#slavic deities

[pigletpinks]

[blue-lotus333]

Female (gender-bend) Yarilo :333

[lesoldatmort]

Dazbog | Domovoj | Basilisk | Rusalka | Simargl | Rarog

Last remaining pieces for my Slavic Deities and Bestiary series I've been working on past year and a half. Big thanks to my Patrons for making it possible! It was an honour to have the opportunity to create portrayals like these.

The exhibition is officially over but prints and postcards will remain available online. You can browse my gallery anywhere to find the rest of the project or join my Patreon to even find articles based on my research I wrote to each of the deities and demons.

💀 PATREON | bsky | X | IG | Prints&merch

[lesoldatmort]

| PERUN |

The god of thunder and the Slayer of the serpent.

Perun, the most famous god in slavic pantheon. Thanks to many written sources, his iconography is well known, being god of thunder, sky, storms, mountains or even war. Given his popularity, he is woshipped to this very day.

More (folk)lore, info and WIPs of this project on my P/treon.

[rocky-the-rockstar]

Slavic Deities part 1

Veles

King of the underworld

God of magic, alchemy, earth, livestock, song, wealth, health, vegetation, trade, wisdom, and travel

Shapeshifter

✨trickery✨

Symbols

Bear

Dragon

Wolf

Snake

Cattle, sheep, goat, deer, etc

Willow

Offerings / Altar

Cooked corn

Bread

Herbs (especially basil)

Wooden flutes and stringed instruments

Imagery of His sacred animals

Black wool/fur

Cow bell

Things carved from wood

Opal, obsidian, onyx, moss agate, bloodstone (slavic gods weren’t often associated with specific crystals the way that we often do with the greek pantheon in modern worship, but it’s of course ok to offer them stones and these are just ones that I personally feel like would suit Him)

Gold, silver, metals

Coins and money

Holidays

Festival of Veles (February 11)

Some information for ya

Lives in caves and hallow trees

Dragons in Slavic folklore often had snake bodies and bear heads, representing Veles

Rebirth in humanity is represented in The Battle Between Perun and Veles, where Perun kills Veles. In which Veles represents our forebears, hence why he is sometimes referred to as grandfather

Very similar to worship of Pan, Hades, and other horned, underworld, or destruction deities: His cult and worship was deemed "demonic" by the spread of Christianity and forbidden

In addition, He bears a resemblance to Hermes and Loki in terms of attributes

(will add onto this later)

[leebird-simmer]

Russian Fairy Tales Test Prep: Pagan Deities

The best known roster of pagan deities is that of the six whose statues Prince Vladimir erected upon assuming sole rule of Kiev. According to the Primary Chronicle for the year 980, he “placed idols on a hill, outside the palace yard, a wooden Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, and Khors and Dazhbog and Stribog and Simargl and Mokosh.” Missing from this list is Volos/Veles, the god of cattle (skotnii bog) and commerce, whose veneration in ancient Rus’ is widely attested, and by whose name (along with that of Perun) ancient Russians ratified oaths.

A. Perun/Bog

1. equivalent to: Lithuanian Perkunas, Latvian Perkons, Albanian Perendi, Roman Jupiter, Greek Zeus, Hittite Teshub, Norse Thor/Donar, Celtic Taranis.  2. primary sources: Nestor’s Chronicle, mid-6th century Procopius, 10th-century Varangian treaties 3. primary story: a creation myth, in which he battles Veles, the Slavic god of the underworld, for the protection of his wife (Mokosh, goddess of summer) and the freedom of atmospheric water, as well as for the control of the universe. 4. dvoeverie: After Christianization in the 11th century CE, Perun's cult became associated with St. Elias (Elijah), also known as the Holy Prophet Ilie (or Ilija Muromets or Ilja Gromovik), who is said to have ridden madly with a chariot of fire across the sky, and punished his enemies with lightning bolts.

In Slavic mythology: Perun was the supreme god of the pre-Christian Slavic pantheon, although there is evidence that he supplanted Svarog (the god of the sun) as the leader at some point in history. Perun was a pagan warrior of heaven and patron protector of warriors. As the liberator of atmospheric water (through his creation tale battle with the dragon Veles), he was worshipped as a god of agriculture, and bulls and a few humans were sacrificed to him. In 988, the leader of the Kievan Rus' Vladimir I pulled down Perun's statue near Kyiv (Ukraine) and it was cast into the waters of the Dneiper River. As recently as 1950, people would cast gold coins in the Dneiper to honor Perun.

Appearance & Reputation: Perun is portrayed as a vigorous, red-bearded man with an imposing stature, with silver hair and a golden mustache. He carries a hammer, a war ax, and/or a bow with which he shoots bolts of lightning. He is associated with oxen and represented by a sacred tree—a mighty oak. He is sometimes illustrated as riding through the sky in a chariot drawn by a goat. In illustrations of his primary myth, he is sometimes pictured as an eagle sitting in the top branches of the tree, with his enemy and battle rival Veles the dragon curled around its roots.

Perun is associated with Thursday—the Slavic word for Thursday "Perendan" means "Perun's Day"—and his festival date was June 21.

Reports: The earliest reference to Perun is in the works of the Byzantine scholar Procopius (500–565 CE), who noted that the Slavs worshipped the "Maker of Lightning" as the lord over everything and the god to whom cattle and other victims were sacrificed.

Perun appears in several surviving Varangian (Rus) treaties beginning in 907 CE. In 945, a treaty between the Rus' leader Prince Igor (consort of Princess Olga) and the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII included a reference to Igor's men (the unbaptized ones) laying down their weapons, shields, and gold ornaments and taking an oath at a statue of Perun—the baptized ones worshipped at the nearby church of St. Elias. The Chronicle of Novgorod (compiled 1016–1471) reports that when the Perun shrine in that city was attacked, there was a serious uprising of the people, all suggesting that the myth had some long-term substance.

B. Kors/Xors/Chors

- most frequently mentioned Slavic god, after Perun - dvoeverie: appears in the apocryphal work Sermon and Apocalypse of the Holy Apostles, which mentions Perun and Khors as old men; Khors is said to live in Cyprus. Khors also appears in the apocryphal text Conversation of the Three Saints, a text which combines Slavic + Christian + Bogomil traditions. In it, he is referred to as “an angel of thunder” and it is said that he is Jewish. - his functions are uncertain and there are multiple interpretations of his name.

1. Sun God hypothesis: associated with Dazhbog; in The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, Prince Vseslav, who “came to Tmutarakani before the cocks" and "Khors ran his way", traveled from west to east and thus reached the castle before the cocks crowed, and in this way "overtook" the Sun; his name means “rays.”

2. Moon God hypothesis: Prince Vseslav was called “wolf” and his journey takes place at night when the sun is absent from the sky; his name does mean “rays” but they’re the moon’s rays and not the sun’s rays.

3. Fertility God/Vegetation hypothesis: link between Thracian & early Slavic cultures indicates Kors is more of a Dionysus-type figure, who dies and is risen; like Dionysus, Dazhbog (who Kors is often linked to) has a double nature (Eastern Slavs assign him solar qualities, while Southern Slavs assign him chthonic qualities).

C. Dazhbog

1. equivalent to: Khors (Russian/Iranian), Mithra (Persian), Helios (Greek), Lucifer (Christian) 2. primary sources: John Malalas, The Song of Igor’s Campaign 3. family: Son of Svarog, brother of fire god Svarozhich, husband of Mesyats (the moon), father of the Zoryi and Zvezdy 4. primary myth: He resided in the east, in a land of everlasting summer and plenty, in a palace made of gold. The morning and evening auroras, known collectively as Zorya, were his daughters. In the morning, Zorya opened the palace gates to allow Dazbog to leave the palace and begin his daily journey across the sky; in the evening, Zorya closed the gates after the sun returned in the evening. 5. dvoeverie: There was a belief that each winter he would enter people's homes and gift gold to those who had been good. That belief passed into Christianity, especially in Serbia, and this visitor was called Položajnik. During Christianisation, his cult was exchanged with the cult of Saint Sava, while Dažbog became lame Daba - the most powerful demon in Hell. Reasons why he was demonized are various, possibly because his cult was the strongest in Serbia or because he was considered also as the god of Nav, the Slavic underworld and world of the dead.

In Slavic mythology: Dazbog was the Slavic sun god, a role that is common to many Indo-European people, and there is ample evidence that there was a sun cult in the pre-Christian tribes of central Europe. His name means "day god" or "giving god," to different scholars—"Bog" is generally accepted to mean "god," but Daz means either "day" or "giving."

His totem animal was a wolf, therefore wolves were sacred animals and killing them was considered a great sin. Wolves were considered to be messengers of Dazhbog, while he himself could shift into a white wolf.

According to one myth, Svarog became tired of reigning over the universe and passed on his power to his sons, Dazhbog and Svarogich.

Appearance & Reputation: Dazbog is said to ride across the sky in a golden chariot drawn by fire-breathing horses who are white, gold, silver, or diamonds. In some tales, the horses are beautiful and white with golden wings, and sunlight comes from the solar fire shield Dazbog always carries with him. At night, Dazbog wanders the sky from east to west, crossing the great ocean with a boat pulled by geese, wild ducks, and swans.

In some tales, Dazbog starts out in the morning as a young, strong man but by the evening he is a red-faced, bloated elderly gentleman; he is reborn every morning. He represents fertility, male power, and in "The Song of Igor's Campaign" he is mentioned as the grandfather of the Slavs.

4. Stribog

Very little is known about him, although he was clearly very important to early Slavic peoples. In the epic ”Slovo o polku Igorove “ it is said that the winds, the grandsons of Stribog, blow from the sea. This leads to conclusion that Stribog is imagined as an old person, since he has grandsons. The grandsons were the winds from all directions.

Eagle was the animal consecrated to  Stribog. Plants consecrated to Stribog were hawthorn and oak. When pledges were made, Stribog was often warrantor. Festivities in Stribog’s honor were organized in the summer as well as in the winter. They were probably organized in the summer  in order to invocate winds and rain, while in the winter they were organized in order to appease him. In the period of Christianization Stribog’s characteristics were overtaken by St. Bartholomew and Stevan vetroviti (windy).

5. Simargl/Semargl

- may be equivalent to Simurgh in Persian mythology, who is portrayed similarly (winged lion and/or dog). He can also take human form. - God of physical fire (as opposed to celestial fire; that’s Svarog) - He is said to be the husband of Kupalnica (or Kupalnitsa), goddess of night, from whom he got two children: Kupalo and Kostroma.

Zorya, solar goddesses who are servants or daughters of the deity Dazhbog, keep Simargl chained to the star Polaris in the constellation Ursa Minor. Should he break free and destroy this constellation, it will cause the world to end.

Why would he be worshipped in Rus’, you ask? A couple of possible answers: a. Eastern Slavs borrowed Simargl from Sarmatian-Alanian people and worshiped him. b. Eastern Slavs never worshiped Simargl. Just at that time, a significant number of Kiev residents were of Khazar and Sarmatian-Alanian origin. Vladimir included their deity in the pantheon to get their support.

6. Volos/Veles (also Vlas, Weles Vlasii, St. Blaise, or Blasius)

1. equivalent to: Velinas (Baltic), Varuna (Vedic), Hermes (Greek), Odin (Norse) 2. primary sources: The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, old Russian chronicles 3. primary myth: a creation myth, in which Veles abducts Mokosh (the Goddess of Summer and consort of Perun, God of Thunder). Perun and his enemy battle for the universe under a huge oak, Perun's holy tree, similar to both Greek and Norse (Yggdrasil) mythologies. The battle is won by Perun, and afterward, the waters of the world are set free and flowing. 4. dvoeverie: Velia remains a feast of the dead in old Lithuanian, celebrating the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead, with Veles operating as a role of guiding souls to the underworld. The battle between Perun (Ilija Muromets or St. Elias) and Veles (Selevkiy) is found in many different forms, but in later stories, instead of gods, they are complementary figures separated from one another by a furrow plowed by Christ, who converts them. Veles is also likely represented by St. Vlasii, depicted in Russian iconography as surrounded by sheep, cows, and goats.

In Slavic mythology: A second creation myth associated with Veles is the formation of the boundary between the underworld and the human world, a result of a treaty forged between Veles and a shepherd/magician.

In the treaty, the unnamed shepherd pledges to sacrifice his best cow to Veles and keep many prohibitions. Then he divides the human world from the wild underworld led by Veles, which is either a furrow plowed by Veles himself or a groove across the road carved by the shepherd with a knife which the evil powers cannot cross.

Veles is associated with a wide variety of powers and protectors: he is associated with poetry and wisdom, the lord of the waters (oceans, seas, ships, and whirlpools). He is both the hunter and protector of cattle and the lord of the underworld, a reflection of the Indo-European concept of the netherworld as a pasture. He is also related to an ancient Slavic cult of the deceased soul; the ancient Lithuanian term "welis" means "dead" and "welci" means "dead souls."

Appearance & Reputation: Veles is generally portrayed as a bald human man, sometimes with bull horns on his head. In the epic creation battle between Velos and Perun, however, Veles is a serpent or dragon lying in a nest of black wool or on a black fleece beneath the World Tree; some scholars have suggested he was a shape-shifter. In addition to domestic horses, cows, goats, and sheep, Veles is associated with wolves, reptiles, and black birds (ravens and crows). 

