Category Archives: Religion

The Nordic Gods of Adam of Bremen

PublishedOctober 8, 2019 Post authortorino

Though Odin and Thor are clearly Nordic Gods, their relationship seems very much similar in development to that between the Suavic Jasion and Piorun. The first is a Sky God, the second the God of Thunder. This divergence is, of course, only possible with thunder becoming its own freestanding portfolio independent of the sky (to see an example see here). The divergence was pointed out in the Suavic pantheon by a number of scholars, most notably by the Polish professor Henryk Łowmiański (who, however, thought, I believe incorrectly, the Suavic Sky God’s name was Svarog). Among the Suavs this aspect (the coming of Thor into his own) may have been intrusive – coming from the Varangian Rus.

Indeed in the Nordic or Teutonic pantheon the divergence is illustrated by the usurpation of the Sky God’s central position by the God of Thunder. We see this most visibly in the report provided on the Gods of Uppsala by Adam of Bremen. Adam of Bremen’s description of the Suavic Gods we wrote about here. Now is the time to take a slight detour into that same author’s account of the Gods of Sweden. The following comes from Book IV (“A Description of the Islands of the North…”). For the Suavic parts of that Chronicle, see here (I will at some point also add the scholia which are interesting in and of themselves). The below also discusses some customs of the Swedes along with another reference to the Suavs in a scholium discussing barbarian polygamy. The translation is that of Francis Tschan who also translated the “Chronicle of the Slavs” (for which see here and here).

21. … Only in their sexual relations with women do they known o bounds*; a man according to his means has two or three or more wives at one time, rich men and princes an unlimited number. And they also consider the sons born of such unions legitimate. But if a man known another man’s wife , or by violence ravishes a virgin or spoils another of his goods or does him an injury, capital punishment is inflicted on him. Although all the Hyperboreans are known for their hospitality, our Swedes are so in particular. To deny wayfarers entertainment is to them the bases of all shameful deeds, so much so that there is strife and contention among them over who is worthy to receive a guest. They shown him every courtesy for as many days as he wishes to stay, vying with one another to take him to their friends in their several houses. These good traits they have in their customs. But they also cherish with great affection preachers of the truth if they are chaste and prudent and capable so much that they do not deny bishops attendance at the common assembly of the people that they call the Warh. There they often hear not unwillingly, about Christ and the Christian religion. And perhaps they might readily be persuaded of our faith by preaching but for bad teachers who, in seeking “their own; both the things that are Jesus Christ’s” give scandal to those whom they could save.

* Scholium 132 (127) says: “The Slavs also suffer from this vice, likewise the Parthians and the Mauri, as Lucan testifies about the Parthians and Salust about the Mauri.” See Lucan’s “Civil War” (8, 397-404) and Sallust’s “Jugurtha” (13.6).

22. … Whenever in fighting they [Swedes] are placed in a critical situation, they invoke the aid of one of the multitude of gods they worship. Then after the victory they are devoted to him and set him above the others, By common consent, however, they now declare that the God of the Christians is the most powerful of all. Other gods often fail them, but He always stands gym a surest “helper in due time in tribulation.”

23. … Our metropolitan [that is of Bremen] consecrated the third bishop, Adalward the elder, truly a praiseworthy man. When he thereupon came to the barbarians, he lived as he taught. For by his holy living and his good teaching he is said to have drawn a great multitude of heathen to the Christian faith, He was renowned, too, for his miraculous powers such was were shown when, the barbarians in their need having asked for rain, he had it fall, or again had fair weather come, and he worked other wonders that still are sought of teachers,..

24. Between Norway and Sweden dwell the Wärmilani and Finns and others; who are now all Christians and belong to the Church at Skara. On the confines of the Swedes and Norwegians toward the north Iive the Skritefingi, who, they say, outstrip wild beasts at running. Their largest city is Halsing land, to which the archbishop designated Stenphi as the first bishop, to whim he gave the name Simon. By his preaching he won many of those heathen. There are besides countless other Swedish peoples, of whim we have learned that only the Goths, the Wärmilani, and a part of the Skritefingi, and those in their vicinity, have been converted to Christianity,

25. Let us now proceed to vie a brief description of Sueonia or Sweden. On the west, Sweden has the Goths and the city of Skara; on the north, the Wärmilani with the Skritefingi whose chief is Halsingland; on the south, the length of the Baltic Sea, about which we have spoken before. There is the great city of Sigtuna. On the east, Sweden touches the Rhiphean Mountains, where there is an immense wasteland, the deepest snows, and where hordes of human monsters prevent access to what lies beyond. There are Amazons, and Cyneocephali, and Cyclops who have one eye on their foreheads; there are those Solinus calls Himantopodes, who hop on one foot, and theses who delight in human flesh as food, and they are shunned, so may they also rightfully be passed over in silence. The king of the Danes, often to be remembered, told me that a certain people were in the habit of descending from the highlands into the plains. They are small in stature but hardly matched by the Swedes in strength and agility. ‘Whence they come is not known. They come unexpectedly,’ he said, ‘sometimes once in the course of a year or after a three-year period. Unless they are resisted with all one’s might, they lay waste the whole region and then withdraw.’ Many other things are usually mentioned, but in my effort to be brief I have not mentioned them, letting those speak about them who declare they themselves have seen them. Now we shall say a few words about the superstitions of the Swedes.

26. That folk has a very famous temple called Uppsala, situated not far from the city of Sigtuna and Bjorko. In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statutes of three god in such wise the the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; Wotan and Frikko have places on either side. The significance of these gods is as follows: Thor, they say, presides over the air, which governs the thunder and lightning, the winds and rains, fair weather and crops. The other, Wotan—that is, the Furious—carries on war and imparts to man strength against his enemies. The third is Frikko, who bestows peace and pleasure on mortals. His likeness, too, they fashion with an immense phallus. But Wotan they chisel armed, as our people are wont to represent Mars. Thor with his scepter apparently resembles Jove. The people also worship heroes made gods, whom they endow with immortality because of their remarkable exploits, as one reads in the Vita of Saint Ansgar they did in the case of King Eric.

27. For all the gods there are appointed priests to offer sacrifices for the people. If plague and famine threaten, a libation is poured to the idol Thor; if war, to Wotan, if marriages are to be celebrated, to Frikko. It is customary also to solemnize in Uppsala, at nine-year intervals, a general feast of all the provinces of Sweden. From attendance at this festival no one is exempted. Kings and people all and singly send their gifts to Uppsala and, what is more distressing than any kind of punishment, those who have already adopted Christianity redeem themselves through these ceremonies. The sacrifice is of this nature: of every living thing that is male, they offer nine heads, with the blood of which it is customary to placate gods of this sort. The bodies they hang in the sacred grove that adjoins the temple, Now this grove is so sacred in the eyes of the heathen that each and every tree in it is believed divine because of the death of putrefaction of the victims. Even dogs and horses hang there with men. A Christian seventy-two years old told me that he had seen their bodies suspended promiscuously. Furthermore, the incantations customarily changed in the ritual of a sacrifice of this kind are manifold and unseemly; therefore, it is better to keep silence about them.

28. In that country there took place lately an event worth remembering and wildly published because it was noteworthy, and it also came to the archbishop’s attention. One of the priests who was won’t to serve the demons at Uppsala became blind and the help of the gods was of no avail. But as the man wisely ascribed the calamity of blindness to his worship of idols, by which superstitious veneration he had evidently offended the almighty God of the Christians, behold, that very night a most beautiful Virgin appeared to him and asked if he would believe in her Son, if to recover his sight he would put aside the images he had previously worshipped. Then he, who for the sake of this boon would refuse to undergo nothing that was hard, gladly promised he would. This the Virgin answered: ‘Be completely assured that this place in which so much innocent blood is now shed is very soon to be dedicated to my honor. That there may not remain any trace of count in your mind about this matter, receive the light of your eyes in the name of Christ, who is my Son.’ As soon as the priest recovered his sight, he believed and, going all the country about, easily persuaded the pagans of the faith so that they believed in Him who made the blind see…

Wiltzi the Geloni, their Wolves and Jason?

PublishedOctober 7, 2019 Post authortorino

Adam of Bremen says this (in the Francis Tschan translation as updated by Timothy Reuter):

“In that region too, are those who are called Alani or Albani, in their language named Wizii; very hard-hearted gluttons, born with gray hair. The writer Solinus mentions them. Dogs defend their country. Whenever the Alani have to fight they draw up their dogs in battle line.”

