Gods, demons and customs of the ancient Slavs

The gods of lightning and war

For centuries, powerful natural phenomena have been a symbol of divinity and divine power for many cultures. Not without reason the attribute of the main god of ancient Greeks was a lightning. For the Germans the deity of the storm was Thor, while for the Hindu Ari, it was Indra - the thunderbolt master, the destroyer of the castles.

According to ancient Balts, Perkun (Perkunas, Perun) ruled over thunder and rain. The great Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote as early as the fifth century about the Slavs he knew, who believe that "only one god, the creator of lightning, is the master of the whole world and sacrifice oxen and all other sacrificial animals to him".

Nestor in his medieval lats in 980 wrote that in the temple in Kiev the Russian prince Vladimir the Great ordered the erection of statues of gods, the most important of which was to be Peru, and described it like this: "with a silver head and a golden moustache". Such a statue was exhibited to him in Novgorod. He was a powerful god of war, lightning and lightning and his symbols were: oak - holy tree, rock, hammer, axe, sword and horse.

The traces of the former perunar cult may be the names of Proho near Strzałków in today's Germany and in Poland - Pierunowy Dział nad Popradem (river on the Polish-Slovakian border) or Góra Klimont - the most important hill of Silesian Lędzin, originally called Pierunowa Górka. According to legends, it was a place of pagan worship, and later, as the Catholic church used to build its temples in important places of worship for the Slavs, a church dedicated to St. Clement - the apostle of peace - was erected here.

In different parts of the Slavic lands the lightning deity had different names, for example the West Slavic tribe of the wounds worshipped a god with a similar connotation in Gardziec on Rügen under the name Rujewit.

Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (1150-1220) wrote that in the temple in Gardziec there was a large statue of a deity carved of oak wood. He had seven heads, seven swords at the waist, and the eighth sword was held in hand. Inside the statue there was a nest of swallows, which the Slavs worshiped. They were an important perunal aspect, as these birds were "bringing in" a storm or rain.

According to Jan Długosz (1415-1480), the tribal deity of Mazovia was to be Łada, identified by him in "Anneles seu cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae" with the ancient Mars.

Medieval transmissions prove that also in Wallachia and Mimokowo (today's north-east Germany) the god named Jarowit was worshipped - Gerowit was also identified with Mars, the ancient god of war. His temple in Wallachia was destroyed only in 1128 by Bishop Otto.

Some people identify Jarowita with Świętowice. This is a controversial issue, but it should be noted that the general feature of Slavic gods is the interpenetration of the scope of power. The domination of the power of the war god of lightning and lightning had to be great, since the Slavs were convinced for a long time that rubbing the sick body with so-called "thunderbolt arrows". (folk term for belemic fossils), had healing properties. The legendary Perun Flower, also known as the Fern Flower, also had an extraordinary power, which gave the finder strength, wealth and wisdom.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator