Category Archives: Origins

Figle & Witze

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After a decade long effort, the Marek Figlerowicz (whose fame is being rapidly outshined by his progeny – all, like the parents, featuring M- names) group finally released its genetic study of medieval and pre-medieval (read: Roman times) remains found in Poland (“Genetic history of East-Central Europe in the first millennium CE“). This has set the blogosphere on fire but, frankly, the results (putting aside the 10 year wait worthy of Communist-era project timeframes) are underwhelming and the authors’ accompanying conclusions untethered from these meager results.

The project was supposed to – at least in the minds of those that followed its odyssey – firmly establish whether Suavs were present in Poland before, say 500 A.D., that is the study was supposed to resolve the age-old question of the origin of the Polish Suavic population. Were the Suavs “always” in Poland or did they arrive in the early Middle Ages from an original Suavic homeland somewhere in the “East”.

As a side note, at least the question in the above posited form was thought to have been the age-old question. But human folly knows no bounds so another Polish geneticist, Piotr Węgleński, recently restated the problem as follows: “as concerns the origin of us Poles, we have two theories. One says that we come from the marshes of the Pripyat river. The other states that when Genghis Chan moved West with the Mongols conquering Europe, he captured various peoples along the way and he picked up our forbears somewhere between the Don and Dniepr and, heading West, dropped them off in the lands of today’s Poland.” The Overton window was thus shifted from “between the Odra and the Vistula OR Polesie/Western Ukraine” to “Pripyat Marshes OR something, something, Genghis Khan.” Appropriately enough, a few years ago Węgleński gave a lecture entitled “The Newest Developments in the History of Stupidity in Poland.” Now, with the claim that Poles arrived in Poland first in the thirteenth century, Węgleński will be able to boast that he is not only a passive reporter of this alleged process but also a contributor to its development.

The Suavs were an important source of protein in a Mongol warrior’s diet

So what did Figlerowicz and his team find?

Well, it seems that the Iron Age (Roman Era, or IA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like older Scandinavian populations and the Middle Ages (or MA) cemeteries contain graves of people who look like Suavs.

Take this chart where the more dark blue the samples are the more “Scandinavian” they are and the more red, the more Suavic. The top right hand corner represents IA samples and the lower right represents MA samples.

Or take this next chart where on the right you have female mtDNA haplogroups. The two columns (second from right IA and furthest right MA) are almost the same between IA and MA. On the other hand, the two left columns show male Y-DNA haplogroups. The furthest left column shows males from IA and the second from left shows males from MA. Although there are some Suavic haplogroups on the very left (though the color scheme is somewhat misleading – only about half of the red on the left is from haplogroup R1a), they are relatively few as a percentage of the overall.

Given that Scandinavian Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the IA samples and Suav Y-DNA haplogroups dominate the MA samples, if you were to try to answer the above query using this data the only reasonable conclusion is that male Suavs, one way or another, displaced male Scandinavians in Poland between IA and MA. 

This makes the authors’ conclusions puzzling:

“The above results are consistent with the hypothesis assuming migration from north and genetic continuity in the region of contemporary Poland from the IA to the MA…However, high genetic contribution of the IA populations to the MA populations suggests not only the continuation of the common north European ancestry but also genetic continuation of the autochthon IA population which mixed with the incomers.”

And with respect to Y-DNA in particular:

“We found that all IA group individuals with Y-hg R1a belonged to the R1a-M458 lineage. These results, together with the earlier report on R1a-S204 lineage detection in an individual associated with the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (Haak 2015), strengthen the evidence that R1a-S204 Y-hg lineages, which are dominant in present-day East-Central European populations (Polish, Czech, Belarusian, Ukrainian) (Underhill aka Podgórski 2015), were already present in East-Central Europe, at least since the Late Bronze period.”

Then comes this nugget:

“There are many examples in history showing that a relatively small group of male immigrants can subjugate a local community (e.g. the history of the colonization of North and South America). Thus, a small number of individuals with Y-hg R1a in the IA group does not necessarily mean a low frequency of this haplogroup in the autochthonous IA population.”

I’m sorry but this is pure speculation relying on results from other older papers. The current Figlerowicz study is, shall we say, unambiguous.

What’s particularly perplexing are the statements of the group that apparently were made at the time of or right after the publication. They are a jumbled mess at best (they may have made these statements in the paper itself – can’t recall at the moment). Apparently, a conclusion of the team is that (paraphrasing) “it is not necessary to postulate further genetic infusion after IA to form the MA population.” In other words, Suavs have likely developed from the existing IA populations. I am not a geneticist and assume that this is certainly possible but the question – looking at the above charts – is how likely that is. If these are the representative samples for the time period (see below as to why they may not be), then surely – at least on the male side – things changed between IA to MA. Could the population have changed from IA to MA in exactly the way that is postulated? Maybe. But, again, how likely is that? Essentially, the people who had disproportionately large Scandinavian genetics must have departed and the population remaining must have been characterized by fewer “Scandinavian” features. Such a selection in who left and who stayed requires an explanation. You could say that the Goths left and the Wends (?) stayed I suppose. Even if this were the case, the majority of the population in the settlements studied by the Figlerowicz team would have shown itself as Gothic. Figlerowicz also said that he does not agree with Jozef Kostrzewski’s theories (Kostrzewski claimed that the Suavs lived in Poland since the Bronze Age at least, then the Goths came and then the Goths left and Suavs remained). But he seems to be saying exactly what Kostrzewski claimed. Except that this is based on evidence that can only support Kostrzewski under some very specific circumstances.

But there is more. Apparently, Figlerowicz’s team has claimed that basically the same people lived in Poland during the IA as the kinds of people that lived in northern Germany, Lithuania or Latvia at the time.  This can be read to mean that you can’t really distinguish between such populations because they are all basically the same. But if the writers really believe that then the above claim of population continuity in the sense that most people took it to mean evaporates since the researchers and the general public are not in agreement on the meaning of the the underlying concepts. In other words, by claiming these populations are interchangeable (they are not), the Figlerowicz team really denies the point of the whole exercise. I guess they did not find evidence of Amerindians, Asians or Africans being present in Poland at the time but we kind of knew that they wouldn’t. Moreover, if Figlerowicz’s team can’t tell the difference between a Latvian, a Suav and a German then how can it confidently claim that an entirely new population from amongst those three groups did not appear in Poland sometime between IA and MA to replace or at least dwarf most of the Rest-whatever population that was left after Gothic departure?

There are ways of preserving Kostrzewski’s claims but they are not laid out by this paper nor are they supported by the paper’s data. Let’s take a more sober view of what we actually know.

The most level-headed part of the paper is the following (adding emphasis to a very relevant point):

“Here, we provide several pieces of evidence that the ancestors of the medieval populations lived in the region of present-day Poland during the IA. There are, however, several aspects that need further elucidation. Firstly, how and when the ancestors of the MA populations with Y-hg R1a appeared. The times when Y-hg R1a-M417 dominated in this territory are associated with the spread of the Corded Ware culture (from 3000 to 2300 BC) (Papac 2021). Later, it was replaced by the Unetice culture (from 2300 to 1600 BC) (Papac 2021) that was associated with the populations in which Y-hg R1a was very rare. From then until the IA, there were many archaeological cultures in this region from which no genetic data is available as cremation became the dominant burial practice. Here, we showed that the IA and MA populations inherited only a small percentage of genetic ancestry from the people associated with the Unetice culture. Therefore, the ancestors of the autochthonous IA populations with Y-hg R1a would have either had to be revived in the BA period or come from east during the BA or IA period. At this point, it should be noted that based on our results, one cannot explicitly rule out additional waves of migration after the IA. Thus, one of the reasons for the increase in the frequency of Y-hg R1a could also be migrations from Eastern Europe after the Migration Period. Although they seem less likely one cannot exclude the alternative scenarios that do not assume the presence of the ancestors of the medieval populations in the region of contemporary Poland during the IA. One possibility is the numerous waves of migration from northern Europe in both IA and medieval times.”

It may be true (apparently) that there have been no samples pre-dating Wielbark but post-dating Unetice. But the problem with this study is deeper.

The issue is the sample selection even for the period supposedly under study, that is, the Roman Era Iron Age.

The vast bulk of the samples collected appear instead to have been gathered from medieval Poland such that, Węgleński’s pioneering suggestions notwithstanding, there does not seem to be any reason to doubt that those would turn out to be Suavic – as indeed they have.

However, when we turn to the “Roman era” samples (IA) studied, they are either from a very small geographic area in Greater Poland/Kuyavia (three places total, including – the previously designated as Gothic – Kowalewko) or from two places in the Gdańsk region on the Baltic coast – areas where, it is entirely likely, Scandinavian peoples (e.g., Goths) may well be expected to have had a foothold. The only exception to this is Masłomęcz on the Ukraine border which, however, was already thought to be Gothic years before. (Somewhat notably, though, at least the maternal lines found in both Masłomęcz and Kowalewko appear to be the same as those found in Poland currently).

The only “new” (as in not previously leaked) Roman era samples are from:

  • Gąski, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship – this consists of 2 samples – neither of which has any Y-DNA
  • Czarnówko, West Pomeranian Voivodeship – same as above: 2 samples and none have Y-DNA
  • Pruszcz Gdański, Pomeranian Voivodeship –  this has a smattering of I1s, R1bs but also I2s

Take a look at this map. The MA samples are in red, the IA Roman Era samples are in blue.

Altogether there were only five Roman-era sites studied it seems. The analyzed medieval sites and samples outnumber the Roman-era ones in the study by about 4:1.

In the Roman-era samples, we have nothing from Western Pomerania, nothing from Mazovia, nothing from large swaths of Greater Poland, nothing from Lesser Poland (save Masłomęcz if you count it as such), nothing from Silesia, nothing from ancient Prussia and nothing from Polesia.

Compare the above blue Wielbark samples with this map from Henryk Machajewski’s paper (1992):

The green sites have been connected with Przeworsk. The red are supposed to represent Wielbark. Pruszcz Gdański is 91, Masłomęcz is 71, the other Figlerowicz Wielbark sites don’t seem to be shown.

In other words, Figlerowicz’s team knew there had been Goths in Poland around the same time, it looked for Goths and it found something that looks like Scandinavian, possibly Gothic, DNA.

