thus, they render the following translation of both of these poems:

So sang the lovely girl:
“Now may I see her tormented
Whence I feel love!”

The lovely girl was singing:
“May I see her tormented one day
Whence I feel love!

For if I saw he tormented
I wouldn’t be so saddened
Whence I feel love.

If I saw her tormented
I wouldn’t be so saddened
Whence I feel love.

I wish someone would tell him for me
Not to tarry but to come
Whence I feel love.

I wish someone would beg him for me
Not to tarry but to arrive
Whence I feel love.”

Then the object of our discussion is translated thusly:

I, lovely girl, was not sleeping
(It’s my turn)
And my boyfriend was coming
(And today it’s my turn).

I wasn’t sleeping and was longing
(It’s my turn)
And my boyfriend was arriving
(And today it’s my turn).

My boyfriend was coming
(It’s my turn)
Any my boyfriend was arriving
(And today’s my turn).

My boyfriend was arriving
(It’s my turn)
And chanting so well of love
(And today’s my turn).

I really wanted, friend,
(It’s my turn)
To have you with me
(And today’s my turn).

I really wanted, beloved,
(It’s my turn)
To have you at my side
(And today’s my turn).

My night! My night! Bt God, my night!
(It’s my turn)
I know well who won’t say “my night!”
(And today’s my turn).

I know well who won’t say “my night!”
(It’s my turn)
She’s the devil who won’t say “my night!”
(And today’s my turn).

No this is curious because this love story (triangle?) is very similar to folk songs of Suavic lands where the name Leli as well as the word Lado come up. There is Queen Lela in Croatian and Serbian songs (see for example Vuk Stefanović Karadžić’s “Serbian National Songs” in Milan Milićević’s ethnological writings). We have “leliy, leliy, my lado” in Russian songs as per Karol Potkański. Or “Łado, my Lelu” (Chronicle of Stryjkowski). Similar songs were sung in Ukraine. Finally Leliwa may have been a reference to the planet Venus itself (the Star of Leli, as per Kazimierz Perkowski).

Beyond Suavic lands we have the Hittite Lelwani (eventually a female) whose name features the suffix -vani which may mean “desire” (comparable with Venus) and which was like Persephone/Proserpina connected with the underworld (Stanisław of Skalbmierz mentions the cults of Venus and Proserpina in Poland). Or, for that matter, we may also mention the Hindu Lalita.

In fact, a recent work on the Polish Dzidzilela concludes that the whole story of Lado and Leli may be summarized as a love affair whereby a God arrives (often a Moon God) and falls in love with a Goddess, betrays her with another and then is punished (either by the brothers of his love or by someone else). He is later reborn. While this myth has a clear connection to the vegetation cycle, it is also reminiscent of the myth of Jason and Medea (miedza?) or Iasion and Demeter that we have written so often about here. Did the Moon God betray his love with another celestial? If so was it Lela? Or was Lela, as the Name itself indicates perhaps an older sister or an aunt? Did the God of the Moon tarry on Earth as Łado/Mars and seduce Marzanna? Only then to return to His true love, the celestial Łada/Lela?

As an aside, it is worth noting that the word lada in Spanish also refers to a side. It is tempting to speculate that that meaning arose from the function (my dear) of one of the Divine Twins in relation to the latter, especially, since Lada and Jasień may have been responsible for different “sides” of the Year divided in two by Midsummer’s Eve. Lela may then have been the Mother of Both (and they, the Lelki or, in Lithuanian, Alcis).

For other discussions of pottential Suavic connections to the Iberian Peninsula see here, here, here, here, here and here.

And if you want a real mindtwister, recall that wyspa – earlier yspa – is the Polish word for an island. The etymology of Hispania is not fully understood so throw this possibility into the mix as well.

Green Holiday Celebrations From the Collection of Piotr from Miłosław

Published Post authortorino

Here are some quotes from the Sermones dominicales et festivales cum glossis Polonicis (from the so-called Collection of Piotr from Miłosław)

Aleksander Brueckner brought this to the scholarly world’s attention finding cantica lascivia wherein ladies “saltant ad sonum chori et cytharae concinnando swathky lyecze” (Archiv für slavische Philologie,14, 481 at 505),

Here are different versions of the same:

Jasna Góra Monastery Manuscript

“Sed quid locusta nisi fatuas virgines et mulieres signat, saltatrices, cantatrices et coreatrices, que hodie adinstar locuste saltant ad sonitum cytare concinantes szwanthki lecze, sed sunt immemores future hiemis vernis et dire, si quando dira mors eos.”

Polish National Library

“Sed quid locusta nisi fatuos viros et mulieres signat, saltatrices, cantatrices et coreatrices, que hodie adinstar locuste saltant ad sonitum cytare concinantes, sed sunt immemores future hiemis vernis et dire, si quando dira mors eos constriget.”

Another Manuscript
(as per Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego)

“Sed quid locusta nisi fatuas virgines et mulieres significat saltatrices, cantatrices…, que hodie adinstar locuste saltant ad sonitum cithare concinantes wszytky latą [wszytki lata], sed sunt immemores future hiemis et dure, scilicest quando mors constringet swyaze [zwiąże]“

Slavish Slavic Slackademics

PublishedFebruary 3, 2022 Post authortorino

An interesting aspect of the discussion about the veracity of the depiction of Polish Gods as relayed by Długosz is the pathetic timidity of the Polish academic response to the abuses perpetrated on the “Polish Pantheon” by the confabulist in chief, Aleksander Brückner. Łowmiański, Gieysztor and many others have been caught up in a slavish, Stockholm syndrome-like trance by the vehemence of Brückner’s attacks on the idea of Polish paganism flourishing into the 15th century to such an extent that, even when they dared to deviate from Brückner on other topics, they were rendered incapable of independent thought when it came to discussing Polish Gods. Whether because of intellectual laziness, for lack of cojones or as a result of some combination of both, they did not deviate from the party line set by the cantakerous German curmudgeon more than a century ago.

This is particularly shameful given that Brückner’s arguments fail so transparently that it is difficult not to suspect ill will on the part of the Berlin professor. His primary argument was that there could be no paganism that survived into the 15th century. Why? Because the Church did such a good job quashing them for 500 years.

Yet, pagan customs is precisely what church leaders describe in plentiful writings of the period. Brückner says that the clergy had no idea what they were describing and only erroneously believed that what they were seeing were pagan practices as opposed to, as Brückner would have it, mere marriage rites. (As an aside, apparently, Brückner was asleep when God was invoked during his own wedding, as per standard Christian recitations). In other words, Brückner from his 20th century Berlin academic perch was better able to understand 15th century Polish peasant customs than all the 15th century Polish parish priests combined. At least according to Brückner.

But if Catholic clergy was so stupid as to misunderstand common Slavic words as names of deities, how could such clergy been able to crush pagan worship prior to such time? Were they just uniquely incompetent in the 15th century? Neurotoxins in the Holy Water or the wafers?

And, if they were competent in crushing idolatry (just overzealous in seeing idolatry everywhere) then why did they still fail to crush Polish idolatry right then and there? After all, had Brückner read Kolberg’s ethnographic studies of the 19th century he would have found appellations of Łado, Łado. He also would have noticed that, by far, the most common protagonist of peasant songs in Poland at that time was Jasień. There you have your Yassa and Lado. And that is half a millenium after the 15th century sermons. In other words, if Poland was converted to Christianity in 966 then even more time passed since the aforementioned 15th century priestly remonstrations against worshipping “idols” to Brückner’s and Kolberg’s time as had passed from such alleged conversion to the 15th century.

The truth is that the Church organization in Poland was not strong enough to even begin to root out paganism until the Polish state afforded the Church some stability. And the state could not afford stability for the Church until the state itself became stable. That, in turn, did not begin in earnest until the 14th century. In other words, it is entirely possible that the Church was neither able to convert nor even interested in converting the peasant masses to its faith until such time. And, as noted above, even afterwards the songs, refrains, midsummer night dances and fires continued well into the 19th, 20th and, in places, even to this day.

Spanish Religious Connections

PublishedJuly 26, 2021 Post authortorino

In Polish folk songs we have the Names of Leli and Didzilela. These are frequently associated (whether correctly or not) with celestial objects. Similar Names appear in Croat songs and among other Suavs. We know we also have Yassa and Lada.