Reports: The earliest reference to Veles is in the Rus-Byzantine Treaty of 971, in which the signers must swear by Veles' name. Violators of the treaty are warned of a menacing punishment: they will be killed by their own weapons and become "yellow as gold," which some scholars have interpreted as "cursed with a disease." If so, that would imply a connection to the Vedic god Varuna, also a cattle god who could send diseases to punish miscreants.

7. Mokosh

1. loosely comparable to: Gaia, Hera (Greek), Juno (Roman), Astarte (Semitic) 2. epithets: Goddess Who Spins Wool, Mother Moist Earth, Flax Woman 3. primary sources: Nestor Chronicle (a.k.a. Primary Chronicle), Christian-recorded Slavic tales 4. dvoeverie: With the coming of Christianity into the Slavic countries in the 11th century CE, Mokosh was converted to a saint, St. Paraskeva Pyanitsa (or possibly the Virgin Mary), who is sometimes defined as the personification of the day of Christ's crucifixion, and others a Christian martyr. Described as tall and thin with loose hair, St. Paraskeva Pyanitsa is known as "l'nianisa" (flax woman), connecting her to spinning. She is the patroness of merchants and traders and marriage, and she defends her followers from a range of diseases.

In Slavic mythology:  The origins of Mokosh as mother earth may date to pre-Indo-European times (Cuceteni or Tripolye culture, 6th–5th millennia BCE) when a near-global woman-centered religion is thought to have been in place. Some scholars suggest she may be a version of Finno-Ugric sun goddess Jumala. 

Mokosh, sometimes transliterated as Mokoš and meaning "Friday," is Moist Mother Earth and thus the most important (or sometimes only) goddess in the religion. As a creator, she is said to have been discovered sleeping in a cave by a flowering spring by the spring god Jarilo, with whom she created the fruits of the earth. She is also the protector of spinning, tending sheep, and wool, patron of merchants and fishermen, who protects cattle from plague and people from drought, disease, drowning, and unclean spirits.

Although the Great Goddess has a variety of consorts, both human and animal, in her role as a primary Slavic goddess, Mokosh is the moist earth goddess and is set against (and married to) Perun as the dry sky god. Some Slavic peasants felt it was wrong to spit on the earth or beat it. During the Spring, practitioners considered the earth pregnant: before March 25 ("Lady Day"), they would neither construct a building or a fence, drive a stake into the ground or sow seed. When peasant women gathered herbs they first lay prone and prayed to Mother Earth to bless any medicinal herbs.

Appearance & Reputation: Surviving images of Mokosh are rare—although there were stone monuments to her beginning at least as long ago as the 7th century. A wooden cult figure in a wooded area in the Czech Republic is said to be a figure of her. Historical references say she had a large head and long arms, a reference to her connection with spiders and spinning. Symbols associated with her include spindles and cloth, the rhombus (a nearly global reference to women's genitals for at least 20,000 years), and the Sacred Tree or Pillar.There are many goddesses in the various Indo-European pantheons who reference spiders and spinning. Historian Mary Kilbourne Matossian has pointed out that the Latin word for tissue "textere" means "to weave," and in several derivative languages such as Old French, "tissue" means "something woven." The act of spinning, suggests Matossian, is to create body tissue. The umbilical cord is the thread of life, transmitting moisture from the mother to the infant, twisted and coiled like the thread around a spindle. The final cloth of life is represented by the shroud or "winding sheet," wrapped around a corpse in a spiral, as thread loops around a spindle.

Our brief survey of agrarian holidays indicates that the peasant’s central concern is fertility and that special rites in the cemetery and/or rites involving a symbolic death & resurrection are a major component in these celebrations.

Belief in the absolute sanctity of “Mother Damp Earth” (Mat’syra zemlia) has been central to folk belief throughout the centuries. In remote areas, old people observed a ritual of asking the earth’s forgiveness prior to death into the 20th century. A number of scholars have maintained that peasants transferred attributes of earth worship to their particular veneration of Mary as “Mother of God.”

Fedotov: “At every step in studying Russian popular religion, one meets the constant longing for a great divine female power, be it embodied in the image of Mary or someone else. Is it too daring to hypothesize, on the basis of this religious propensity, the scattered elements of the cult of a Great Goddess who once...reigned upon the immense Russian plains?”

[crazymiraclecat]

Slavic mythology aesthetic - Živa

[rhiannonx]

another Morana art cuz she's my matron goddess