The team does not appear to have figured out how to deal with the lack of body parts necessary for DNA studies (presumably given the prevalence of cremation in most of Poland prior to the introduction of Christianity). This means all of the Przeworsk culture is simply excluded from the study. Naturally too, this is not unexpected but is nevertheless disappointing given the fanfare that surrounded this effort.

In fact, take a look at this graph from the same paper. Strictly speaking, if you were to analyze the results of only this study, not only isn’t there any evidence of Suavs in Poland during the IA but also there really isn’t any evidence for them during the period from about 450 A.D. to about 950 A.D. They just have no samples for that period.

Plus, as pointed out already above, the samples for the Y-DNA portion of the study include only three sites: Pruszcz Gdański and two sites which were known to be Gothic before – Kowalewko plus Masłomęcz (and Kowalewko does have someone with an R1a haplogroup though it’s not obvious whether its subclade is “Suavic”). Many more Wielbark sites could have been part of this study (see map above), most notably from Mazovia and Polesie but they were not. So while the conclusions above seems unambiguous, the sample size on which they are based is sparse to say the least. In fact, to be honest, we can’t even draw full conclusions about the Wielbark sites either just based on this study. This too is disappointing and, frankly, I don’t see a reason for such a narrow scope of the Wielbark sample size.

To put the project’s IA range in some perspective take a look at this map. The yellow area is the area of Poland from which Roman Era Iron Age Y-DNA samples have been recovered and analyzed. The area in red is the portion of Poland that archaeologists and geneticists still have some work to do on:

Now this took about a decade. Someone with better math skills can figure out when we will be done at this rate but I worry that by then future geneticists will need another DNA study just to figure out what ethnic group actually started this project.

Figlerowicz and his team may be commended for undertaking this project but they really should have kept expectations far lower. It’s not that their results are equivocal. It’s more that they simply don’t have enough results to derive any definitive conclusions.

Anyway, when and if a broader study is done at some point, covering all Roman Era sites in Poland as well as the pre-Roman period we will know whether Suavs (in the sense of the typically Polish Y-DNA haplogroups) lived in Poland during or prior to Gothic migrations.

It seems the answer to this question may be ‘yes’ – at least for southeast Poland – albeit here too the Y-DNA haplogroup frequency split does not correspond to current percentages (more I2a than R1a) as per a new Maciej Chyleński & others article (“Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry of populations in East-Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age“).

Here are the results from that paper:

As can be seen there are plenty of R1a’s, particularly in the Strzyżów culture but also in the Mierzanowice culture plus the Komarów culture which is in Ukraine including:

  • R1a1a1b1a2a aka Z280>Z92 in Komarów
  • R1a1a1b1a2b aka Z280>CTS1211 in Strzyżów and Trzciniec
  • R1a1a1b1a1a aka M458>L260/S222 in Trzciniec

In fact the R1a percentages run as follows:

  • Iwno – 0%
  • Komarów – 50%
  • Mierzanowice – ~67%
  • Strzyżów – 80%
  • Trzciniec – 16%

Here you can see the geography of the samples:

Now are these the specific Suavic downstream clades? We will probably never know as you’d have to dig deeper in the DNA and these samples are what they are. Nevertheless, if you asked for Western Suavic DNA at this level today, it seems that you would get this. (There seems to be some confusion with their Mokrzec site which the dataset shows as R1b but the supplementary data paper claims is R1a.)

Incidentally, after R1a, the biggest Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland are I1 and R1b. Maybe these are from former Gothic tribes (or Celts or even Germanic tribes) but they might as well be remnants of R1b (and perhaps I1) wanderers who never made it to Scandinavia (or maybe who wondered back out years before the times of the Roman Empire).

It is curious that Trzciniec is mostly I2a and, particularly, more southern and western form of it but even here in Trzciniec you see two I2a1b2a’s aka CTS10936 which has been found all over the continent but its preponderance is in eastern/southern Europe.  

In any event, if the answer were ‘no,’ then the next question will have to be where did they come from? To answer that you would need samples from southern Swabia around the Bodensee, the Elbe country, Pannonia, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Belarus and, perhaps even the territories from Lake Lacha to Lake Pihkva.

Note that the same Figlerowicz group is also going after the origins of the Piast dynasty – Polish, Scandinavian, Czech, Hungarian  or, maybe Ukrainian (probably hg N BTW)? This seems like it ought to be an  “easier” project but here too the team seems to have hit a stumbling block as the Church and local antiquities authorities apparently refused to allow the researchers to access some of the few known graves of actual Polish kings. Given the alleged importance of this project, this refusal seems absurd but, of course, the monarchs aren’t, hopefully, going anywhere so there is always potential for someone changing their mind given, perhaps, some future less invasive method of analysis.

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August 8, 2023

Wadas in the Sky

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Incidentally, speaking of bracteates, here is a picture of another one from Poland. This one comes from Karlino, Białogard county. It is classified as IK 367.

An inscription on it has been deciphered as:

ᚹᚫᛁᚷᚫ or “waiga

The picture is supposed to be of Odin.

However, whether this Antonsen read is correct is, too, uncertain. If you look at the bracteate it seems to say:

ᚹᚫᛞᚫ or “wada

or, maybe, ᚹᚫᛁᛞᚫ, that is, “waida

And the alleged Odin, has no beard and rather long-hair (a common depiction of bracteate riders which also raises questions).

The Polish surname “Wajda” is, incidentally, also of uncertain origin with Hungarian, Polish and German origin possible. Vaidila was an Old Prussian name for an “magician.” However, these words are pronounced with a “v” sound rather than a “w”.

This was part of a hoard discovered in 1839 or 1840 which contained six other bracteates – all the same and without runes and this particular bracteate. They were brought to the Museum Vaterländischer Alterthümer (number MVF, II 5868) which was subsequently bombed to the ground but not before it was reorganized as part of the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Berlin Charlottenburg, after which one of the six sister bracteates disappeared and then, post-WWII, the rest were carried away by the Soviets as war booty to be deposited at the Puskin Museum in Moscow (like the SABAR bracteate). Other items part of the same hoard included a bunch of rings with one containing further runes in two rows (picture from Rozalia Tybulewicz, “A Hoard from the Migration Period from Karlino (North-Western Poland)”).

The runes, if read the same way – left to right – as the above ring may read:

ᛇ (or ᚫ?)
ᚢᛚᚫ

or “ï ula

This is not entirely clear and some have read the “bottom” row as “alu” reading right to left. Note that the bottom row may have to be mirrored since, as is, it has no recognizable runes. Further the “top” row itself may be “upside down” relative to the bottom row.

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July 6, 2023

Turkic Scandinavians

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An interesting thing about the various bracteates found in Poland is how quickly people are ready to ascribe them to various Scandinavian cultures. This is so even in instances where you have runic writing on them which fails to at least is hard to square with any known Germanic language.

We have the runes of Soschychne written SDIRALIT (compare Russian сдира́ли, Polish zdzierać, etc.) which has been read backwards (right to left) to produce TILARIDS and invent a Germanic word not attested anywhere else. The possibility of the Suavic is ignored.

As Oskar Bandle, ‎Lennart Elmevik, ‎Gun Widmark note in “The Nordic Languages”:

“tilarids has been taken to be an East Germanic form and is etymologically more obscure. Its meaning is supposed to be ‘goal-rider’ or ‘attacker’, hence containing the same verbal root as ON rida ‘ride’, or less probably tilraedi n. ‘attack, assault (cf. Lehmann 1986, 345).'”

We have the rune on the spear from Dahmsdorf-Müncheberg which supposedly reads RANJA where the possibility of a connection with the Suavic ranić (to wound) or the Suavic tribe Rani are each ignored.

We have the Rozwadów spear where something that may read RPAs has been read as KRLAS or IK ERULS.

However, my personal favorite is the writing on a bracteate from Wapno, Wągrowiec district, Greater Poland Voivodeship:

What does that say? Well, reading right to left it says SABAR. Now what does that mean? This has been interpreted by Elmer Antonsen (a rather controversial runologist) as “SABA” which, apparently, could be force read to refer to the “Wise One” in some language or other so that must mean Odin. There are a number of issues with this, not the least of which is that the writing (if, indeed, reading it right-to-left is the correct way) is SABAR not SABA.

So what could SABAR mean?

Assuming you eliminate the Sabar people of Indian Bengal (Odisha though earlier Udra and Odra), a reference to a follower of Rāma from Ramayana and the idea that this refers to a Senegalese drum, you have one very interesting possibility that this is a reference to the Sabir (Σάβιροι) people, a Turkic group that lived north of the Caucasus between the 5th and 7th century – perhaps later absorbed by the Khazars. They are mentioned by Priscus as well as by a bunch of Byzantine authors. The Syriac translation of Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor’s Ecclesiastical History refers to them as people who “live in tents, earn their living on the meat of livestock and fish, of wild animals and by their weapons (i.e., who plunder).”

But this is a problem because the rider here is typically interpreted as Odin (note the popular swastika that is found on many bracteates and, incidentally, on the very first attested Polish coin). Of course, we know that Odin came from the East… Of course this raises the question of who the Scandinavians really worshipped in Roman times. After all the earliest mention of Odin – if that is the sane person as Wadon or Wodan – is in Jonas of Bobbio’s “The Life of Columban“.

As a side note, the Suavic zbir refers to a “ruffian” but… supposedly comes from the Italian sbirro (same meaning, compare with Spanish esbirro – “henchman”. Of course, there is the question of how these words came to Italian (Spanish) – perhaps from Latin birrus (a cloak that a ruffian would wear) but were there any Sabirs in the Hunnic horde? Is there any attestation of this word prior to the Hunnic invasion? Honestly, we do not know. Was the word borrowed from Gaulish as some claim?

The bracteate was found in 1850 in a clay urn together with three other bracteates (one like the SABAR bracteate and two others made from another stamp) and a bunch of rings. They “found their way” to Berlin’s Charlottenburg Museum from which they “disappeared” after WWII only to magically “reappear” in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. One of the SABAR bracteates was then reacquired by the Germans.

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July 4, 2023

Slavish Slavic Slackademics

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An interesting aspect of the discussion about the veracity of the depiction of Polish Gods as relayed by Długosz is the pathetic timidity of the Polish academic response to the abuses perpetrated on the “Polish Pantheon” by the confabulist in chief, Aleksander Brückner. Łowmiański, Gieysztor and many others have been caught up in a slavish, Stockholm syndrome-like trance by the vehemence of Brückner’s attacks on the idea of Polish paganism flourishing into the 15th century to such an extent that, even when they dared to deviate from Brückner on other topics, they were rendered incapable of independent thought when it came to discussing Polish Gods. Whether because of intellectual laziness, for lack of cojones or as a result of some combination of both, they did not deviate from the party line set by the cantakerous German curmudgeon more than a century ago.