There is a coat of arms by the name Leliwa which, in its objects and the blue background also has celestial connotations:

Now, this obviously brings up the Moon and either the Sun or perhaps some other bright light in the sky – Venus maybe?

Note that the Moon and the Sun sometimes appear at the same time (same with Venus).

In any event, there is a town in Spain in the province of Toledo called Velada. Velada refers to a soirée or an evening party or late evening vigil. This is that town’s coat of arms:

What does this mean? Perhaps nothing but it is still interesting. Perhaps the ancients were intent to honor the time of day when the lunar bodies joined in the sky (as husband and wife or two lovers?).

For the Bructeri prophetess Veleda/Velaeda see an earlier post.

Magdeburg Annals

PublishedMarch 23, 2021 Post authortorino

The German Annals of Magdeburg contain several mentions of paganism in the Suavic lands. The following comes from Meyer. The English is in substantial part from the Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa compilation (translators of the Latin texts include Julia Mendoza Tuñón and Sandra Romano Martín as well) with some exceptions and expanded by the addition of certain parts quoted by Meyer that Álvarez-Pedrosa’s book does not include. As usual, I also changed some of their English to better reflect (at least in my view) the text.

Entry under the year 938

“We do not consider it idle to dedicate a few words to the tradition of the ancients regarding the first founding of such a famous city, and where it go its name of Parthenopolis or Magdeburg. For that extremely powerful Caesar, called Julius as he was of the old line of Julus, son of Aeneas, once he had reached the category of dictator of Rome in the company of Crassus and Pompey, as he received all of Gaul as the third part of the Roman Empire, to subjugate through arms, when he arrived to the land of that people who had been entrusted to him, whether to rest more securely with his army, or whether to more easily dominate the tribes of the area, he founded several cities in suitable places for them, some of which he ordered tbe provided with wooden and earth walls, and most with a stone wall, so that, once the work was done, it would serve a multitude of people arriving en masse. Among these cities, and not the smallest, he founded this one in honor of Diana, as the pagans, in their absurd error, believed that she was the goddess of virginity; she was called parthena, from the word parthenu, which is how you say ‘virgin’ in Greek; and thus, from parthena, that is, Diana, he called the city Parthenopolis, that is, the city of the parthena. The Barbarian name is also recorded, because Magadeburg is how to say city of the virgin. Caesar himself also built within the city, according to the story, on the bank of the Elbe River, a temple, and inside an idol of Diana herself, where, having anointed many maidens to the practice of this religion, he arranged the sacred ceremonies for the goddess that posterity celebrated… Charlemagne… destroyed the altars of this idol and ordered that a chapel to protomartyr Saint Stephen be consecrated there.”*

[*note: The town of Magdeburg was also called Děvín in Czech (and Dziewin in Polish). This is generally assumed to be a late translation from 1700 of the German etymology of the city’s name, that is a city of women – from “Magd,” a young woman. Hence also the annalist’s reference to Parthenopolis – a city of maidens same etymology as that of the Parthenon – Παρθενώνας, Parthenónas – referring to “unmarried women’s apartments” being, most likely, a reference to Athena. A connection with the Parthians – their country being Parθava – is unlikely though given where the Greeks located the Amazons, possible. Other “Greek” names appear in Central Europe. For example, Partęczyny (Groß Partenschin). On the other hand, the annalist’s Diana reference brings to mind the Suavic Goddess Devana (also venerated apparently among the Sorbs) and provides an independent argument for an earlier dating of Děvín/Dziewin.]

Entry under the year 1147
(this describes the so-called Wendish Crusade)

“In the same year around the feast of SaintPeter’s, urged on by divine inspiration and Church authorities and reminded [of their duty?] by the many pious, a great host of Christians, taking with them the life-giving sign of the cross, went forth against the heathens who dwell in the north, in order either to bring them into Christianity’s fold or, with God’s help, to destroy them. In this fellowship there went Frederic the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Rudolf [the first] Bishop of Halberstadt, Werner [von Steußlingen Bishop of] Münster, Reinhard [Raynard of Querfurt the Bishop of] Merseburg, Wiggar [Bishop of] Brandenburg, Anselm [Bishop of] Havelberg, Henry [Zdík aka Jindřich Zdík, Bishop of] Moravia [Olomouc] and Wibald [of Stavelot aka Stablo] the abbot of Corvey; margrave Conrad [the Great], margrave Albert [the Bear], count palatine Frederick, count palatine Herman and many companions and sixty thousand armed fighters. In the meantime another group formed with Albert [the second] Archbishop of Bremen, Dietmar [the second] Bishop of Verden [an der Aller], Henry [III, the Lion] duke of Saxony, Conrad duke of Burgundy [?] [and] Hartwig, an esteemed leader with many companions and nobles and other armed men numbering forty thousand fighters. Also the King of Denmark [joined], with the bishops of his land and with the whole strength of his people; he collected a large number of ships and delivered an army consisting of about a hundred thousand soldiers. Also the brother of the duke of Poland came forth with twenty thousand fighting men. And his older brother [duke Bolesuav IV the Curly] also went forth against the barbarian Prussians and stayed there for a long time. The Ruthenians,* who, although they were not all Catholic, at least in name were Christians, by the unfathomable will of God, also joined the campaign against the Prussians with a large number of armed men.** All of them with a large apparatus of war and convoy and admirable devotion entered different places of the pagans’ land and the entire country trembled before them, and, traversing the country for almost three months, they destroyed everything, they set fire to the cities and towns, and they burned the temple along with the idols that were outside the city of Malchon*** together with the city itself.”

[*note: the Ukrainians/Rus]
[**note: This section appears to refer to the separate campaigns of Bolesuav IV the Curly (Kędzierzawy) against the Prussians which lasted from 1147 to 1166]
[***note: Malchow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin]

Entry under the year 1169

“In Syria, the Earth shook the foundations of Antioch and other cities, one of which a watery abyss attempted to swallow. Valdemar, king of the Danes, accompanied by the princes of the Lutici, went forth against the Rani, and burned their gods and, having taken much gold and silver from their famous temple, he imposed upon the Rani a semblance of Christianity, which in a short time, both because of his own greed, as well as the shortage of missionaries and apathy, ended. Daniel, the bishop of Prague died [in 1167 as per Prague Annals]; he was followed by Friedrich [Bedřich] from Magdeburg.”

Sub anno 938

“Sed antequam de hac fundatione plenius dicamus, non ociosum putamus, si de tam famose civitatis prima fundatione, et umde hoc nomen Parthenopolis sive Magadeburg suscepit, penes tradicionem veterum paucis perstringamus. Cesar igitur ille quondam potentissimus, ab Yulo Aeneae filio stirpis dirivatione cognominatus Iulius, dictatoris ordine cum Crasso et Pompeio sublimatus Romae, cum totam Galliam trinae divisionis Romano imperio armis subiugandam suscepisset, in has susceptae gentis partes veniens, tum ut eo tucius cum exercitu pausaret, tum ut circumpositas nationes facilius coerceret, plures competentibus in locis civitates condidit, quarum momnullas terrae lignique materia circumvallatas plerasque etiam murorum ambitu cinctas munire studuit, quantum opere festimato valuit inhianter accedens multitudo. lnter quas et hanc non infimam ad honorem Dianae condidit, quae quia apud gentiles dea virginitatis stulto errore credebatur, a parthenu , quod Grece virgo dicitur, ipsa parthena quoque vocabatur, sicque a parthena, id est Diana, Parthenopolim , id est parthenae urbem, appellavit. Quod etiam barbarum momen testatur, quia Magadeburg quasi virginis urbs dicitur. Fecit quoque idem Cesar intra urbem, ut fertur, iuxta ripam Albiae fluminis templum, immo ydolium eiusdem Dianae. ubi ad supplementum religionis pluribus virginibus dicatis, sacra deae statuit quae posteritas celebravit. Decursis post haec pluribus annis cum summae virtutis Karolus magnus sceptra regni gerens, ut suo in loco plenius digessimus, Saxoniam continuis bellorum procellis subactam ad fidem Christi convertisset, huius ydolii aras destruxit, et oratorium prothomartyris Stephani ibi dedicari fecit, et diocesi Halberstadensi ipsam civitatem subiecit.”

Sub anno 1147

“Eodem anno circa festum sancti Petri, divina inspiratione et apostolice auctoritatis exortatione et multorum religiosorum ammonitione, magna christiane militiae multitudo contra paganos versus aquilonem habitantes assumpto signo vivifice crucis exiverat, ut eos aut christiane religioni subderet, aut Deo auxiliante omnino deleret. Ubi in una societate convenerant Fridericus archiepiscopus Magadaburgensis, Rotholfus Halverstadensis episcopus, Wernherus Monasteriensis, Reinhaldus Mersburgensis, Wickerus Brandeburgensis, Anshelmus Havelbergensis, Heinricus Moraviensis episcopi et Wibolt Corbegensis abbas, Conradus marchio, Adalbertus marchio, Fridericus palatinus comes, Hermannus palatinus comes cum multis comitibus et armatis bellatoribus sexaginta milibus. Interim in alia societate se in unum collegerant Albero Bremensis archiepiscopus, Thietmarus Fardensis episcopus, Heinricus dux Saxonie, Conradus dux Burgundie, Hartwigus princeps prenobilis cum multis comitibus et nobilibus et ceteris armatis numero quadraginta milibus pugnatorum. Rex eciam Dacie cum episcopis terre illius et cum universo robore gentis sue, maxima multitudine classium collecta, circiter centum milibus exercitum paraverat. Item frater ducis Poloniae cum viginti milibus armatorum exiverat. Cuius etiam frater maior cum infinito exercitu adversus Pruscos crudelissimos barbaros venit, et diutius ibi moratus est. Contra quos etiam Rutheni, licet minus catholici tamen christiani nominis karacterem habentes, inestimabili Dei nutu cum maximis armatorum copiis exiverunt. Hi equidem omnes cum maximo apparatu et commeatu et mirabili devotione in diversis partibus terram paganorum ingressi sunt, et tota terra a facie eorum contremuit, et fere per tres menses peragrando omnia vastaverunt, civitates et oppida igni succenderunt, fanum eciam cum idolis quod erat ante civitatem Malchon, cum ipsa civitate.”

Sub anno 1169

“lm Syria Antiochia et aliae civitates terre motu a fundamentis concussae sunt, quarum una terre hiatu absorpta stagnantis abyssi faciem pretendit. Waldomarus rex Danorum, adiumctis sibi Liuticiorum principibus ad Rugianos profectus, deos eorum succidit, et multo auro et argemto de precipuo fano ipsorum ablato, umbram eis christianitatis impressit, que im brevi tam ipsius avaricia quam doctorum penuria et desidia abolita est. Daniel Pragensis Boemie episcopus obiit, cui subrogatur Fridericus, assumptus de choro Magdeburgensi.”

Theodorus Balsamon on the January Activities

PublishedMarch 22, 2021 Post authortorino

Theodore Balsamon (Greek: Θεόδωρος Βαλσαμῶν) was a canonist of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. He was active in the second half of the 12th century.

Balsamon Commentary on Canon 62

Franz Miklosich brought the following excerpt from Balsamon to the world’s attention writing in the Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschafte (volume 46, part III, 1864, page 387).

The excerpt comes from Balsamon’s commentary on the 62nd canon of the Council in Trullo (held in τρούλος meaning “dome” of Constantinople’s Imperial Palace) in the year s 691-692:

Subsequently, the same was republished by Karl Meyer in the appendix to his Fontes:

The English text follows (mostly) the Eugenio R. Luján Martínez translation from the volume on Suavic religion edited by Juan Antonio Álvarez–Pedrosa:

“And so it was that there existed among the Romans the custom of holding annually a pagan festival in memory of these and performing unworthy acts, which still occurs now among certain peasants on the first days of the month of January, not as with the Romans who commemorated the Calends and the rest but because this isi the time when the moon renews itself and its foundation is established from the beginning of that same month and they believe that they will have good fortune all year if they hold a festival when this begins Such a festival us an abomination asa re those called Rusalia, which take place after Easter due to the impious customs in the outer lands; they, they celebrate Bota and Brumalia the Greek festivities that are held in the name of the false god Pan.” [this last bit from the Miklosich piece.”

For the rest of the Migne edition see here.

Canon 62

The 12th century Rusalia were, likely, a Slavic phenomemon. However, it’s also worth citing the 7th century 62nd canon itself which had not been focused on the Slavs (from A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church” (series 2), edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, volume XIV, ed. H.R. Percival, 1890; as quoted by Timothy E. Gregory’s “A History of Byzantium”):

“The so-called Calends, and what are called Bota and Brumalia, and the full assembly which takes place on the first of March, we wish to be abolished from the life of the faithful. And the also the public dances of women, which may do much harm and mischief. Moreover we drive away from the life of Christians the dances given in the names of those falsely called gods by the Greeks whether of men or women, and which are performed after an ancient and un-Christian fashion; decreeing that no man from this time forth shall be dressed as a woman, nor any woman in the garb suitable to men. Nor shall he assume comic, satyric, or tragic masks; nor may men invoke the name of the execrable Bacchus when they squeeze wine in the presses; nor when pouring out wine into jars [to cause a laugh], practicing in ignorance and vanity the things which proceed from the deceit of insanity. Therefore, those who in the future attempt any of these things which are [here] written, having obtained a knowledge if them, if they be clerics we order them to be deposed, and if laymen to be cut off [from the Church].”

As another note, the name of Brumalia supposedly comes from brvma “winter solstice” or perhaps “winter cold.” This is assumed to be a shortening of reconstructed *brevima and yet it is interestingly close (and indeed closer to the Suavic brama meaning “gate”. Bota obviously looks quite like the Boda idol celebrated on the Bald Mountain. Finally, the “cross-dressing” aspect of these parties seems similar to some of the Iarilo festivals in Russia.

Latvian Poles Riding in the Sky

PublishedFebruary 11, 2021 Post authortorino

We’ve previously noted, as one of many mentions of Polish Gods, the following language:

“ysaya lado ylely ya ya…”

Ysaya, presumably refers to Yassa, Lado refers to Lado and Ylely to Leli. But what of the “ya ya”? A jajo is, of course, an “egg”. And an egg seems to fit the timeframe of Easter-Green Holidays with the celebration of the rebirth of nature. So is that the correct answer?

Perhaps. But remember that Jasień has in Polish folklore almost always been associated with a horse (koń or, diminutively, konik) and riding on that horse (jedzie meaning “he rides”). For example:

Oj niema sianka
tylko owsianka
na tém sérokiem polu
przyprowadź Boze
kogo ja kocham
na wroniusińskim koniu

Jedzie Jasieńko,
jedzie nadobny
po zielonej dąbrowie,
rozpuścił cugle
rozpuścił złote
konikowi na głowę.

or the following:

Wysła na pole,
stanęła w dole,
pod zielonym jaworem
i wyglądała
swego Jasieńka
oj z której strony jedzie

Oj jedzie, jedzie,
wesoło wsędzie
po zielonyj dąbrowie;
rozpuścił piórko
rozpuścił strusie
konikowi po głowie.

With all that in mind, let’s compare the Latvian Ūsiņš, who also rides a horse. As shown below (once again from Biezais’ Lichtgott der Alten Letten), rode a horse many a time. The Latvian “rode” is jāja.

So could we then have:

“ysa ya[ya] lado y lely yaya…”

“Yassa rode, Lado and Leli rode.”

As an added point of interest, if you want to know the Latvian for “horse”, it is zirgs. Now, “circus” is cognate with “circle” and the Romans named circular rings that served as arenas, circuses. If you want to know, however, what kind of a horse travels in a circle, an answer to that would undoubtedly have to acknowledge the sky horses of the Moon and the Sun.

On the Origin of the Name Mieszko

PublishedJanuary 16, 2021 Post authortorino

The meaning of the name of the Poles’ first historically-attested ruler – Mieszko (pronounced Mieshko) – has been a source of confusion, so to speak, for quite some time.

Jan Długosz concluded that this was a diminutive of Mieczysław as in “he who obtains fame by means of a sword” (miecz). Various academics mocked this because they claimed such a name was an invention of Długosz’s. However, this strictly speaking is not true. Długosz did not invent the name Mieczysław.

We have no idea what early Polish names sounded because the rules of spelling were nonexistent back then and the correct pronunciation today of such names is based on guessing. Some have hypothesized names such as Miecisław, Miecsław, Miesław, Miecław, Masław (the alleged Mazovian rebel against Casimir the Restorer), Mojsław or Miesław but those are mostly just guesses.

We do know that the Meczslaus, Meczzlaus or Meslaus are attested in the written source material. Here is an example (Meczslaus de Comeczsko dapifer Brestensis) from the court records relating to the lawsuits between Poland and the Teutonic Knights:

Note too that the Polish Brześć appears as was usual as Brest (much like the Brest in the “Venetic” Bretagne – take that for what you will).

In any event, Długosz did not invent the name Meczslaus. What Długosz did instead was twofold. First, he linked Mieszko to Meczslaus (claiming the former was a diminutive of the latter). Second, he provided an etymology of Mieczysław (claiming it was a name that had something to do with “swords”.

Mieszko may or may not have been diminutive. Certainly, names ending with an -o did exist in Poland, for example, Lesko, Jasco, Hanko. Now, maybe these were diminutives of Lech (?), Jan (?), Henry (?) but, if so, they were used in official records (which is how we know they existed) rather than the “full” names. Of course, further west, Germanic names also commonly ended with an -o: Bodo, Gero, Tassilo and so weiter. Were those too dimunitives? Who knows but likely not.

Let’s focus on the second claim made by Długosz, that Mieszko was connected to miecz – meaning “sword.” Is that likely? It’s possible.

On the other hand, Długosz’s predecessors Wincenty Kadłubek and the writer of the Greater Poland Chronicle seemed to connect the name to someone who miesza – meaning “mixes things up” or “stirs things up” in the sense of, in Mieszko’s case, introducing great changes such as the assertion of Polish claims against the Germans and others and introduction of Christianity. Interestingly, “mix” may be a cognate here of mieszać much as “mess” (though I will leave that to others).

Are there others etymologies? Sure. Some have connected the name to the diminutive name for a bear – miś or miśko. This is the same process as the Russian name Misha which refers to a bear but is a diminutive of Michael. This has served some to claim that Mieszko was a viking after all because Scandinavians have the name Björn which means the same thing – bear; the idea being that this was just a translation into Suavic.

Another suggestion was that the name has something to do with a mouse – mysz/mysza/mycha. So something like Myszko. This would have somehow connected Mieszko with the legendary King Popiel (Pompillius) who had the misfortune of being eaten by mice (how exactly though, the proponents of this theory do not tell us).

Ok, so now we have the following suggested etymologies:

sword (miecz);
mixing or stirring up (mieszać);
bear (miś or miśko); as well as
mouse (mysz/mysza/mycha);

Are there other possible etymologies?

How about a diminutive of the Polish word for “moon” – miesiąc (the Czech miesic or the OCS měsęc).

Of course, these etymologies are not entirely exclusive. Thus, for example, Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff, in discussing the etymology of the Suavic miecz – sword, muses (following Kiparsky) whether the word may have derived (in the case of both the Suavic and the Gothic meki/Crimean Gothic mycha (!)) from a Caucasian language. Kiparsky, it seems brought up Georgian, Lezgian and Udi words with a similar meaning to “sword”. The Georgian word – maχνα – refers to something “sharp” or a “sword.” The Lezgian word – maχ – is a word for “iron” Most interestingly, we have the Udi word – meχ – which stands for “sickle.”

So perhaps when the moon is out, the mice and bears and the roving bands of Suavic warriors with their crescent-shaped swords really mess/mix things up before order/harmony – ład -I s restored once again by the rising Sun (Łado?).

Whether the Germanic messer has some connection is another question. It seems to go back to a “food” (or “meat”?) knife. Somehow it all may have something to do with some IE tale of the body (Boda?) of Moon being cut up and eaten. If this sounds too a bit like the tale of Osiris, Isis and Set (sunset? 🙂 ), that is not surprising given Osiris’s lunar connections. Of course, the sword and scabbard have obvious sexual connotations as well (though the Polish po mieczu, though used in a genealogical context, refers rather to the fact that the sword was associated with men; what the story is with the English “rod” and the Suavic narod is another matter – suffice it to say that people have reconstructed a PIE *reudh- meaning “to clear land” and uncultivated land in Suavic is lada which, of course, is a term used for a female “beloved”. In any event there maybe be a rather good reason why “ploughing” may mean so many things).

Curiously, “knife” and gniew (“anger”) may well be cognates as well – whether these have something to do with Niya (Set?) is another question.

As a final interesting point, Udi speaking villages included such places as Vartashen in Georgia and Mihlikuvah in Azerbaijan. These – those not some of the other Udi placenames – appear IE in origin. Most interestingly, the primary remaining Udi village is nowadays Nij in Azerbaijan…

Getting back to the subject of this post. Perhaps those kinds of lunar, pagan overtones were why Mieszko had to quickly get himself a new Christian name. Whether Dagome was that name is another matter (Dzigoma is attested as a Polish name so a Scandinavian origin is not at all certain even if the scribe did get it right). Curiously, the Norse Dag – dagr – means “day”. (The moon-knife messer at night and the day-knife dagger for the day? Likely not, as the etymology of each suggests other origins but who really knows). Nevertheless, there is that tale of Mieszko having been born blind and then having miraculously recovered his sight – the mind (Mund, myśl, musli, Moon) runs wild with possibilities!

Poloni

PublishedJanuary 10, 2021 Post authortorino

It has become fashionable for certain elitist circles to try to denigrate Polish nationalism by pointing out that the idea of the “Polish nation” was for years restricted to the upper classes. The transparent intent is to take the air out of the nationalist balloon that had pumped up the rather overly pleased egos of some nationalists hailing from the plebeian classes – whether “worker” of “farmer” (though the former, if you look back a couple of generations, almost always leads to the latter). (An analogous mechanism is at work where similar elites throw various Jesus quotes at self-professed Christians with the putative aim of exposing hypocrisy and teaching Christians how to be better Christians but, where one suspects, the more immediately satisfying goal is that of deflating – by means of a “burn” – some bloated evangelical egos).

There is no doubt that Poland, for many years, was quite an inequitable place. On the one hand, the gentry was much larger than the Western European aristocracy and benefitted from privileges not accorded its western counterpart. On the other hand, the serf class existed in what became increasingly a slave-like system of land management.

Yet, is the above-cited claim correct? Were these serfs really not Poles in the full sense of the word? This writer would beg to differ.

One could point to the fact that, whatever the definition of the “nation” was in the 16-18th centuries, if we look back further in time we see that matters were initially different. Thus, for example, we could note that the peasant enjoyed more freedoms under the Piasts than under the Jagiellons and elective kings and more still under the earlier Piasts.

But aside from substance, there are other, symbolic, indications that the serfs were in fact seen as part of the nation no less than the non-landed Americans were seen as American by the U.S.’ Founding Fathers. The mistake here is to regard the right to vote as determinative of whether someone belongs to the Nation. That kind of an approach would redefine Nation to mean no more than the upper class (or caste).

For one thing, we have the foundation stories of the Poles (and the Czechs) which take great care to speak of the founders of the first dynasty such as Piast (and Premysl) as tillers, farmers. Even in the PVL’s take on the history of Kievan Rus, the indigenous Kievan Polans’ leaders – Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv and their sister Lybid – appear to have had no great claim of an aristocratic heritage.

But there is another reason to think that Poles – in the sense of a Nation – were, well, just Poles. When the sermon speaks of Nos, enim Poloni, tres deos habemus, scilicet Lada, Nya, Iassa – we note that these “Poloni” that the writer is referring to were not the writer’s own social niveau. They could not have been because the royal, priestly, warrior, bureaucrat and, likely also townsperson, classes, must have been, by the 15th century, mostly Christianized.

The people that the writer is referring to as the “Poloni” were the peasants with whose serious Christianization the Church was becoming concerned first in the 14th/15th century. And, indeed, the reports of the Polish Gods – Yassa, Lado and others (incidentally, Deos – not Deas – whether that interpretation was right is another matter) – come from the countryside. What is surprising about this is that – even in the 19th century – Polish ethnographers were recording the Names – Jasień and Łado – in peasant songs. In other words, even half a millennium later, the Church, in substance, failed to persuade the masses of the attractiveness of the “original sin” / “repentance” theology.