“That region” refers to the shores of the Baltic Sea and the land of the Amazons. This is probably around Mazovia. But who are these Wizzi? The connection with the Alani (Alans, presumably) via the translation of Albani seems dubious though possible. The Albani themselves were, like, Alans, a Caucasian people and the Albani reference seems more to the “whiteness” rather than to the people (but the Alans were blondish too as per Ammianus Marcellinus so who knows).

A scholium (124 or 120) to Adam says:

“In their language they are called Wilzi, most cruel gluttons whom the poet calls Gelani.”

This, itself is a reference to the “Geloni” of Lucan’s Civil War III. 283; and Plliny’s Natural History III. xiv-xv; and Vergil’s Georgics III.461.

The hair reference may be to Solinus’ “Collection of Curiosities” (Collectanea rerum memorabilia), chapter xv. Specifically, according to Tschan/Reuter, to these passages (translation by Arwen (!) Apps) which speak of the Albani (of the Caucasian Albania on the Caspian Sea?) but which may encompass the Geloni/Suavs (see below for the reasoning, such as it is):

“…The Albani, who inhabit the coast, and which themselves to be believed the posterity of Jason, are born with white hair. Their hair is white when it first begins to grow. Thus, the color of their heads gives this people their name. The pupils in their eyes are a bluish grey, so they see more clearly by night than by day. Dogs which excel all other beasts are born among this people. They subdue bulls, overwhelm lions, and hinder whatever they are presented with. For these reasons, they too merit to be spoken of in these chronicles. We read that as Alexander the Great was making for India, two dogs of this kind were sent to him by the king of Albania. One of them scorned the swine and bulls offered to him, as he was offended by such inferior and ignoble prey. He lay still for a long time, and Alexander, through ignorance, ordered him to be killed for a lazy animal. But the other at the advice of those who had brought the present, dispatched a lion sent to him Soon, seeing an elephant, he rejoiced; first, he cunningly fatigues the beast, and then, to the great wonder of the spectators, threw him to the ground. This kind of dog grows to a very large size, and makes, with awed-inspiring barking, a noise beyond the roaring of lions. The above items were specifically about Albanian dogs; the rest concerns the features common to all dogs. Dogs esteem all masters equally, as is well-known from sundry examples. In Epirus a dog recognized his master’s murderer in a crowd, and revealed him by barking. After Jason the Lycian was killed, his dog scorned food, and died from starvation. When the funeral pure of King Lysimachius was lit his dog there himself into the flames, and was consumed by the fire along with his master. The king of the Garamantes was broght back from exile by his two hundred dogs, who fought those who resisted them .The Colophians and Castabalenses lead their dogs to war, and in battle, build their front lines with them…”

Now, the Geloni had previously been tied to Suavs via their relationship with the Budinoi or Budini which was first mentioned by Herodotus (we’ll get to that at some point) but here, with the scholiast of Adam’s, there is a separate connection to the Suavic Veltae (the Veltoi first mentioned by Ptolemy), that is the Wieleci or Lutycy, to these same Geloni.

We will also cover the Geloni in more depth earlier but note also that the reference to Solinus’ Albani is too interesting because of the mention of dogs and of Jason. After all Wilcy means “wolves” in Suavic and that may, in fact, have been the origin of the Veltoi name.

Further, the “Jason” discussed by Solinus may, more accurately, be Iasion (the names are cognates and Jason may have come from the earlier Iasion) who may be the Yassa/Jasień of the Poles, the Usenj of the Russians and the Ūsiņš/Jeuseņš of the Latvians. Further, on Jason of the Scythians you can see more here (perhaps it was Solinus that was Isidore’s source).

Whether “Jason the Lycian” can also be seen as the progenitor of the Vindilici or of Lechites is another matter altogether.

Finally, although Solinus seems to refer to the Albani above and treats the Geloni separately, several aspects of the description of these Albani appear to recall the Suavs. Specifically, the Suavs are often blonde in childhood but their great grows darker as they mature. Further, their eyes are certainly, very often, exactly blue-gray.

Now Tschan is also famous for his translation of the Chronicle of the Slavs (see here and here).

