The river Omulew starts in Masuria at the lake of the same way and then winds its way all the way to the Narew at Ostrołęka, Poland. In 1911 someone found an ornamental mace which found itself into the collection of a certain Russian gentleman. He left Poland after World War I along with the withdrawing Russian administration but before he did a Polish archeology enthusiast managed to examine this mace. Here it is.
Note the striking similarity to Rybakov’s Jaszers.
Finally, and this is a topic for another time, we can ask why “pagan” in Russian is called a yazichnik (язычник) and paganism yazichestvo (Язы́чество). Similar words exist in other Suavic countries – Язи́чництво in Ukrainian, for example. These words may refer to “tongues”, to “nations” or to the Iazyges. They may provide hints as to the formation of the Suavs out of the Suevi, Veneti and, perhaps via Pannonia, the Sarmatian Iazyges. Or they may just hint at common roots. Whether this implicates the Balts as well is another matter since, where they lived, various lizards were worshipped as house Deities. A question may also be asked whether the slaying of the Krakow dragon by Krak and his crew is a reflection of some Norse (an earlier version of Hrólfr Kraki?) or even earlier Vandal (Crocus?) confrontation with the local dragon cult – a cult that may reach back to the Norse’ own Aesir and the Greeks’ or Mycenaeans Iasion and Jason who seem to have the same roots as Sky Gods with an agricultural connotation. The Dacian dragons (note that, curiously, may Slavic hydronims appear in Romania, a place where the Slavic presence has, by most accounts, been relatively brief) also come to mind of course.
Here is the Slovenian or Venetic dragon at Ljubljana.
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Dragons, finally.
English Wikipedia, Lusitanian_mythology
“Two regional deities in Western Iberia do not occur in the region: Crouga, worshipped around Viseu (…)”
Kraka worshipped around Wiseł?!?
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First about the name of Viseu (deepL translation):
DIVINDADES INDÍGENAS NUMA ARA INÉDITA DE VISEU
Luís da Silva Fernandes, Pedro Sobral Carvalho, Nádia Figueira
Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9 (2009), pp. 143-155
“3. THE NAME OF VISEU
The text under consideration also contributes to clarifying the question of the Viseu’s old name. In fact, from the reading of the topical epithet used (Vissaieigobor) it is possible to infer a primitive form *Vissaium (so far not found in written source) from which the current name of Viseu. Over a long period of time, several researchers discussed the question of the remote origins of the name of Viseu, not always with great the historian Maximiano de Aragón 1894, 25-34. In reality, the oldest written reference dates back to the sixth century, under the the Viseo form, in the Sweavian Parish.25 In the following century, the coinage of the Visigothic, in which pre-Roman toponyms persist, documents Veseo (War 1999, 426). In these two centuries, the minutes of various Councils oscillate between Veseo / Beseo and Biseo forms: 572 (2nd Council of Braga): Bisensis ecclesiae episcopus; 589 (III Council of Toledo): civitatis Vesensis episcopus; 681 (XII Council of Toledo): Besensis ecclesiae episcopus; 693 (XVI Council of Toledo): Vesensis episcopus (see Ribeiro 1989, 137-138,n. n. 7). The subsequent documentation will register the form Viseo, appearing Viseu in records from the 12th century (Machado, 1984, 1482).”
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Wikipedia, Coco_(folklore)
“Coca is a female dragon”
and
“In Galicia there are still two dragon cocas, one in Betanzos the other in Redondela. The legend says that the dragon arrived from the sea and was devouring the young women and was killed in combat by the young men of the city.”
etc.
“”In Galicia, crouca means “head”, from proto-Celtic *krowkā-, with variant cróca; and either coco or coca means “head”. It is cognate with Cornish crogen, meaning “skull”, and Breton krogen ar penn, also meaning “skull”. In Irish, clocan means “skull”.”
“The word “cocuruto” in Portuguese means the crown of the head and the highest place.”
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Wikipedia in Celtic_deities article links Crouga with Irish Crom Cruach.
“Crom Cruach’s name takes several forms and can be interpreted in several ways. Crom (or cromm) can mean “bent, crooked, stooped”. Cenn can mean “head” or “the head, chief”. Cruach (or crúach) can be an adjective, “bloody, gory”, or a noun, meaning variously “slaughter”, “stack of corn”, or “pile, heap, mound”. Plausible meanings include “bloody crooked one”, “crooked stack of corn”, “crooked one of the mound”, “bloody head”, “head of the stack of corn” or “head of the mound”.”
Crown of the head, highest place, head of the mound… Was Krakus, a king residing on the Wawel hill, a dragon?
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Wikipedia, Wawel_Dragon
“According to Wincenty Kadłubek’s Polish Chronicle, the Wawel dragon appeared during the reign of King Krakus (lat. Gracchus).”
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
“Then the brothers argued about who deserved the honor for slaying the dragon. The older brother killed the younger brother Grakch (Krakus), and told others that the dragon killed him.”
So at the same time when dragon was killed, (other) Krakus died too?