This is particularly shameful given that Brückner’s arguments fail so transparently that it is difficult not to suspect ill will on the part of the Berlin professor. His primary argument was that there could be no paganism that survived into the 15th century. Why? Because the Church did such a good job quashing them for 500 years.

Yet, pagan customs is precisely what church leaders describe in plentiful writings of the period. Brückner says that the clergy had no idea what they were describing and only erroneously believed that what they were seeing were pagan practices as opposed to, as Brückner would have it, mere marriage rites. (As an aside, apparently, Brückner was asleep when God was invoked during his own wedding, as per standard Christian recitations).  In other words, Brückner from his 20th century Berlin academic perch was better able to understand 15th century Polish peasant customs than all the 15th century Polish parish priests combined. At least according to Brückner.

But if Catholic clergy was so stupid as to misunderstand common Slavic words as names of deities, how could such clergy been able to crush pagan worship prior to such time? Were they just uniquely incompetent in the 15th century? Neurotoxins in the Holy Water or the wafers?

And, if they were competent in crushing idolatry (just overzealous in seeing idolatry everywhere) then why did they still fail to crush Polish idolatry right then and there? After all, had Brückner read Kolberg’s ethnographic studies of the 19th century he would have found appellations of Łado, Łado. He also would have noticed that, by far, the most common protagonist of peasant songs in Poland at that time was Jasień. There you have your Yassa and Lado. And that is half a millenium after the 15th century sermons. In other words, if Poland was converted to Christianity in 966 then even more time passed since the aforementioned 15th century priestly remonstrations against worshipping “idols” to Brückner’s and Kolberg’s time as had passed from such alleged conversion to the 15th century.

The truth is that the Church organization in Poland was not strong enough to even begin to root out paganism until the Polish state afforded the Church some stability. And the state could not afford stability for the Church until the state itself became stable. That, in turn, did not begin in earnest until the 14th century. In other words, it is entirely possible that the Church was neither able to convert nor even interested in converting the peasant masses to its faith until such time. And, as noted above, even afterwards the songs, refrains, midsummer night dances and fires continued well into the 19th, 20th and, in places, even to this day.

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February 3, 2022

Some Musings on Suavic Beliefs Regarding the Earth’s Satellites

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A few years ago a reader asked about the cult of the Sun among the Suavs. Back then I was dismissive. I thought (and still do) that neither the Sun nor the Moon were worshipped as Gods among the Suavs. That said, I had not been entirely fair. While the Sun and Moon were clearly not Deities in Suavic tales, they had been revered and divine tales had been spun around them. It feels, though I can’t prove it, that at some point at least some Suavs anthropomorphized the Sun and the Moon and then may have developed Divinities that, while not themselves these celestial bodies, were represented by them. Alternatively, this may have occurred in reverse such that the worship of Divinities was associated over time with the Sun and Moon.

Let’s start with the Sun.

I do not intend to write about Dadzhbog as that “tale” such as it is, has been exhaustively discussed. Let’s rather touch on some other aspects of the reverence for the Sun. Perhaps the most famous example of the veneration of the Sun is the “swearing on the Sun” – the act of swearing by raising your hand and, specifically, extending two fingers towards the Sun. This was a ritual present in Poland but also in the Czech lands and portions of Germany. Here the bibliography includes most notably:

  • Władysław Aleksander Semkowicz, Przysięga na słońce: studyum porównawcze prawno-etnologiczne (1916) in: Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Bolesława Orzechowicza, t. 2, Lwów 1916, pages 304-377.
  • Władysław Aleksander Semkowicz, Jeszcze o przysiędze na słońce w Polsce, in: Studia historyczne ku czci Stanisława Kutrzeby, t. I, Kraków 1938, pages 429-444.
  • Stanisław Szczotka, Stosowanie przysięgi na słońce w polskim sądownictwie wiejskim w XVIII wieku in: Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 2 (1949), pages 452-458.
  • Waldemar Bukowski, O przysiędze na słońce raz jeszcze. Przysięga w postępowaniu granicznym w księstwie zatorskim w 1529 roku, in: Memoria viva. Studia historyczne poświęcone pamięci Izabeli Skierskiej (1967-2014), red. G. Rutkowska, A. Gąsiorowski, Warszawa–Poznań 2015, pages 789-804.
  • Entry for Przysięga (by Wojciech Hejnosz) in the “Dictionary of Suavic Antiquities” (Słownik starożytności słowiańskich), volume 4, p. 402 and the following.

Semkowicz gives the following examples of this act from Mazovia, Greater Poland and Silesia:

  • On May 3, 1466, Conrad III, the Duke of Czersk certifies in Łomża that Jacob and Alex Szczodruch of Zalesie (coat of arms Trzaska) established in his presence their nobility with witnesses delivering sworn testimony by raising two fingers towards the Sun:
    • errectis versus solem duobus digitis
    • source: Wywody szlachectwa w Polsce XIV-XVII, page 38, number 138 in Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego, volume III
  • On June 22, 1468, six brothers, the heirs of Tykiewki (coat of arms Kościesza) established their nobility relying on sworn witness testimony which witnesses attested to that fact by raising two fingers towards the Sun:
    • duobus digitis in solem elevatis et errectis
    • Wywody szlachectwa w Polsce XIV-XVII, number 141 in Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego, volume III
  • On March 21, 1471 Bolesuav V, the duke of Warsaw confirms the nobility claim of Jan of Kutyłów  (coat of arms Doliwa), who presented witnesses attesting to this with fingers raised towards the Sun:
    • errectis versus solem duobus digitis
    • Wywody szlachectwa w Polsce XIV-XVII, number 142 in Rocznik Towarzystwa Heraldycznego, volume III

Semkowicz notes the following additional examples from F. Stanisław Kozierowski:

  • Under 1450, Kościan (Greater Poland) books list three knights being cleared of theft charges and, in court proceedings, swearing to their innocence by raising, in accordance with chivalric custom, two fingers of their right hands towards the Sun:
    • debent iurare iuxta ius militare, intuendo solem, elevatis duobus digitis dextrae manus

The Poznań court official present (subcamerarius) notes that such two -finger oath was done in appropriate fashion:

    • spectato sole (solem inspiciendo), duobus digitis dextrae manus elevatis 

These citations are from:

    • F. Stanisław Kozierowski, Nieznane zapiski heraldyczne from Roczniki Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk Poznańskiego, 1915, numbers 45, 46, 60, 81
  • In 1484, in Poznań Piotr Więckowski swore to his innocence again by raising two fingers towards the Sun:
    • erectis duobus versus solem (in solem) digitis
    • F. Kozierowski, l c. number 60
  • In 1456, John duke of Oświęcim confirms the nobility of Jan Nowowiejski whose witnesses were his relatives and who testified with two fingers raised towards the Sun
    • mit vfgeracten czweyen fingern kegen der zonnen nachritterlichen lowfe
    • in German from the Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae, v. 1 CXXVIII

Curiously, to this day, Polish officers salute using two fingers. Now, this custom supposedly derives from the much later Napoleonic era but making a connection might be tempting…

Why two fingers?

Here let’s indulge in some speculation. The Polish (and Suavic more generally) word for the Sun is słońce. This is a bit unusual because the -ce (or -cie or sometimes -cy) suffix indicates the presence of either something that isn’t really present in today’s Suavic languages – the dual noun form – or, sometimes, of the plural noun. Thus, we have, to give a few examples:

  • miesiące
  • skrzypce
  • lejce
  • łapcie

The singular would have the -iec suffix. Thus, skrzypiec, lejec, łapiec and so forth.

Could słońce itself be a plural?

Brückner does not even consider that, instead pushing the theory that this is a diminutive:

Vasmer is not that far off from Brückner:

And yet what examples does Brückner give to justify his view?

He brings up serce meaning “heart” (from an earlier sierce) and miejsce meaning”place.” And yet are these other examples diminutives? Anyone supportive of Brückner’s view here must wince at the example of serce – at least anyone aware of the heart’s four chambers, that is the two atria and two ventricles.

As to miejsce, the earlier mieśćce or miestce, that is supposedly a diminutive of miasto which in Polish means “town” but in other Suavic languages may just mean a “place” – a concept that in Polish is expressed in miejsce. If this is correct and if we disregard serce – as per the above obsevation – then this, it seems to me, would be about the only example I am aware of a singular diminutive with the -ce suffix.

It is also curious that:

  • słońce is obviously related to Sun

while

  • serce could be mistaken (?) for being a cognate of sur (south, also the Kern of our solar system),

while

  • miejsce, the (meeting? compare with Lithuanian mietas) place, appears cognate with miesiąc meaning “Moon”

Putting that aside, what would this singular of słońce be?

Here the answer must be słoniec which itself would have to be a diminutive of, what, słoń?

Well, this is not to suggest that Suavs thought of the Sun as being pulled by elephants (rather the elephant is more likely to have been named after the large beasts pulling the Sun).

But the Suavs may have believed that the Sun was pulled by  multiple creatures – horses? dragons?

But were these creatures – that we project deep into the PIE times – really called individually a słoń? Or was a słoniec simply a derivative of another Name that sounded like the Sun? In other words, was the Sun driven around by the słońce, that is “servants of the Sun” (an interesting exercise too in light of the above would be an examination of the etymology of this term – PIE *seruo- “guardian” – of what? of the Sun – Sur – maybe?).

But then what was the Sun? In Suavic languages this term is the purportedly neuter singular słońce. Neither he nor she. But as shown above, the term may have originated in a plural concept for those creatures which pull the Sun across the sky. So what was the Name of the Sun itself? Could it have been Sune or Suna – a Name that was preserved only in obscure Norse tales?

In fact, the Suavic word sunąć meaning, roughly, “to glide along at a fast but steady pace” may itself be derived from “Sun”. (Curiously, in Greek stories Ladas is the name of two very fast runners – why are runners called Ladas?)

If this is the case then we would have to show that the Sun – or rather the Deity of the Sun – was a female in Suavic beliefs. That is not like Helios a God but a Goddess. Is this possible?

Here we have very scant, though not immaterial, evidence for this claim.

The first and only constant in our quest to assign gender to the heavenly bodies is that the Moon is (almost) always male, that is księżyc or miesiąc. Thus, implicitly, you’d think that the Sun should be female.