Finally, it should be known that Solinus also mentions (though quoting Cornelius Nepos) the Veneti (chapter 44.1):

“Paphlagonia is surrounded in the reasr by the marches of Galatia. Paphlagonia faces Taurica from the promontory of Carambis, and rises to Mount Cytorus, which extends for thirty-six miles. It is famous for the place called Enetus, from which, as Cornelius Nepos holds, the Paphlagonians, soon to be known as the Veneti, crossed over into Italy.”

A different translation is given here.

Oldest Polish Coins

PublishedOctober 3, 2019 Post authortorino

The oldest Polish coin was for the longest time said to be this denarus issued by Mieszko I. In the 1990s, the Polish numismatist Suchodolski, based on the fact that the coin was being found in slightly younger troves, announced that, in fact, it was much younger dating to the times of Mieszko’s grandson, Mieszko II. (It also misspelled the name Mieszko as MTZLCO).

Here is that coin (let’s call it Type 1):

Here is another example. In each case notice the strange “E” symbol in addition to the cross.

Here is a drawing of the same.

And another version of one of the sides.

An alternative, now also pushed forward in time to Mieszko II’s rule, was this coin (with the name now spelled MISICO) – let’s call it Type 2:

Here is another version of it.

Finally, a drawing of the coin.

Given the prominent swastika on it (which corresponds to the “E”s and crosses in the first type), a rather non-Christian symbol at least as of that age, I am not convinced unless… this was a coin that had something to do with the pagan rebellion that took place in Poland at the end of Mieszko II’s reign.

In any event, Professor Suchodolski now claims that the following denarius – attributed to Bolesuav the Great (Mieszko I’s son and the father of Mieszko II) – is the oldest Polish coin (dated to about 992). The coin features an inscription BOLIZLAVO DUX. A “Byzantine” (indeed!) cross is featured in the back.

And here are some details in a picture.

There are three known copies. The first discovered and described by Tadeusz Wolański (about whom I wrote here and here as well as here and here). At the time, most claimed that Wolański faked the coin. However, two other samples were discovered at Rajsków (near Kalisz) and at Garsk (in Pomerania).

Of course, the question is what is depicted on it. There are blades or branches and in the middle of these there sits an arrow pointed upwards. Or if you will, there are seven branches and the arrow caps the middle one. Suchodolski claimed a Christian explanation of a “Tree of Life” with the arrow symbolizing the Word of God right in the middle thereof but, again, I am not so sure..

In any event, the realization that this may be the oldest Polish coin made the Polish Central Bank issue the following commemorative coin with a five złoty (zuoty) (which means effectively “golden” like a Dutch gulden or guilder) denomination.

And what about that “E” above or that looks like a fork? Well, check out these Kievan Rus coins featuring the trident or tryzúb (тризуб).

On potential Ukrainian-Polish connections see here. For the potential meaning of the trident see here and here.

O’Dan & Diva, Adam & Eva

PublishedSeptember 23, 2019 Post authortorino

One of the interesting aspects of the Suavic language are its numbers. I wrote about some of these quirks here but there are others. How about this:

“one” – Polish jeden, Russian один or odin
“two” – Polish dwa, Russian два or dva

That the word for the number one should refer to a God or, in the alternative, that a God should have been named using the word for “one” is interesting in and of itself. However, is this interpretation persuasive or is the above odin just coincidence?

Interestingly, the female may come to help (though, perhaps to the chagrin of feminists, literally in second place). How is that?

This, comes from Brueckner’s “The Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language” regarding the Polish dwa (“two”):

dwa: … Ancient word; ind. duwau, grec. dyō, łac. duō, ang. two, niem. zwei, lit. du, dwi, prus. dwai.

And what do we know of the word “two” in English? This comes from the “Online Etymology Dictionary”:

“Old English twa “two,” fem. and neuter form of twegen “two” (see twain), from Proto-Germanic *twa (source also of Old Saxon and Old Frisian twene, twa, Old Norse tveir, tvau, Dutch twee, Old High German zwene, zwo, German zwei, Gothic twai), from PIE *duwo, variant of root *dwo- “two.”

Ok, so what?

Here is a hint:

dziewa, dziewica, dziewka; dziewczyna, dziewczę

All these mean a (young) woman, a girl or virgin.

Thus, we have one and two, jeden and dwa, the male and the female and the male Deity and the female Deity. This hearkens back to Iasion and Demeter.

