Though the ancient Slavi were, as we have seen, a very rude and barbarous people, they appear to have been elevated in their religious ideas and their conceptions of the nature of the Deity far above the Turanian nations and the Siberians, who worshipped the material and visible universe, and were addicted to the superstition of the Schamanists, or the Fetisism of the North. They held, as we shall observe, the oriental dogma of two principles, which gives evidence that their belief was connected with the ancient religion of Iran. They were polytheists in the sense in which most nations may be so termed; that is, they believed the existence of many invisible agents, but they supposed all of them to be under the command of a supreme ruler. "The Sclaveni-Exλavo-says Procopius, worship one God, the maker of lightning—τὸν τῆς ̓Αστραπῆς dnμovpyóv. They regard him as the sole governor of the universe, and sacrifice to him oxen and victims of all descriptions. They likewise pay veneration to rivers and nymphs and some other inferior divinities: to all these they perform offerings and sacrifices, in the midst of which they make divinations."*

might look for authentic and correct accounts. There are three German historians of the middle ages who are regarded as principal sources of information on the mythology and worship of the Slavi. The first of these is Dithmar, a Count of Waldeck and bishop of Merseburg. This writer lived at the beginning of the eleventh century, at a period when the idolatrous worship of the Obotrites at Rhetra, which was its principal centre, had been restored, after a temporary abolition, effected through the zeal of Christian missionaries and princes. He wrote a chronicle of the history of Henry I. and the three Othos, and died before the year 1030. His work was published at Helmstadt in 1667, and was included by Leibnitz in his collection of the Brunswick historians. The second writer is Adam of Bremen, who lived in the same century, had much intercourse with the Wends, particularly the Wagrians or Wends of Holstein, and wrote an ecclesiastical history, extending from the year 778 to 1072. A third writer is Helmoldus, whose history of the Slavi or "Chronica Slavorum” was published by Henry Bangert, at Lubeck, in 1702. These three historians treat almost exclusively of the western branches of the Wends in Mecklenburg and Holstein. There are a few scattered notices to be collected from other writers respecting the superstitions of the more eastern tribes of the same stock, as the Sorabians, the Moravians, Bohemians, Poles, and Russians. Lastly, considerable light has been thrown on the same subject, by the remains of statues and figures of the Slavonic gods, and the implements of superstitious rites, which have been found in different parts of the Wendish country, and particularly, as we shall have occasion to observe, by some curious and unexpected discoveries of inscriptions in Mecklenburg.

* Procop. Cæsariens. Bell. Gotth. ubi supra.

The assertion that the Slavonic nations, notwithstanding their polytheism and the worship paid by them to inferior divinities, believed in the existence of one supreme God, under whom all the rest acted as subordinate agents, is confirmed by Helmoldus, who was well acquainted by personal intercourse with the Obotrites and the northern Wends. He says,* Among the various deities whom they suppose to preside over fields and forests, pain and pleasure, they nevertheless confess the more powerful God in heaven who rules the rest, and employs himself merely in heavenly affairs. The other gods they believe to follow separate duties, and to be his offspring; and the nearer each is to that God of gods, the better they consider him." Karamsin, the learned historian of the Russian empire, is of opinion that the "Slavi, in the midst of their foolish superstitions, believed in the existence of one allpowerful Divinity, to whom the immensity of the skies, embellished with the sparkling light of the stars, formed a temple worthy of his supreme greatness; who while his attention was occupied with higher matters, confided to his offspring the government of the earth. To him," as Karamsin supposes, "the Slavi erected no temple, being persuaded that mortals can hold no communication with him; and that in their necessities they must have recourse to gods of a second order, whose office it is to give timely aid to brave and virtuous men."+

The religion of the Slavi contained the dualism of the Iranian nations, and the opposition of the good and evil principles, the

* Chronica Slavorum Helmoldi Presbyteri Bosoniensis, et Arnoldi, Abbatis Lubecensis, à quibus Res Slavicæ et Saxonicæ fere à tempore Caroli Magni usque Ottonem IV. exponuntur, Henr. Bangertus è MSS. codicibus recensuit et notis illustravit. Lubecæ, 1559. 4to.

“Helmoldus,” says Bangert, lived “eâ ætate quâ hæc nostra Lubeca condita est, i.e. circa A.D. 1140." He was a missionary among the Wagrians, and had a temple and domuncula in Bosow, near the Lacus Plönensis, and was thence called Presbyter Bosoniensis. The coast of the Baltic was then subject to the pagan Slavi, and Hamburg was in their possession. How they came into the country previously possessed by the Vandili is explained by Helmoldus in lib. i. c. 2. He used the help and authority of Geroldus, the last bishop of Aldenburg in Wagria, and the first of Lubeck. Nobody before Helmoldus wrote so fully on the history of the Slavi. He died 1170. Arnoldus continued his Chronica down to 1198.

+ Karamsin, Hist. of the Russian Empire, tom. 1.

former identified with light, the latter with darkness. The former was termed, as we learn from Helmoldus and others, Veli-bogc,* or the White god; the latter Czerne-bogc, or the Black divinity. Czerne-bogc, or Tschernebog, was represented even in the temples of the Wends on the Baltic, a circumstance which points to their Asiatic origin, under the figure of a lion. To him appeasing sacrifices are supposed to have been offered. Sviatovid, or the god of light, was worshipped in the isle of Rugen. Peroun, or the god of thunder, was the principal divinity of the Russians, whose image was publicly destroyed on the introduction of Christianity. The Obotrites and other Wendish nations in Germany worshipped many different gods, adopted in part, as it would appear, from the Teutonic tribes whom they succeeded. The following is an enumeration of some of the most remarkable.† The Sorabians or Wends of Lausitz or Lusatia assigned the first place to Swantewit and Radagast. The Moravians worshipped Peron or Pierun, Radgost or Radegast, Witislaw and the Krasopani ;§ the Bohemians, Peron, together with Swantewit:|| the Poles had nearly the same gods. According to the opinion of Alexander Guanini,¶ they worshipped the sun, which was Swantewit, or the sacred light of other Wendish nations; the moon; and tempest, which they termed Pogwist. Jupiter was termed by them Jessa; Pluto, Lacton; Ceres, Nia; Venus, Marzana; Diana, Zievonia ; Castor and Pollux, Lelus and Potetus. John Duglossus further adds, that Mars was called Liadu; Venus, Djedijielia; and tempests, Pogoda.**

A very remarkable collection of Slavic remains was dis

* Bog or Boga means God in the Slavic language. This was also a Bulgarian word. It is observed in the "Panoplia Dogmatica" of Nicetas Choniates Acominatus, Βόγ, ἡ τῶν Βουλγάρων γλῶσσα καλεῖ τὸν Θεόν. (Montfaucon, Palmogr. Græc. p. 333.)

+ Masch mentions the gods of the Prussians, of whom Hartknoch has given an account among the objects of worship among the Wends. But the Prussians were, as we shall see, not Wends, but a different race. Hartknoch says that Percunus and Picollo or Potrimpi were their principal deities.

Abr. Frenzel de Diis Soraborum in G. Hoffmann's Scriptorum Lusat. Collect. 1719.

§ T. G. Stredowski, Sacra Moraviæ Historiæ, Solislar. 1710.

|| Paul Stransky, Resp. Bohem. Lugd. Bat. 1634.

¶ Descriptio Sarmat. Europ. 1581.

** Hist. Polon. lib. i. ed. 1711.

covered at Prilwitz on the supposed site of the ancient Rhetra,* where the Obotrites made their longest resistance to the Saxons, and where, as we learn from Adam of Bremen, Dithmar and Helmoldus, there was a celebrated temple of Radagast, surrounded by the pantheon of Slavonian deities. Their images were found each bearing its proper designation, as well as the more general one of Velibog or Czernebog; the statues were constructed with rude art, in pieces separate, but afterwards molten together. Their names are in Runic characters, borrowed doubtless by the Wends from their German neighbours, or left by the Vandals, who had possessed the country before their arrival.

Every trait that can be discovered of the ancient Slavish rites and superstitions tends to confirm the opinion of their Asiatic origin. It is to be regretted that no monuments remain to elucidate the interior dogmas or metaphysical notions connected with their worship.

SECTION VII.-Inquiry into the early History of the Nations inhabiting the Eastern Parts of Europe.

We have in the preceding sections traced the ethnological divisions of the Slavic race, and the history of the different ramifications of that stock which have constituted from the sixth century the great mass of European population in the countries to the eastward of Germany and of the Vistula. We commenced this investigation from the age of Jornandes and Procopius, by whom the Antes and Sclaveni are first mentioned by name, and described in a manner that leaves no room for doubt as to the identification of the races so termed with the Slavonian nations of modern times. We must now attempt some elucidation of the earlier ethnography of the same region, and endeavour to determine with what division of its more an

* In the curious work of Hofprediger Masch on the gods of the Obotrites, a particular account is to be found of these remains. An analysis of that work may be seen in the West of England Journal, with copies of Masch's engravings, representing the rude figures of Radegast, Podaga, Sieba, Pya, Czernebog, and other idols.

The gods Sieba and Vodha occurring among the idols of Prilwitz are perhaps imitations of Siva and Buddha.

cient inhabitants the Slavic race was connected in origin and descent.

We have seen that the Antes and Sclaveni, the eastern and western branches of the Slavic race, were spread, about the middle of the sixth century, over a vast space in the eastern parts of Europe, extending from the Danube and the Euxine to a great but undefined distance towards the north; and that from west to east they reached from the Theiss or Tibiscus to the Dniester, and even as far as the Borysthenes. Of these countries, after their abandonment by the Goths and the retreat or destruction of the Hunns, the Slavic nations appear to have been the principal inhabitants. The repeated revolutions which had taken place in this part of Europe had changed in many instances the relative positions of the different nations, and it is not easy to connect the Slavi with any one of the races whose names are well known to us in the earlier history of the same countries. In order to obtain as much light as possible on this subject it will be necessary to take a general survey of the ancient population of Sarmatia.

The eastern parts of Europe to the northward of the Danube were little known to the Greeks and Romans. The Vistula was generally considered as the eastern boundary of Germany, and the country beyond that river was termed by the Romans, and by late Greek writers, Sarmatia. Thus Ptolemy describes it: "Sarmatia in Europe is bounded towards the west by the river Vistula, and by a line drawn midway between the source of that river and the Sarmatic mountains, and by those mountains themselves."* Pomponius Mela mentions the Sarmatic nations as bounded by Germany towards the west, and he makes them reach from the Baltic Sea to the Danube. Towards the north and the east Sarmatia had no limits, and may be considered as reaching to the extremity of Europe, or of the known world.

The following boundaries are laid down by Mannert,† after

* Η ἐν Εὐρώπη Σαρματία περιορίζεται ἀπὸ δυσμῶν τῷ τε Οὐιστούλα ποταμῷ, καὶ τῇ μεταξὺ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτῆ καὶ τῶν Σαρματικῶν ὀρέων γραμμῇ, καὶ avroïç Toîç öpeσiv.-Cl. Ptolem. Geog. Tab. 3. See Pomp. Mela de Situ Orbis, lib. iii. c. 3.

+ Mannert's Geographie der Griechen und Römer, th. iv. s. 250. Leipzig, 1820.