An immediate objection is that – at least in Polish – księżyc means “little primce” such that the “big” prince must surely be the Sun. This, however, has been shown many years ago to be no more than scientific folklore by Kazimierz Moszyński who pointed out that Polish peasants only referred to the waxing crescent of the new Moon as księżyc, that is the “young” moon (młody księżyc). Thus, ksiądz, meaning “ruler” refers to the full Moon and not to the Sun.

Having dispensed with the above objection, we still have to show positive proof of the Sun being associated with the female. This does happen in Polish belief but it is rare. Apparently, there is evidence that newlyweds in parts of Poland have traditionally called upon the Sun and the Moon to bless their marriage. That, however, is, again, circumstantial evidence.

Well, again, there seemingly is some evidence for this belief but only in Eastern Poland. Specifically, you have to go to the PhD dissertation written by Wanda Drabik – “The Customs of Podlachia” (Obrzędy Podlasia) to come upon a claim that in wedding songs found in that part of Poland, folk refer to the Sun as the bride and to the Moon as the bridegroom.

Traces of this appear further West as reported in, for example, the Silesian Józef Lompa’s Bajki i podania (being the compendium of his work Sitten und Gebräuche des schlesisch-slavischen Volkes).

Curiously, the work of another Silesian Nicolaus Magni de Iawor – the ever popular party hit Tractatus de supersticionibus – contains the story of an old woman who called the Sun the Holy Lady, spoke to Her, performed blessings in Her name and, the old lady claimed, healed many a sickness in the Sun’s name over the course of forty years. Here is that text as given by Krzysztof Bracha:

Sic aliquam vetulam novi, que credidit solem esse quasi deam vocans eam sanctam dominam et alloquendo solem benedixit per eum sub certis verbis cum observancia quadam supersticiosam, que dixit: se plus quam 40 annis se credidisse hoc et multas infirmitates curasse

What was the source of this anecdote? A Suavic Bohemian or Silesian tale or a German story? Bracha notes that the same story appears in the Kommentar zur Dekalog written by the German preacher Gottschalk Hollen.

Another potential Suavic female connection for the Sun is with the Goddess Lada. If the reference to Lada as Minerva is accurate and we know that Minerva was just the Roman Athena then we can connect Lada with Athena. Athena was not a solar goddess per se but she does have some solar connections. Most importantly, we are told that on the day that she was born Helios stopped the Sun chariot.

Of course, as previously noted, Lado was the Sun Eye of Piorun according to a Ruthenian saying and, though, the provenance here is unclear, apparently, in Lithuania, peasants sang Lado, Lado saule, duok jam sameziu per gałwe, that is, “Lado, Lado Sun, hit him [the wolf] on the head with a ladle*” (as this comes from Narbutt, we may be suspicious whether the song is genuine).

* note that, curiously, “ladle” comes from hlædel, itself from hladan “to load, to draw up water” (see also lade)

Turning to the Moon, what can be said unequivocally is that the Moon was (almost) always associated  with a Man. Of course the Moon was also associated with the Name Jasień, Who, in turn, seems to have been the youthful Sky Rider.

Incidentally, are miesiące also the creatures that pull the Moon or is the fact that the Moon is always a miesiąc while the Sun is always “a” słońce mean that the Moon has one horse but the Sun has multiple horses?

And remember our discussion about the strange “2” symbol (see here or on some of these spears)? The symbol that can, when duplicated, form a heart or horseshoes or the Ω Omega sign? Did you know that the horseshoe “luck” symbol may go back to the worship of the Moon (perhaps by the Chaldeans)?

Check these decorations out that were found in Piast Silesia and have been labeled “Scandinavian” (while similar motifs do appear in Scandinavia, they are hardly unique to that area).

Were these – so similar to some of these other designs – horses or other creatures? And were they pulling the Moon or, in fact, the Sun?

Let’s now look at Kazimierz Moszyński’s treatise on Suavic solar and lunar practices.

Moszyński mentions some Suavic tales that speak of multiple Suns. For example, he recalls the tales of the Smolensk Suavs and the Bulgarians who claimed that there had once been two (the former) or even three (the latter) Suns but a snake or a dragon had apparently either “drank” or stolen the other Suns.

Whether that dragon can be associated with the “Ladon” of the Argonauts* or Níðhöggr (Nya?) is another matter. Obviously, cold-blooded lizards like roasting themselves in the Sun so the myth may have its roots in that behavior as well as the daily disappearance and reappearance of the Sun. Alternativly, the many Suns may come from the sun dogs phenomenon.

* note that, interestingly, Diodorus Siculus suggested the name of Jason and the Argonauts’ ship, the Argo, was derived from an ancient Greek word for “swift” (IV.41.3: “The vessel was called Argo after Argus, as some writers of myths record, who was the master-builder of the ship and went along on the voyage in order to repair the parts of the vessel as they were strained from time to time, but, as some say, after its exceeding great swiftness, since the ancients called what is swift Argos.”) . This too is the meaning in Polish of jary – meaning “rushing” or “swift” as in “a rushing river” and jarki – meaning “fast moving”. For more on this rather intriguing subject see here. Were the Argonauts then “sailing” the Sky on the Moon as their vessel? It is also interesting that the Latin word for “silver” is argentum (hence the periodic table symbol Ar) and the Greek was ργυρός (which also referred to “money” regarding which see the various monetary customs below that involved the Moon). Of course, you also have ἀργός meaning “white” or “bright” or, in Sanskrit, árjuna, with all these meanings.

Moszyński also relates that peasants would, particularly on Saint John’s Eve come out to the borders of the village and stare at the Sun. The Sun would then be described as “dancing”, “playing, “laughing” or even “bathing”. This custom was generally limited to Central Europe but apparently also present in Bretagne (Veneti?) and some other unspecified parts of France. When associated with Easter the same custom appears too in Russia, Germany and the southern Caucasus. Other phenomena that were related by the peasantry, according to Moszyński also included a Sun that jumped up and down, rotated, broke into separate parts or recombined itself into a single body. Moszyński then brings up the work of D.O. Svyatskiy (perhaps Astronomiya Drevney Rusi) who methodically exclaims some of these optical phenomena as green flash and green ray illusions.

Moszyński also discusses the various customs associated with the Moon. Of particular note is the fact that Suavs apparently associated the new Moon with wealth (Nya as Pluto?) or, more particularly, with accretion to wealth – perhaps a result of the expectation that the Moon will over time get fatter and so, the peasants would also welcome the same as in this Polish “spell”:

Witaj, Księżycu, niebieski dziedzicu! Tobie złota korona. Mnie zdrowie i fortuna!
(“Welcome, oh Moon, the heavenly ruler*! For you the golden crown. For me health and fortune!”)

* note that although dziedzic can mean “heir”, in the context of a village it meant the local feudal lord.

Curiously, a similar association is mentioned by Nicolaus Magni de Iawor (as per Bracha):

Insuper hic hodie inveniuntur homines tam laici quam clerici, tam litterati quam illiterati, quos et plus dolendum est quidam magistri, cum primo novilunium viderint flectis genibus adorant et deposito capucium vel pileo capite inclinato honorant, alloquendo et suscipiendo, ymmo plures ieiuniant illo die, scilicet novilunio.

Bracha also reports similar beliefs reported by Caesarius of Arles (of Chalon) or in parts of Germany citing Nikolas von Dinkelbühl who noted that at the new Moon, people would lift open their money satchels towards the Moon to show the Moon the coins or would  shake the satchel and utter a prayer for successful month. The same author further cited an actual German prayer to the Moon (from De decem praeceptis or De preceptis decalogi):

Ad idem reduci potest stultissimus iste error, quod quidam quando primo vident novam lunam ipsam venerantur immo adorant dicentes hec aut similia verba: „Bis got wilkum newer mon holder her, mach mir myns geltes mer“; et aperta bursa ei monstrant pecuniam aut eam in bursa vibrant, credentes per huiusmodi deprecacionem et reverencie exhibicioem ab ea obtinere prosperitatem per istum mensem et augmentum diviciarum.

Bracha cites a number of other examples from German lands (see also in Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens) found in Thomas von Haselbach (reporting the similar Bis got bilchom ein newer man holder her, mach mir meins gutz mer), Thomas Peuntner and Johann Militsch von Kremsier. For more on this see also the older Der Magister Nikolaus Magni De Jawor by Franz Adolph. Bracha also finds (citing an article by Maria Kowalczyk given here in English, though she seems to cite the wrong page) further examples from Poland such as this instance from Stanisuav of Skarbimierz  (Stanisław ze Skarbimierza or, in Latin, Stanislaus de Scarbimiria) from Sermo 47 where there is an order to bend the knee during the New Moon and recite Psalm 67.1, (here given as “Lord, shine your face upon us”); then the sermon orders an oath be performed (presumably facing the Moon), to remain in the Catholic faith and then, at the very end, to utter a prayer:

In novilunio cum primo perspexeris lunam flexis genibus dic hunc versum. Illumina domine, vultum tuum super nos et fac hoc, quam diu vixeris. Et tunc vade domum ad cameram tuam devoveno, quod nunquam peririum voluntarie volueris facere et quod in fide katholica semper volueris perseverare et dic aliquias 0oraciones

Or, from other Suavic lands (via Moszyński’s book), you have this Croatian iteration (which incidentally also relates a fight between the Moon and a snake or dragon):

Pomladi ti mene, kak si sam sebe. Kad tebe zmija ujela, onda mene glava zabolela! Kad tebe zmija ujela, onda mene groznica uhvatila!

Incidentally, the Moon, as Moszyński notes, was also a Deity but among the peasants (at least in Christian times) only of demons such as water demons. And here we have the curious connection to water – woda – and, perhaps, Wodan. The Moon-Water connection is not that difficult to make – it is delivered by the tides. From there you can also imagine thunderstorms full of rain as the Wild Hunt. In the Balkans Moszyński finds evidence of the Moon “drinking” water much as the snakes “drank” the Sun in the Russian fables.

The Moon is, however,  susceptible to being eaten itself – by wolves. This association should also be obvious if you consider the changing Moon as a Moon from which some animal takes a bite out of (other Suavs associated the Moon, for the same reason, with the sickle – naturally – but also with “horns” – of course).

Both the Sun and the Moon cold be stolen (by witches) and, among Southern Suavs, the Sun could also be eaten by a werewolf or a type of dragon called Hala. This, of course, brings associations with Hela.