The Polish dziewa is of the same root as the word diva which the same etymological dictionary derives as follows:

diva (n.) “distinguished woman singer, prima donna,” 1864, from Italian diva “goddess, fine lady,” from Latin diva”goddess,” fem. of divus “a god, divine (one),” related to deus “god, deity” (from PIE root *dyeu- “to shine,” in derivatives “sky, heaven, god”).

Note too the Suavic words for “day”:

dzień (Pol)
den‘/день (Rus)
den (Czech)
dan (Slovenian)
dan/дaн (Serbo-Croatian)
deň (Slovak)

What is interesting is that the Danube (and other river names) are derived from PIE *danu- “river.” The worship of rivers may have eventually led to the adoption of the word Don or Dan to mean as much as “Lord” such as Adonis (derived from the Canaanite ʼadōn which is probably the source, so to speak, too of, or at least related to, the Hebrew Adonai).

Interestingly, the River Don also appears in Aberdeenshire where its name is derived from the Celtic Devona “goddess.” Needless, to say that Devona sounds very much like the Polish Dziewanna.

Incidentally, the autocorrect feature changes, were you to attempt to type it, dva into eva. Take that for what you will.

Of Coins and Their Sky Riders

PublishedSeptember 19, 2019 Post authortorino

The motif of a rider with various celestial signs has been present throughout Europe. Here are some examples. The Celtic and Germanic rider is from the Wolanski collection (full disclosure: flipped the Celtic one so as to make him go in the same direction) but you can find similar coins in abundance. The Suavic coin is a coin issued by Bolesuav II the Bold. You can clearly see the triskelle, the swastika and, in Bolesuav’s case, an “S”.

What is that “S”? Some believe it is a minter’s sign. If so, it would have been one very prominent minter. Some variations include what looks like a sideways “H”. Was this then intended as an “HS” and somehow a symbol of a warrior of Christ? There are other variations of the coin that clearly show a cross but the “S” is far more prominent in these coins and most do not seem to have an “H” at all.

Notice too the “lance”. It looks like a lance but… it also looks like a Jasieńczyk symbol or a type of an ansuz rune. For more on that see here.

Finally, note that Bolesuav II was also the king who took on Bishop Stanisuav (the patron saint of Poland by virtue of having been abused by Bolesuav) and issued the following coin.

This was supposed to have been a cross of Saint-John’s though the name Iohannes is featured on the side without the cross whereas the name Bolezlaus is featured on the side with the cross. The cross where only one set of arms is bent is, of course, reminiscent of the “swastika” found on some of the coins of Mieszko (whether I or the II is another matter). See here for that.

To put it mildly, these symbols are ambiguous and can be read as a way of sneaking in pre-Christian beliefs into what was then, formally, a Christian state – particularly by those rulers who, like Bolesuav II, were not always seeing eye to eye with the Church hierarchy.

Incidentally, it should be clear that this “swastika’ or “triskelle” or, perhaps too the “S” have nothing to do with “fire.” These symbols are symbols of motion and, specifically, if I may venture a guess, of rotational star motion.

An interesting example of a rider is on the so-called Leźno (by Kartuzy) stone (Głaz z Leźna) (German Grosslessen) as can be seen here (at the Gdańsk Archeology Museum). The pictures are from the museum as well as from lucivo.pl website and the article is by Weigel:

Finally, as to Who exactly may be pictured in all of these, see here.

Czechs & Balts

PublishedSeptember 12, 2019 Post authortorino

The relatedness of some Suavic and Baltic Gods can be shown by references to the same vegetation Deity – Zelu. This name appears in the Czech Neplach but also is reported – as Želus – among the Prussians by Matthäus Prätorius (1635 – 1704) in his Deliciae Prussicae oder Preussische Schaubühne (written in 1698 but not published till 1871).

The name may also appear in Laskowski or in the De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum et falsorum Christianorumi if I recall correctly.

It seems that this is the “Green Deity” the God of Vegetation though because of the Suavic Jarylo/Yarylo‘s connection with yar, it seems that this is simply another name for Yassa/Jassa or Jarowit/Yarovit/Gerovit.

Curiously, while Jassa and Jarylo bear clear connections to the word jar and Jahr/year, Zelu may not only be cognate with the obvious ziele (herb) and hence zielony (green) which is derived from it – but also may bear a connection to the word “zealot” as in eifrig, jarski that is animated, driven – adjectives very connected withe the growth of vegetation in the spring, that is the return of Life to the Earth.

