#early slavs

[furordinaricvs]

Slavic fibula from Velestino hoard, 6th - 7th century, Greece. Velestino hoard is associated with confederation of East Slavic tribes, the Antes. Fibulas and figurines of the same type have been found in Ukraine.

[mostly-history]

While modern historians have written extensively about the worship of trees and springs, they have had much less to say about bear worship, as though it had been negligible or confined to certain tribes.  But this was not the case.  As chronicles and capitularies clearly attest, bear worship was widespread in both Germany and Scandinavia.  It was denounced early on by several missionaries who had ventured well beyond the Rhine.  In 742, for example, Saint Boniface, on a mission to Saxony, wrote a long letter to his friend Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, in which he mentioned among the 'appalling rituals of the pagans' the practice of disguising oneself as a bear and drinking the animal's blood before going into battle.  Thirty years later, in an official list prepared by prelates of the pagan superstitions of the Saxons to be combatted, the same practices were again denounced, along with others that were even more barbaric. These customs were nothing new.  From time immemorial the bear had been a particularly admired creature throughout the Germanic world.  Stronger than any animal, it was the king of the forest and of all the animals.  Warriors sought to imitate it and to imbue themselves with its powers through particularly savage rituals.  Clan chiefs and kings adopted the bear as their primary symbol and attempted to seize hold of its powers through the use of weapons and emblems.  But the Germans' veneration for the bear did not stop there.  In their eyes, it was not only an invincible animal and the incarnation of brute strength; it was also a being apart, an intermediary creature between the animal and human worlds, and even an ancestor or relative of humans.  As such, many beliefs collected around the bear and it was subject to several taboos, particularly with respect to its name.  In addition, the male bear was supposed to be attracted by young women and feel sexual desire for them: it often sought them out, sometimes carried them off and raped them, whereupon the women gave birth to creatures that were half man and half bear, who were always indomitable warriors and even the founders of prestigious family lines.  The border between human and animal was in this instance much more uncertain than the one described by monotheistic religions. In the eyes of the Church, all of this was absolutely horrifying, all the more so because worship of the great wild beast of the forest was not confined to the Germanic world.  It was also found among Slavs and to a lesser extent among Celts.  The Celts, of course, had been Christianized for several centuries, and their old animal cults had gradually adopted discreet forms, surviving primarily in poetry and oral tradition.  But this was not true of the Slavs, and they admired the bear as much as the Germans did.  Indeed, in a large part of non-Mediterranean Europe in the Carolingian period, the bear continued to be seen as a divine figure, an ancestral god whose worship took on various forms but remained solidly rooted, impeding the conversion of pagan peoples.  Almost everywhere, from the Alps to the Baltic, the bear stood as a rival to Christ.  The Church thought it appropriate to declare war on the bear, to fight him by all means possible, and to bring him down from his throne and his altars.

The Bear: History of a Fallen King

[furordinaricvs]

Rare ancient Slavic enameled brooch and chain set, Kiev culture 3rd to 5th century AD. Actual finding and modern reconstruction of it.

[xeraph2501]

‘‘ ...The major milestone in the Christianization of Moravia is traditionally attributed to the influence Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who arrived in Moravia in the year 863,’’

Yeah, everything was beautiful, except in every history book they forget to mention pressure imposed by the Holy Empire.