Further, let’s mention that Krzysztof Bracha also notes other references in Polish sermons to Sun as well as Moon veneration. Here are the actual copies of pages he cites from:

BN III 3025 (242v)

BN III 3022 (92r) (Sun & Moon worship)

 

So then the ultimate question must be: was the Rider in the Sky riding on His White Horse which Horse was the Moon? Remember from Saxo Grammaticus the tale of Svantevit who would ride at night on a white horse that the priest kept at the Svantevit Temple, located, nomen est omen (?), at Arkona.

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June 29, 2021

On Luticios and their Minerva, Gardina Yesse

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We return to this inscription, the stone on which it was once etched had apparently been incorporated into a local cathedral wall.

The meaning of the inscription is not entirely understood. Specifically, there is the confusing Ladae. Several theories have been proposed:

  • it’s the name of the wife of Titus Puniceus who along with the hubby donated this altar to Minerva (unusual to have the wife’s name first but, hey, maybe she was the one with the dough); the CVR. is in that case referencing cūrāre, in the sense of “donating”; presumably then it would not be Ladae T.Puniceus but rather Lada et Puniceus;
  • it refers to a curia, a rada (“wheel” (?) because, well, they sat in a circle…) a body of local officials (like the Chruch curia) and Mr. Titus;
  • it refers to Ladas the ancient Greek Olympic runner (cursor);
  • it refers to a Morin or Breton word for a “causeway” over a marsh;

The first of these would be of interest to us since it would be an attestation of the name Lada in the ancient world (third century?). The other three are also of interest but we will not discuss them now.

Incidentally, the Latin cūrāre may mean any of procure, heal, look after or govern. But CVR., as noted above, usually referred to the act of donation.

Other possibilities include curator as in “caretaker” (in which case Lada would be the protector of Minerva or vice versa?). But the noun’s case does not work; presumably, again you would have to say that this should be read “et” rather than “Ladae T.”

From myself, I can add the word curis which refers to a “spear”.  This is interesting since there is another inscription P. VAL. LADAE which features a thyrsus (a pine-coned spear) above the inscription and a caduceus (a messenger’s wand) below. Noteworthy is the fact that the Polish coat of arms lada features two arrows/bolts/spears (?).

The Morini were, of course, based in Tarvana (Czerwona? 🙂 ) and rebelled against the Romans right about the same time as the Bretagne Veneti.

I will note also that the arrows above can also be interpreted as “up” and “down” signs as shown in the second version of the coat of arms. I’ve already mentioned that the rune *jēra- contains the same symbols albeit arranged differently. It’s worth asking whether these rune portions, rather than just referring to the harvest, could have referred to the entire “year”. Specifically, note that for half the year the Sun is ascending and for the other half descending. The “trees” featured on ancient pots could then be viewed as simply showing a count of years. Hence in this context, the tree of life on an urn could mean the age of the deceased. All of this is a topic for another discussion.

Finally, Janssen suggested that it could refer also to Lada, the Suavic Goddess about Whom he first learned from Grimm. Schneider, noted that Lada was a spouse of the”Lycian” Jupiter. Whether he really meant Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis is unclear (more on that below and we will explore the topic in more detail later). In this respect, we also note that Giovanni Villani made the following statement in 1903:

“It seems that the name Lada ought to refer to an epithet of Minerva hiding the name of a local divinity.”

Now, as for this “local” divinity, it is worth noting also that this was found in 1427 in the area of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Also from the northwest of Continental Europe comes the following inscription:

(LUTATIIS SVEBIS was found at the foot of the Hunerberg in 1541)

Sed Liutici redeuntes irati dedecus deae suimet illatum queruntur. Nam haec, in vexillis formata, a quodam Herimanni marchionis socio lapide uno traiecta est 

Liutici were earlier known as the Vuilzi, perhaps referring to wolves (wilk meaning “wolf”). If the above connection to Leto is accurate then this may be another connection given that Leto was apparently given help by wolves (indeed, some argue that Lycia’s name comes from a reference to wolves or, alternatively, means “illuminated” – referring to Leto’s son – Apollo).

ON the other hand, maybe this is just a name of some Lutatius or Lutatia. An earlier mention talks of LVTATIAS SVEBAS.

Rybakov may have underestimated Lada’s range of worship (though he did get the Venedskiy zalyv right)

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April 2, 2021

Some New and Not So New Books on Suavic Matters

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The intensity of the lockdowns turns people inwards to entertainment, exercise or, for those just slightly more old-fashioned (or frail), reading. So I’d like to take the opportunity to review a few works dealing with the Suavs. The first is an older book, addressing early Suavic history that I should have taken the time to say something about earlier. The others are rather more recent and deal, interestingly, with the study of Suavic religion. 


The first topic is Paul Barford’s “The Early Slavs.” This is Suavic history for the common man without any academic pretensions. Barford appears to be an archeologist by trade. As to his education, little is clear and it is strange that his publisher Cornell University Press does not provide any bona fides on the jacket. I confess I do not know the procedures for getting published but I would’ve thought that a major university would not just publish a walk-in author so there may be more to this than meets the eye.

Be that as it may, in this case the choice to publish this was a good one. I actually like this book. It methodically outlines the appearance of the Suavs in medieval records, discusses historical developments in Suav proto-polities and moves on to economy, warfare and cultural matters before concluding with a “where are we now.” The book is easily understandable and well-ordered. You can read those parts you are interested in without reading about topics that are less appealing to you. It is chock-full of pictures and interesting maps (for example, a map showing Suavic tribes with the same name in different geographic locations). As noted above, unlike some other books, the book does not pretend to provide definitive answers or grandiose theories and in its conception is really an introductory text.

Barford apparently has quite an agitative and dogmatic brusqueness to his personality that has irked British treasure hunters as well as some within the Polish archeological community but “The Early Slavs” itself is quite measured in its judgements. Indeed, the book acknowledges a number of what should be (though surprisingly are not if you look at Suavic historiography) refreshingly obvious observations even if Barford goes on not to embrace some of these. To quote a few:

  • “It is clear that the traditional migrationary explanation cannot account or the diffusion of the language from a relatively compact area to cover half of Europe, whatever extended timescale in the early medieval period one wishes to adopt. Demographic expansion at this rate can be demonstrated to be biologically impossible. One possibility is that the Slav languages were already in use over a wide area of central Europe before the beginning of the early medieval period… [though he mentions other theories too]”
  • “[S]ome of the participants at Attila’s funeral are reported to have used the word strava for the funeral feast, and this has been claimed as a Slavic term (as indeed it may well have been).”
  • “The simple and hard fact is that from the finding of the sherds of a pot by excavation, there is absolutely no way that we can know what language was spoken by the user of a particular type of brooch any more than we can assume today that each wearer of Levi jeans speaks American English. Terms such as ‘Early Slav pottery’ and ‘Longobard fibulae’ used by archeologists are shorthand terms for more complex and totally uncertain situations.”

To be sure the book’s conclusions, however tentative, do not stray too far from orthodoxy (Barford assumes the Germanic nature of the Przeworsk culture) and often where they do so they come perilously close to Florin Curta’s ridiculous theories (including in, after some hesitation, dismissing the Suavic nature of the Veneti). Nevertheless, precisely because the “earliest Suavs” are not the focus of the “early Suavs”, there is plenty of other stuff here that the readers will find rewarding and useful.

If there is a particular weakness to the book it is inherent in the format chosen by Barford, that of a general, high-level exposition aimed at the Western laic (the book came out right before the admission of several Central European countries into the European Union). Such a format necessarily provides broad-stroke description of much of the material. For example, the religion chapter merely comments on the Rus gods and mentions some of the Polabian deities without acknowledging the Polish (and other) material.

Less forgivable is the occasional error – for example, no, there is no evidence, as Barford claims, for Svarog in Western Suavdom and Svarog was not worshipped at Rethra/Radogost. The only mention of Svarog, at least under that name, is from a note on a Russian manuscript of Malalas (later copied into a manuscript of PVL), likely written by someone in Lithuania (for more on that see here). At Rethra, the deity worshipped was Svarozic (see here and here). Also, Adam of Bremen does not speak of Svarog (or Svarozic) but rather of Redigast. Maybe these were the same divinities but, at least for Svarog – Svarozic that seems doubtful and, in any case, Barford does not claim that so we do not feel too pedantic in making the above objection.


Next up is the recently published “Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion”. The pandemic notwithstanding, we were able to secure a copy from a local university library (thank you!). This volume is, to some extent, what this site has tried to make accessible: a compendium of pagan Suavic religious texts with accompanying English translations.

Up front let us say that this is a must-have for anyone interested in the topic. It essentially combines Meyer‘s Latin, Byzantine, Norse and Arabic sources with Mansikka‘s list of Eastern Suavic sources with a few newly discovered sources tacked in. This alone makes the book a first. It has been nicely put together by a team of Spanish (of all people) academics led by Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa.

All that being true, the book is lacking in some respects. The English of the book (both in the translations and in the rest of the volume) is awkward. There are too many examples of this to list and it’s strange to me that Brill could not have hired a native English speaker to read through the material so as to clean it up. A college student would have done nicely. While this may be excusable to some extent in the translation of the texts where the authors were dealing with (often poorly written) medieval Latin and other old forms of language, the same cannot be said for, say, the introduction. Moreover, I suspect that the language specialists – all of whom are Spanish – hired to translate the material are neither English speakers nor – for the most part – speakers of the Slavic or German language that the writers of the Latin texts were. Thus, for example, in order to translate Jan Długosz’ texts into English, ideally, you’d have someone translate who not only knows medieval Latin as it was used in Poland but also speaks Polish and English. As it is, Długosz may have had a thought in Polish, written it in Latin, then to have a Spanish Latinist translate it into English (or, worse, I suspect the Spanish Latinist translated it into Spanish and then, in turn, someone who was not a native English speaker translated that Spanish into English). I get that Old Norse or Arabic are not in the toolkit of everyone involved and that this kind of volume is by its very nature challenging to put together but I fear shortcuts may have been utilized.

Irritatingly, the authors call Meyer and Mansikka “editions”; Mansikka could maybe get there but Meyer’s volume was just a compilation of other people’s editions which Meyer put together and he certainly claimed no other status for his work. Thus, the authors will frequently list the edition used as “Meyer” but note “other” editions by Brückner or by Heyzmann. Yet, the Meyer “edition” is just a copy of Brückner or Heyzmann.

The book does, in fact, more generally appear somewhat sloppy in places. Looking just at the Latin section we have, in the section discussing the “Statutes of the Polish Provinces” (these are the statuta breviter), the relevant portion of the Latin text given as “nomina ydolorum lado yleli yassa tya que consueuerunt“. Why are yleli yassa tya not italicized – as Polish Divine Names presumably – but lado is?

On the very same page the authors state: “These statutes are preserved in the Manuscriptum Ossolinense, which dates to 1627 but refers to the 15th century.” The above reference seems to be to an actual manuscript – one of many housed at the Ossolineum (or the National Ossoliński Institute). What is the number of that manuscript? The authors don’t think they say but they do indicate above that it dates to 1627. Except that the reality is that the manuscript actually dates to the 15th century and its number is 1627. This seems like an unfortunate error in a book which is intended as a guide to source material (indeed Meyer gets it right in his description).

Or in the Neplach part, where the same entry is once give as belonging to the year 1344 and then (incorrectly) to the year 1334. We assume that this is all a result of an underpaid intern being tasked with writing the descriptions of individual entries (or of too much of a reliance on a computer?).

Putting aside the awkwardness of the English and the sloppiness in places, the other thing that irks me here is the lack of a table of contents. Meyer had one in 1931 so why did the publisher/editor think that having more titles listed (plus translations) obviates the need for a TOC?

Ok, what about on the substantive side?

The authors’ aim seems to have been just to translate the Meyer and Mansikka anthologies into English and, where possible, to update those texts for some things that Meyer and Mansikka may have missed (Boniface) and some more recent discoveries. Still, in the Latin section 44 out of 52 sources are straight out of Meyer. As to those recent discoveries (not that recent), they explicitly rely on academic work of others (the 1990s work by Słupecki and, for William of Malmesbury, also Zaroff). That is to say, there are no texts here that have not been already published elsewhere by someone else and, it seems, preferably in English.

This creates a problem since some texts have been discussed in literature (are “known”) but have not been edited. Other texts have been edited but by editors who wrote in languages other than English, German or Russian (though the authors do include a Czech original text in the case of the Dalimil Chronicle). Both of those types of texts do not make the cut – whether this is by choice or simply because the editors were unaware of them, we can’t tell (they also seem to be unaware of other compilations aside from Meyer/Mansikka such as the recent compilation by Jiří Dynda – of course, that compilation is in Czech).

Thus, the sermons of Lucas of Great Koźmin have been mentioned by Kowalczyk in 1979, by Kolankiewicz in 1999, by Bracha in 2010 and by Wolski (and I suspect Brückner himself was at some point aware of them) – but all these are in Polish (though Brückner’s opaque reference to Lucas’ sermons in Brückner’s report to the Prussian  academy was, of course, in German). They mention Yassa, Lado and Nya – Długosz’ “Jupiter”, “Mars” and “Pluto”. But if you do not know how to read Polish there is even a Latin edition by Tatarzyński (or you can just ask someone to translate the Polish for you). The Tatarzyński edition is from 1988 (I believe) and we have all of it here on this site since 2017 (the relevant portions since 2014).

The same is true of Jakub Parkoszowic’s “Tractatus on Polish Orthography”. That work, widely known, among Polish scholars both of religion and, yes, orthography, contains a reference to Nya. This is apparently unknown to the authors perhaps because it was unknown to Meyer. Yet it is widely available if you only look. In fact, the Tractatus was published in print already in 1830 (by Samuel Bandtkie) and as recently as 1985 (by Marian Kucała).

Further, when discussing the Polish sermons of the 15th century, they do not include all of the relevant ones presumably because Brückner & others published them in multiple places but only one of those pieces made it into Meyer. A more complete version is available here and has been for some time.

The same is true with Jan Długosz’s Insignia Seu Clenodia Regis Et Regni Poloniae which contains another reference to Lada and predates Długosz’s Annales. The authors seem unaware of the Insignia. The authors do include portions of the Annales presumably because so did Meyer.

Speaking of the Annales, the authors (the Latin section was written by Álvarez-Pedrosa as well as Julia Mendoza Tuñón and Sandra Romano Martín) also made a couple of strange editorial decisions. In the main part of the book, they keep the portion of Długosz’ description of the “baptism” of Poland with its mention of Dziewana and Marzanna. They add to that Długosz’s description of Kievan paganism which itself is merely a summary of what is already in the PVL and adds nothing new (other than, as the authors note, Długosz does not give any names of Kievan gods – referring only to the “God of Thunder” as Vladimir’s favorite deity).

On the other hand, they move the discussion of Polish Gods in the Annales to the “Doubtful Texts” section because “the mythology presented by Długosz appears to be more an imitation of the humanistic taste for the Greek and Roman pantheon.” For good measure the authors note that “[t]he majority of names of the gods which he includes are invented.”

This statement is vacuous on its face. Długosz mentions precisely eight Gods and Goddesses. Of these eight, six are represented in texts which the authors did not deem “doubtful”. The only two Divinities that are specific to the portion of the Annales that the authors treat as suspect are Pogoda and Żywie. So either there is a math issue or, more likely, the authors pulled the statement about the “majority” out of their asses because that’s what they’ve been assuming from the start. (Some of the authors’ claims are also deceptively certain. For example, though this is debatable, śmigusdyngus probably does not come from the German but rather from some Baltic language).

Of the texts in the Latin section, some are of questionable utility. For example, the authors added a portion of the Kadłubek Chronicle which does not have any discussion of religion (their explanation seems unconvincing). They redesignated Meyer’s Einhard as the Annals of Lorsch. Yet that passage regarding Dragovit says nothing about Slavic religion.

Then there are the more substantive errors or omissions. For example, the statutes of Andrew Bishop of Poznań are described incorrectly as those of Andrzej Bniński (bishop 1438-1479) even though they are those of Andrzej Łaskarz (bishop 1414-1426). Why? Well, mostly likely, because Meyer did not list which Andrew he was citing. However, Meyer cites Udalryk Heyzmann’s edition found in “Testimonies of Old Polish Laws” (Starodawne Prawa Polskiego Pomniki). Heyzmann clearly identifies the bishop as Andrzej Łaskarz (Laskary) from Gosławice of the Godziemba coat of arms and I am not aware of anyone having challenged that identification (Brückner agreed with it too).

Going back to the ms 1627 from Ossolineum, the authors are not aware of the fact that an earlier version of that document is present in the Zamoyski Library (Biblioteka Ordynacji Zamoyskiej). This fact has been known since at least 1957 and was “recently” (a decade ago) rediscovered by Krzysztof Bracha. Had the writers known this, they might have known that these are synodal statutes of the Poznań diocese of bishop Nicolas Peyser (Mikołaj Peyser, that is, from Pyzdry) and might have included them. This would have been helpful because those statutes clearly show that the Divinity Tya listed in the Ossolineum manuscript is, as had been suspected, really Nya. It would also have been helpful with the dating of the statutes which were written before 1414 and maybe even in the last quarter of the 14th century (as opposed to the vaguer-sounding 15th century which the book gives). Of course, a call to Krzysztof Bracha or other Polish researchers in the area would have clarified that but it seems those folks had not been consulted. Given that the list of usual thank yous at the end of the introduction lists only Spanish folks, you can only worry that the outreach to local (non-Polish) country specialists was likewise limited or nonexistent.

Other errors abound as well. When citing the Annals of Magdeburg which mention an 1147 campaign against the Redarii, the translators erroneously place the Ruthenians in the middle of the Wendish Crusade failing to recognize the scribe having gone off on a tangent to describe the campaign of Bolesuav IV against the Prussians. Then they compound their error by explaining these “Pruscos” as “a Slavic tribe.” This, even though they know that the rest of the events covered by the scribe took place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern culminating with the the siege of the city of Malchow. Actually, they even call the area Mecklenburg-Schwerin – a name of a now expired duchy – suggesting that this description was obtained via some 19th century German text.

All that being said, the book – published by Brill –  is a useful, if incomplete, anthology of texts relating to Suavic religion – both Western and Eastern.  This, in and of itself, makes the volume unique in any language. The English translations are further an invaluable source of information for those amateur historians of religion who do not know Latin or Suavic languages. The fact that such an undertaking – no matter its shortcomings – was the enterprise of a group of Spanish scholars deserves praise for them (and, likewise, shame for Suavic scholars for not even having attempted to produce something like this). We can only hope that some of the issues with the volume will be fixed in future editions.


Someone once said that the history of studying Suavic religion is a history of disappointment. I do not agree with that sentiment. Rather, I think, what is  too frequently disappointing is the work of those who do the studying. This is particularly unfortunate when we are dealing with English language books on the topic as these are so few and far between.

Thus, we come to “Slavic Gods and Heroes” by  Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel, a book which “offers a radical reinterpretation of the Slavic pagan religion made on the basis of a thorough re-examination of all reliable sources.” This is an ambitious claim for anyone to be making but particularly for individuals like Kalik and Uchitel who appear to be newcomers to the field of Suavic religious studies. Kalik seems to be a lecturer at Hebrew University interested in Jewish history of Eastern Europe and Uchitel apparently was a professor at the same institution specializing in Middle Eastern history with an interest in religion. Pair them together (they are married) and you now have a new book about Eastern European religion. Of course, their lack of formal qualifications is not disqualifying in and of itself and a fresh perspective is frequently welcome but the bar, let’s say, is a little bit higher if you decide to opine outside of your area of expertise. With that being said, it is no secret that the bar isn’t met here. (They do radically reinterpret European hydronymy, asking “…why were there no Slavic gods at all between the Dnieper and the Order?” right in the introduction).

The central idea of the book is that the primitive Suavic society was a totemistic society characterized by animal worship with such “spirit” animals eventually anthropomorphised into legendary heroes or heroines such as Czech, Krok or Lebed. A bit like the Siberian or Turkic peoples of the steppes. Therefore, such a society never had any gods or goddesses – full stop.

I cannot escape the impression that the above is all the authors ever wanted to write about the topic (in what might otherwise have been a short article with a whiff of an opinion piece) and that somehow their publisher forced them to justify themselves. The result is a book which reads more like an almanac of unwanted chapters and entries where the authors perfunctorily (and, therefore, ineffectually) argue against (and sometimes just dismiss out of hand) all the evidence contrary to their thesis as if someone had told them they had to do that, even if half-heartedly, before they were allowed to write about what they really wanted to write about in the first place (that being, again, the alleged Suavic totemism).

As just one obvious example, they assert that “the Polish pantheon was invented only in the fifteenth century as an imitation of ‘Vladimir’s gods’ in Kiev.” The cite for this is Joannis Dlugossii seu Longini canonici Cracoviensis Historiae Polonicae libri XII, edited by Żegota Pauli and Aleksander Przeździecki, vol. 1, Krakow, 1867, 1.3. (p. 70). Now, that is the Latin edition of the work and was not published in 1867 but in 1873. What was published in 1867 was the Polish version of the same: Dzieje polskie w księgach dwunastu w przekładzie Karola Mecherzyńskiego. Moreover, while Aleksander Narcyz Przeździecki was involved as a publisher in the 1867 Polish edition, Ignacy “Żegota” Pauli was not. That said, neither the Polish nor the Latin edition makes any statement on “page 70” to support Kalik and Uchitel’s proposition. They give the same cite (also incorrectly) when stating that “Jan Długosz mentions Pogoda – ‘weather’ – among ‘Polish gods,’… but Długosz’s ‘pantheon’ is probably his own artificial construction, and this evidence is hardly reliable.” Oddly, elsewhere, the authors cite the 2nd Polish edition with a date of 1961. Now, for starters, they claim that this is Miecherzyński [sic] edition. But it is not a Mecherzyński edition but a completely new edition by  Jan Dąbrowski, Wanda Semkowicz-Zarembina, Krystyna Pieradzka, Bożena Modelska-Strzelecka &, as they say, others. Quite separately, that edition has been reissued in 2009 and is freely available online so you might have thought the authors would have just used that version. As it is, it is not clear which edition the authors used and, as regards the above claim, whether they used any at all.

All of this is before we even get to the following statement: “We did not use Długosz in our discussion of Slavic pagan gods as it cannot be a reliable source for this information. However, with some hesitation, his presentation of Polish historical tradition will be considered, since it includes some valuable additional details, which numismatic and epigraphic evidence may possibly corroborate.” This time the authors do not provide even an incorrect cite for why Długosz’ information “cannot be a reliable source”. As to the disarmingly charming statement made above, it seems the authors chose to look at Długosz where Długosz’ tales could be used to support the totemic theory that the authors are purveying but to ignore the same author where what Długosz wrote would not have otherwise jived with the thesis of their book.

Of course, Aleksander Brückner did dismiss some of the members of Długosz’ pantheon but the authors do not cite Brückner. As far as the claim that Długosz was copying “Vladimir’s gods” from the PVL, I am not aware of anyone who has made such a claim before the authors and the authors provide neither research on the topic nor any citations for the proposition. And more importantly, Brückner wrote a century ago (incidentally, in a manner that these days would hardly be allowed to pass – he also had a major problem with footnoting) and much ink has been spilled contradicting his views since. Kalik and Uchitel, however, give the awful impression of not being familiar with any of the arguments made against the positions they so casually espouse.

Presumably because they are newcomers to the field, the authors seemingly had to do a lot of basic research first. The book reflects this as the authors pedantically plough through various sources as a university student might to keep track of newly learned material in preparation for the final exam. In other words, do not expect a synthetic approach. Rather what you have here is a strange listing of some well-known sources with a smattering of more obscure learning (though there is a whole bunch of material that the authors just missed or willfully ignored). The lists include religious source material but also Suavic chronicles – much of which the authors come across as having first learned about in the process of writing their book. Again, the book reads more like an outline and its entries might make a suitable blog. In fact, as a blog, this compendium would have been quite fine but as a book it is lacking. (To be fair Gieysztor’s book feels the same in places and in his case we know that his publisher made him dumb his work down so, you might say, the authors are in decent company).

What about the substance of their claim? Well, first it’s not exactly original. Whether the authors know it or not, others have made similar claims about Slavic folk beliefs literally more than a hundred years ago (for example, check out Henryk Biegeleisen’s work). That being said, the claim is not sustainable. For one thing, there is plenty of evidence of Suavic worship of divinities in various contexts (reading this site might be helpful at least when talking about West Suavic Gods and Goddesses). Beyond that, it is, of course, the case that animals played a very important role in all early belief systems. This is no more true of the Suavs than of say Teutons – just see how many a Germanic bears a name with the suffix -ulf (wolf). And none of the Suavic idols are reported to have featured as a central figure an animal. That Suavs painted eagles on their banners makes them no more totemists than the Romans who were said to have come from brothers raised by a wolf and who carried the Roman eagle in front of the legions (look up aquilifer). Huginn and Muninn do not make Odinists into totemists and the popularity of the Lion of Judah does not make Israelites into totemists either. By the authors’ reasoning the Franks’ original religion could also have been “totemic” since Merovech, according to their own fabulists, may have been fathered by some sea monster.

Why Suavs were no totemists, methinks is quite simple: the Suavs did not originate in the steppe where totemic beliefs were common. They originated in the forest zone (maybe in the forest steppe, though I have my doubts). Thus, they were not influenced – at least on this point – by the nomads that populated that steppe.  I suppose they could have invented their own totems… but they didn’t. Kalik and Uchitel’s “founding myth” ingeniously made up from a patchwork of legends taken from various Suavic people’s “histories” does not convince me (yet 🙂 ).

Finally, the above examples of sloppiness are hardly far and few in between. A mildly competent editor with a knowledge of the languages involved (this seems to be a theme) could have pointed out some of the errors noted above but the authors don’t seem to have had one. As it is, we get such pearls as “Misrrz Wincenty” or Kazimierz IV Jagiellońszyk (including, in the index for good measure). In a day and age where Wikipedia (usually) gives you the correct spelling, this would be barely forgivable in a magazine article let alone in what purports to be a book focusing on Suavic topics.

Overall, the authors are altogether too ready (for a purported scholarly work) to make sweeping assumptions and jump (hop hop, pochopnie) to conclusions. For example, the suggestion that Svarog’s name may be cognate with the German schwartz I made, tentatively, some time back. The authors, however, exhibit far fewer reservations and enthusiastically make the possible cognate into a borrowing carrying it back to the reconstructed Germanic *svartaz (further connecting it with the Slavic chort and, naturally, Chernobog) so as to declare confidently that this is “the most likely source for the West Slavic Svarozhich [emphasis added].” (Given the lack of attribution, I am assuming they came upon this idea on their own). 

Are there positive aspects of the book? Sure. The very fact that a book has been written in English on this topic is better than if the book hadn’t come out at all. Any publicity is good publicity. The authors provide a nice compilation of examples of Suavic hippomancy, setting those rituals in the wider Indo-European context. They also give interesting anecdotes and factoids here and there. My favorite is the astute remark that Christian observers sometimes “tended to interpret [in the authors’ view] totemic cults as monotheistic religions citing as an example the following statement by a papal legate visiting a Mongolian khan: “They believe in one God, and they believe that He is the maker of all things visible, and invisible; and that it is He who is the giver of the good things of this world as well as the hardships…” This, of course, conjures up the famous passage by Procopius or, for that matter, the later description by Helmold of the Suavic God of Gods.

The book is published by Routledge whose recent duds include “Slavs in the Making” – Florin Curta’s exercise in digging himself in deeper.

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March 16, 2021

Vykhodil Na Bereg Berig

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Here is a bit of Jordanes:

“Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name. As soon as they disembarked from their ships and set foot on the land, they straightway gave their name to the place. And even to-day it is said to be called Gothiscandza.”

Ex hac igitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum cum rege suo nomine Berig Gothi quondam memorantur egressi: qui ut primum e navibus exientes terras attigerunt, ilico nomen loci dederunt. Nam odieque illic, ut fertur, Gothiscandza vocatur.


Of course, bereg simply means “shore”, “bank” or “edge” (here of sea) in Suavic (brěg in OCS, bereg/bierieg in Russian, brzeg in Polish, brzeh in Czech, brijeg in Serbo-Croatian). Separately, brěgynję referred to water nymphs in OCS. Bruckner sees the word as cognate with the German Berg meaning “mountain” and Avestani berez meaning “tall”, the latter being a source, perhaps, also of bereza (Belarussian for a “birch tree”; Polish brzoza, German Birke).

The fact that the name of the legendary Gothic leader landing on the south shore of the Baltic (?) is the same as the Suavic word for a water’s edge is unlikely to be a coincidence. It seems that this mythical person is simply who was made up by some Suavic intermediary relaying information to Jordanes or, more likely, Cassiodorus. It may even have been a practical joke.

Another interesting aspect of looking at some manuscripts is that the “Gothiscandza” does not seem like a Gothicscandza at all:

Rather, it appears that, at best the Goths named the country they landed in Scandza (maybe like New Spain or New England). And, frankly, the above at least does not look like Scandza but rather cccndza. If you wanted to be cheeky, you could say that the Scandi-navia – or new ( 🙂 ) Skandza would even suggest that the “old” Scanza may have been somewhere else – so perhaps the direction of migration was reversed. I have not looked at the other manuscripts on this so this is all just tongue-in-cheek.

Incidentally, Brückner has the following to say about the Polish skąd (pronounced skond) meaning “from where”. He traces it tokędy which means “where”, today’s Polish gdzie which, of course, with its “g” and “d” combination reminds of Gets.

kędy, ‘gdzie’, urobione, jak tędy, owędy, od pnia zaimka pytajnego ko- i pnia zaimkowego d-, co się powtarza w gdzie, kiedy; odkąd = pruskie iskwendau, to samo; kędyś, kędykolwiek, dokąd, pokąd; por. łac. unde; u nas kończy się to złożenie stale na -y, ale cerk. ot kądu, rus. ot kuda, bułg. ot kŭdě; skrócone: serb. kud, słowień. kod, czes. dokud i dokad.

Anyways, we wrote about this some time back but it seems worth reiterating these points.

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March 7, 2021

Pekkanen’s Δουλοσπόροι

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It is a well-known fact that Jordanes traced the origins of the Suavs to the people otherwise known as Veneti whereas Procopius indicated the older name to be Sporoi.

The Veneti have a history of being in history but the Sporoi seemed like a new thing. Some people thought that Procopius means the Serbs (Serboi) and others that he was referring to the Spali – a people found in Jordanes. None of this proved satisfactory.