Jasien and Piorun

PublishedSeptember 9, 2019 Post authortorino

I do not necessarily agree with the stuff that Jason Colavito writes here in his “Jason and the Argonatus Through the Ages” but I think his observations about the distinction between Jason and the Storm God are interesting and point the way to new research. This is the same distinction that I wrote about before – the distinction between Jasien and Piorun, between Iasion/Jason and Zeus and between the Aesir and Thor/Tarhunt/Taranus.

“Yet we sense in the evidence that has come down to us a tension between the ‘popular’ Jason myth and the elite poets who operated in Greek literary culture. Homer clearly knew of Jason and chose to minimize him, almost with a whiff of disapproval. The iconographic evidence records exciting and magical adventures the Archaic and Classical poets appear to have purposely rejected or dramatically transformed. I think the reason for this is because the Argonaut story reflects religious ideas that belonged to another time and were no longer in favor among the elite of Dark Age and Archaic Greece. The earliest Jason stories reflect a time when Hera was far more powerful that she would be in Classical Greece, when she was an earth goddess and could even have headed the pantheon of gods in some places. The earliest Jason stories also reflect a culture where humans and chthonic gods interacted closely, and humans could wield heard-divine supernatural powers, including Jason’s own powers of extraordinary healing. We know that in the Iliad Homer (or, perhaps more likely the Dark Age poets whose stories he drew upon) purposely transformed Hera from a powerful and beneficent goddess to the angry but subordinate consort of the all-powerful Zeus. Similarly, Hesiod too takes great pains to place Zeus supreme above a much diminished Hera.

This, then, must be the reason that the Jason story found no great Homeric epic – he was too closely associated with the old, Mycaeneam-era worship of Hera, a hero closely entwined with a chthonic goodies and the unsettling supernatural powers associated with the old religion. Such subjects were clearly inappropriate for the pious poets of Zeus. Only when a way could be found to transform the popular hero into a Greek worthy of Zeus’s divine grace could Jason form a suitable subject for the highest levels of elite poetry. This, I would suggest, accounts for the origins of Medea, a pointedly non-Greek figure who derived from the earth goddess (who, of course, was now also alien to Green religion) and could absorb the unwelcome, impious aspects of Jason’s supernatural power. Through this innovation, the story of Jason could be welcomed back into the fold of elite myths. But something had been lost.

In the attempt to reach into the dragon’s belly and resurrect the Jason of ancient myth, we are confronted with a chasm between the Mycenaean faith and that of Homer, between the religion of Hera and that of Zeus, between the gods who live in the earth and those who live in the sky. Jason’s voyage, then, is at one level a voyage between the lands of the living and the dead, and at a larger level a voyage between the earliest human faith and the powerful new religious order dawning across the Western world. Wherever the storm god went, from Greece to Persia to India, even down into Israel, where he would take the name Yahweh, the storm god came to reign supreme, replacing the worship of Hera, Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Astarte, and all her kith and kin. When Jason left Iolcus, he did so with the aid of Hera. When he returned from Colchis. he had come back with the golden fleece dedicated to the glory of Zeus and had brought back to Greece the symbol of the supremacy of a powerful and terrible new god.“

The above fits into a Gimbutas-like narrative of a matriarchal society overturned by, potentially IE-speaking, invaders from the East with their violent storm gods.

This is, I think, an incomplete story. The story of Jason is the story of Iasion and of Demeter (Dea meter) or Jeusens and, potentially, Ceres-Marzanna (though that latter name became associated with the cold season and dying – this is suggested by the fact that in Suavic the word for the Earth and for winter are quite similar – ziemia and zima). The key that Jasienczyk sports is the key to, if you will excuse the seemingly apt analogy, the Earth’s (Mother Goddess’) chastity belt – which opens in the spring and closes in the fall. But Jasion/Iasien is, himself a Sky God – the rider on a horse – though a God that dies with the passing of the summer season (after the “deed”, if you will, of impregnating and harvesting the Earth) and is reborn in the winter.

The thunder it seems to me was originally an aspect of the Sky God that, over time, morphed into the worship of a separate Deity – Thor/Taranus. When the Rus invaded the Polan land of Ukraine they brought Thor with them and the local Suavs adapted the name Piorun/Perun for the new Deity. But Piorun/Pierun/Perun or the Baltic Perkunas seems to have been the same God-Father, Sky-Rider as Iasion. That is why we have Jasny Piorun.

There is a coin that was unearthed in Hungary that shows this quite well. The Sky Rider’s face is shown with a tear streaking down his cheek – that tear is in the shape of a spear or lightning. This is a hugely evocative image as it suggests that the rain with thunder is merely the angry Sky God crying – perhaps for Mother Earth. Surrounding the rider are obviously images of various constellations.

Before Kolberg There Was Gołębiowski

PublishedSeptember 8, 2019 Post authortorino

Oskar Kolberg is the premiere Polish ethnographer of the 19th century. But before there was Kolberg, there was Łukasz Gołębiowski (1773 – 1849). In fact, Kolberg himself frequently cited Gołębiowski. An interesting description of the Lublin marriage customs comes from his “The Polish Folk: Its Customs and Superstitions” (Lud Polski : jego zwyczaje, zabobony). As you will note the ceremonies involved the frequent invocation of a youthful rider – Jaś as well as of Łado or Łada.

I might try to translate some of this later. In meantime click away. Gołębiowski wrote many other ethnographic books. Himself being born in Pohost in today’s Belarus, he also reported on Belorussian and Lithuanian customs.

Going Back to Those Polish Rosettes

PublishedSeptember 1, 2019 Post authortorino

Regarding the rosette sign from the territories (or former territories) of Poland, here are a few examples from the “Folkart in Poland” (Sztuka Ludowa w Polsce) by Kazimierz Mokłowski from 1903. For other examples you can see here. Of course, if you really want to see rosettes, check out Romania – the place is full of them.

Violin from Bilgoraj

On the left we have the Bilgoraj violin. On the right another string instrument – the so-called Lithuanian klawec from East Prussia

Chest from Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanisławów)

Pomeranian Chairs

These chairs’ rosettes are not the usual hexapetal rosettes but they are quite similar so I also include them.

Jabłonowo Prayer Stand

This is from a bóżnica – a Jewish temple. Note that the symbol is, of course, also represented in other Jewish art such as the Magdala Stone.

Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanisławów) Table

Another Table
(more contemporary)

Podhale Spoon Holder

These are so-called łyżniki – spoon racks. If you look closely, you will see the same hexapetal rosette.

Sosrębs From Little Poland (Bogusza near Grybów in the Nowy Sącz Area) and Great Poland (Gniezno Area)

A sosręb is a beam holding up a roof. It was common in Poland to carve images of the rosette in such beams. Below you have examples from Bogusza (near Grybów in the Nowy Sącz area), Gniezno (from the local collegiate church!) and from Kłecko (near Gniezno).

The final example is from Kniahynyn (Knihin) in the Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanisławów) area. Though this sosręb does not feature a rosette – rather a type of a cross made up of triangles.

The Gniezno sosręb is from 1750. The Kłecko sosręb is from 1733. The Knihinin sosręb is from 1886.

Lviv (Lwów/Lemberg) Sosrębs

This sosręb dates to 1669,

And this sosręb dates to 1690.

Huculsko or Huculszczyzna

This sosręb is from Huculsko or Huculszczyzna – today’s Ukrainian Гуцу́льщина. The text also describes other examples from other places in Poland (e.g., Pomerania).

Here are a few rings from Moszyński’s Suavic Folk Culture – the one on the right features a similar rosette motif:

In Defense of P(io/e)run?

PublishedAugust 16, 2019 Post authortorino

I have never been a fan of “Perun” as an “all-Suavic” God. The reason is simple. Outside of the Eastern Suavs of Kiev and the Balts (Perkunas), references to Perun are nonexistent. In Poland, you have Yassa who may be viewed the same as the titular Svantovit of Arkona. In some Western Suavic lands you have Svarozic. That much is attested. Of course, the Perun word comes form a Suavic (likely all the way back to PIE) word. Thus Piorun > Perun > Perkunas (Perku-nas?). But this is merely a word for an obviously unnerving atmospheric phenomenon. That the Suavs, like many other people, should associate thunder and lightning with a divinity is not surprising and perhaps even quite expected but there is a long way from that to having a “specialized” thunder God whose primary (and perhaps only) aspect is that thunder. That such a dedicated God of Thunder may have arisen among the Eastern Suavs even independent of any Scandinavian influence is naturally possible but, if so, there is no evidence of this God being worshipped among the other – western – Suavs (a better candidate there is Tyr/Taranus whose name seems to have survived in, for example, the Polish taran and perhaps also tija known from the statuta breviter). I have also questioned whether the God found in the famous passage by Procopius was in fact Piorun/Perun or Someone Else (the maker of lightning – not thunder!) – specifically, “Jassa” that is Iasion. I have not, however, questioned the underlying truth of the passage, that is that the God mentioned by Procopius was a genuine Suavic God.

Let’s give that passage again (History of Wars, Book 7, 14):

“For they believe that one god, the maker of the lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him cattle and all other victims.”

Now, however, here come Florin Curta and Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski who in their “The Velestino Hoard” book make the following surprising statement:

“It is now generally accepted that, far from being a genuine description of Slavic religion, Procopius’ account is in fact an attempt to present Slavic paganism as comparable if not similar to Greek pagan mythology. The reference to the god of thunder is therefore to Zeus, not to Perun, who was unknown to both Procopius and the sixth-century Sclavenes he described in his Wars. See Aleksander Loma, ‘Procopius about the supreme god of the Slavs (Bella VII 14, 23): Two critical remarks…’ To Jerzy Strzelczyk… Perun was unknown to the Slavs before the tenth century, when Thor of the Norse mythology was introduced by Varangians to Rus. For a critique of attempts to ‘read’ into Procopius much later sources pertaining to the religion of the Slavs, see Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel, Slavic Gods and Heroes…”

The prolific Curta – an archeologist and not a historian – has made his career out of asserting that the Byzantines “created” the Suavs. I’ve critiqued this bizarre suggestion on linguistic, historical and genetic grounds before (see here). Its worst sin, as discussed, is that it is merely a retread of the same deconstructionist theories circulated earlier about the Germans (that the Romans “created” the Germans in the same sense). All these theories make as much sense as claiming that humans created the “elephant identity” by calling these big eared creatures with their funny trunks by the name “elephants”.

What is interesting about the above passage, however, are the (once again given Curta’s involvement) exaggerated claims it makes.

If Curta and Szmoniewski were writing a Wikipedia entry, the Wikipedia editors would no doubt have met the assertion of “It is now generally accepted that…” with the notorious “[by whom?]”.

Presumably, the “general acceptance” of the fact that Procopius’ God was Zeus (!) is derived solely from Loma. The main problem and, shall we say, the quintessential one, is that Loma says nothing of the sort. Here is the referenced article:

As you can see Loma makes no connection between the God mentioned by Procopius and Zeus.

Now Curta and Szmoniewski do not claim that they pulled this “the Christian Bishop Procopius is talking about Zeus” thing out of their asses. They could have done that but that’s not what they say.

No, no. They say that this proposition is a “generally accepted” proposition.

They then give one source (Loma who is a Serbian philologist) who, as it happens, does not support their “generally accepted” proposition but, in fact, says something else (his article is primarily concerned with the correct reading of the passage rather than its subsequent interpretation) and leave quite open the possibility that the reference is to Perun.

Although the authors cite the Polish historian Strzelczyk for an entirely different proposition (that Perun was Varangian in origin), I did not check whether he somehow could be used to salvage their initial claim. Feel free to try that on your own.

As for Uchitel and Kalik, two Israeli academics of unrelated matters, the main value of their heavily negativistic booklet (much of it a retread of Brueckner’s own deconstructionist ideas) is the very timid criticism of Curta’s theories…

(Specifically, they say, ‘well, maybe Byzantines may have constructed the Slavic identity but surely someone spoke the Slavic language before that ‘construction’ happened so… where did those people live?’ Which seems a more than reasonable question to ask, even if ever so timidly.)

I am willing to assume this is not bad faith but merely extreme laziness in proofreading propelled by a heavy dose of wishful thinking on the part of the authors. On the other hand, given Curta’s other theories, one might say, enough is enough. Whatever the root cause, how does this crap get published? Don’t these guys have editors who would check their foonotes and challenge their assertions? Or do they just run this through a spell check and off to the printers we go.

Finally, to leave you with something more interesting to think about regarding “Zeus” and Piorun – check this out.