Enter the Finnish Latinist Tuomo Pekkanen in 1968. Pekkanen’s theories are interesting in and of themselves but now is not the time for them. Suffice it to say here that he traces the Slavs/Suavs as well as Balts (Sudini) to a farmer population that gets enslaved by various nomads starting with the Scythians and then connects them to the Bastarnae – literally “bastards” (as compared with the “pure” Sciri) as well as with the Sarmates Limigantes (Sarmates Servi) or Limig (weak) Antes (as opposed to the Sarmates Arcaragantes or the strong Antes). He also believes that Slav can be traced to słaby meaning “weak”. This last suggestion seems odd as I am not aware of any group that called themselves “weak.” If the name is an exonym, given to the Slavs by others, then that suggests that the Slavic language itself is not a language that was originally spoken by the people that became Slavs. I will only note that Western Slavs call themselves Suavs not Slavs but, more importantly, słaby seems cognate rather with the Suavic name for Swabians, that is Szwaby (also used as a slur for all Germans).

In any event, what preoccupies us first is that Pekkanen noticed a few, previously ignored, references to a group called Sporoi. Or, to put it more precisely, to a group called Doulosporoi – Δουλοσπόροι. While that does not explain the meaning of Sporoi, it does supplement that name with the Greek word Δουλο. Δουλο, or more precisely, Δούλος, means “slave.” Were these people Slavs/Suavs? Who knows but it’s worth bringing them up here, particularly since researchers of Suavic antiquities have been aware of them at least as far back as Pekkanen’s book but have not discussed them at any great length that I know. The two sources cited by Pekkanen are Nonnus Abbas (not Nonnosus the ambassador/historian) and Cosmas Hierosolymitanus. Neither seems to predate Procopius but nevertheless they may be referring to the same group of people.

Pekkanen got these from Migne’s PG (Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca) so here we give the same versions.


Nonnus Abbas
Nonnus the Abbot aka Pseudo-Nonnus
(6th century A.D.)


Cosmas of Jerusalem
Cosmas Hierosolymitanus aka Saint Cosmas of Maiuma aka Cosmas Hagiopolites aka Cosmas the Melodist aka Cosmas the Poet
(8th century A.D.)


Migne’s Latin translation gives “servis progenitos” and “servili semine” for the Δουλοσπόροι  from Pseudo-Nonnus and Cosmas, respectively.

There is no reason to translate these passages as the story comes from Herodotus so we might just give that original version. Note that Herodotus uses the word δούλοι (“slaves”, incidentally this is the root for many other words such as, for example, doula – meaning “female servant) but, of course, does not use the words σπόροι (“seeds” or “offspring”).


After the taking of Babylon, Darius himself marched against the Scythians. For seeing that Asia abounded in men and that he gathered from it a great revenue, he became desirous of punishing the Scythians for the unprovoked wrong they had done him when they invaded Asia and defeated those who encountered them. For the Scythians, as I have before shown, ruled the upper country of Asia for twenty-eight years; they invaded Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians, and made an end of the power of the Medes, who were the rulers of Asia before the coming of the Scythians. But when the Scythians had been away from their homes for eight and twenty years and returned to their country after so long a time, there awaited them another task as hard as their Median war. They found themselves encountered by a great host; for their husbands being now long away, the Scythian women consorted with their slaves.

Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, by reason of the milk whereof they drink; and this is the way of their getting it: taking pipes of bone very like flutes, they thrust these into the secret parts of the mares and blow into them, some blowing and others milking. By what they say, their reason for so doing is that the blowing makes the mare’s veins to swell and her udder to be let down. When milking is done, they pour the milk into deep wooden buckets, and make their slaves to stand about the buckets and shake the milk; the surface part of it they draw off, and this they most value; what lies at the bottom is less esteemed. It is for this cause that the Scythians blind all prisoners whom they take; for they are not tillers of the soil, but wandering graziers.

So it came about that a younger race grew up, born of these slaves and the women; and when the youths learnt of their lineage, they came out to do battle with the Scythians in their return from Media. First they barred the way to their country by digging a wide trench from the Tauric mountains to the broadest part of the Maeetian lake; and presently when the Scythians tried to force a passage they encamped over against them and met them in battle. Many fights there were, and the Scythians could gain no advantage thereby; at last one of them said, “Men of Scythia, see what we are about! We are fighting our own slaves; they slay us, and we grow fewer; we slay them, and thereafter shall have fewer slaves. Now therefore my counsel is that we drop our spears and bows, and go to meet them each with his horsewhip in hand. As long as they saw us armed, they thought themselves to be our peers and the sons of our peers; let them see us with whips and no weapons of war, and they will perceive that they are our slaves; and taking this to heart they will not abide our attack.”

This the Scythians heard, and acted thereon; and their enemies, amazed by what they saw, had no more thought of fighting, and fled. Thus the Scythians ruled Asia and were driven out again by the Medes, and by such means they won their return to their own land. Desiring to punish them for what they did, Darius mustered an army against them.


The above translation is from Rawlinson (Loeb Classics) who observes that the word “blind” is likely a Greek mistranslation:

“Herodotus means that the slaves are blinded to prevent them stealing the best of the milk. Probably the story of blind slaves arises from some Scythian name for slaves, misunderstood by the Greeks.”

This was already the view of Heinrich Stein and Pekkanen follows Stein’s idea. To link this purported misunderstanding with the Slavs Pekkanen looks for an Iranian word that sounds similar to the Greek οι τυφλόί (oi tyflóί) meaning “the blind”. He then finds it in the Sankskrit andha- and the Avestani anda- meaning “blind” but also “dark.” From there it’s a straightline rush to the Slavic Antae and the Scythian slaves thus becozye “the dark”.

Of course the connection to the Slavs does not depend on the story of the “blinding” of the Scythian slaves being false. Whether the slaves were really “blinded” or just referred to as “dark”, either way they well may have been called Anda- by their Scythian overlords. Of course, if they were not in fact blinded but were just called “the dark”, we then would have to figure out why this was the case and whether the slaves had indeed been dark or whether this was some sort of a metaphorical name for a lower caste.

The story could explain why the Romans then saw the Servi living in the Black Sea vicinity. Though that name is also reported by Ptolemy, he was writing in the era of the Roman Empire and his informers could, in theory, have been Romans.  If, in fact, these Servi were speakers of Slavic and if the word Serb is of Slavic origin (Polish pasierb indicates kinship, that is, it means a “stepson”) then could such a word, ironically, also have been the source for the Latin servus itself? That’d be wacky to say the least.

On the other hand, the source of servus may be something like hero – or rent a hero (perhaps one that takes over as in one to whom you pay for protection). That is another meaning of serb (a “protector” – see the title of the Nonnus passage above). Crazily enough, the Croats may have a similar (though Avestani) etymology for their name which may suggest that the Serbs were the “self-help” team that kicked out the (Scythian?) Croats or the other way around or that, insanely enough, these were the same people. Were Sarmatians – the Sauromatae – Serbmatae? Of “Serb mothers” – is that why they moved away (?) from the Scythians beyond the Tanais? Herodotus does not make that connection but he writes:

“When one crosses the Tanais, one is no longer in Scythia; the first region on crossing is that of the Sauromatae, who, beginning at the upper end of the Palus Maeotis, stretch northward a distance of fifteen days’ journey, inhabiting a country which is entirely bare of trees, whether wild or cultivated. Above them, possessing the second region, dwell the Budini, whose territory is thickly wooded with trees of every kind… The eighth river is the Tanais, a stream which has its source, far up the country, in a lake of vast size, and which empties itself into another still larger lake, the Palus Maeotis, whereby the country of the Royal Scythians is divided from that of the Sauromatae.”

Of course, the Sarmatians eventually threw out the Scythians.

Also of course, all of this is several degrees beyond “highly speculative”. For example, the Sarmatians  at least judging by their names – very likely spoke an Iranian language 

In any event, it seems to me that, creative as Pekkanen’s theory may be it hinges to a large extent on oi tyflóί sounding like antae which seems highly improbable (at least to my ears).

Moreover, what Pekkanen has done is help Procopius create – albeit in a more convoluted manner – an “antiquity” for the Slavs/Suavs that is no different than the “Venetic” antiquity that was already provided explicitly for the Slavs/Suavs by Jordanes. While the story of the Scythian slaves may have been well known, Byzantine calling Slavs Δουλοσπόροι  (if in fact those are the people that Δουλοσπόροι  refers to) may have been similar to calling Eastern barbarians Scythian which label had, of course, also been applied to the Slavs. (Ironically, another story of the same ilk is given by Fredegar with Avars who now slept with Slavs’ wives and daughters – this was likely a common occurrence given the roving bands of lawless nomads – recall the Huns as being the offspring of Gothic witches).

No less relevant, the sources used likely postdate Procopius. Cosmas  (8th century) certainly does but Nonnus also likely wrote after the famous historian. If so, each would have been aware of the new Slavic threat at the Byzantine’s borders and yet neither makes a connection between their Δουλοσπόροι and their very present day Sclavi or Sclavenes. While not fatal to Pekkanen’s argument, this fact seems to weigh against it.

Be that all as it may, Pekkanen’s theory while interesting is no better than this theory which also is based on etymologies. Maybe the civilized nations called all the barbarians by some name like “seeds” aka “locust”. They view certainly would have been justified to a people sitting behind Constantinople’s walls while awaiting a savage horde’s arrival.

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February 3, 2021

The Suavs of Abu Hamid al-Gharnati

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Abu Hamid al-Gharnati (or Abu Hamid al-Andalusi al-Gharnati or Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Sulayman ibn Rabi al-Māzinī al-Qaysi) (circa 1080 – 1170) wrote a number of works, one of which – “Praise of Some of the Wonders of North Africa” (alMu’rib ‘an ba’d ‘aja’ib al-Maghreb) contains some information about Suavs. The following comes from the C.E. Dubler edition via Urszula Lewicka-Rajewska and Barbara Ostafin):

“The Suavs govern themselves in accordance with severe customs. If one of them dares to touch a female slave of another or the other’s son or horse or if he in any manner breaks the law, then all his possessions are taken away. If he does not have any, then they sell his sons, daughters and his wife to pay for his transgression. If the lawbreaker does not have a family or children, then he himself is sold and remains a slave serving his master till death or till such time as when he has returned that which he owes. And his slave services to his master do not count towards what he needs to return to free himself. Their land [of the Suavs] is peaceful. Should a Muslim do business with a Suav and should this counterpart of the Muslim trader go bankrupt then he, his children and his house are sold so that the debt to the trader is paid off.”

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February 2, 2021