An interesting question about the nature of Łada has never been solved:
- is Łada a Polish Goddess worshipped locally in Mazovia or is Łada the Polish (presumably male) God Mars?
The confusion stems from the fact that Długosz referred to Łada as a Mazovian Goddess in one place but as the Lechitic Mars in another.
Elsewhere, Łada is also referred to as the gardzyna that is “hero” or “champion” of Jassa. So we can also ask:
- is Łada the Male War Champion or is Łada the Female War Champion.
- And what is the connection to Jassa?
A solution to some of these questions may present itself if we acknowledge the fact that there may have been two Deities with a similar Name, look at the origin of the word ładny and rope in a bit of Greek mythology.
note: I’ve already written about some of this here but without focusing sufficiently on the “Łado – Ares” connection. What “Łado – Ares” connection? Keep reading.
Let’s begin:
Two Deities
First, there are actually two different Deities referred to in non-Polish Suavic songs – the female Łada and the male Łado. They are not siblings. Rather, they are typically shown as the bride (Łada) and the bridegroom (Łado). (It is from this set up that Brueckner, erroneously surmised that these Names merely merely mean “your beloved.”)
The “Orderly” Name
Second, the adjective ładny did not originally mean “pretty” as it does now. It meant “orderly” or “harmonious.” It originated with the word ład – which means, to this day, simply, “orderliness” or merely “order.”
Incidentally, the word jasny – that is “bright” – may come from – the name Jaś.
The Greek Connections
Third, we have Greek mythology. Greek mythology, with all of its inconsistencies such as they are, presents us with an interesting name – twice. That name is Harmonia. I say twice because there are two Harmonias. Yet, each brings a tantalizing hint for the reconstruction of the Polish Pantheon:
- Harmonia – The goddess of harmony and concord. In some tellings, she is the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite but there is also a version says that she was the daughter of Zeus and Electra and, the sister of Iasion (and Dardanos). In fact, it is at the wedding of this Harmonia that her brother Iasion succumbs to the lures of Demeter. This is the version related by Diodorus Siculus:
“There were born in that land [of Samothrake (Samothrace)] to Zeus and Elektra (Electra), who was one of the Atlantides [Pleiades], Dardanos (Dardanus) and Iasion and Harmonia . . . Kadmos (Cadmus), the son of Agenor, came in the course of his quest for Europe [Europa, his sister abducted by Zeus,] to the Samothrakians, and after participating in the initiation [into the mysteries of Samothrake] he married Harmonia, who was the sister of Iasion and not, as the Greeks recount in their mythologies, the daughter of Ares. This wedding of Kadmos and Harmonia was the first, we are told, for which the gods provided the marriage-feast, and Demeter, becoming enamoured of Iasion, presented him with the fruit of the corn, Hermes gave a lyre, Athene the renowned necklace and a robe and a flute, and Elektra the sacred rites of the Great Mother of the Gods [Rhea], as she is called, together with cymbals and kettledrums and the instruments of the ritual; and Apollon played upon the lyre and the Mousai (Muses) upon their flutes, and the rest of the gods spoke them fair and gave the pair their aid in the celebration of the weding. After this Kadmos, they say, in accordance with the oracle he had received, founded Thebes in Boiotia (Boeotia).”
(Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 48. 2 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.))
- Harmonia – The nymph – who as such, would have been a possible candidate for the retinue of Dionysus or Pan (with either of whom, Iasion could be identified as a fertility/agricultural Hero) and by one account, the mother – by Ares – of the Amazons. In fact, Apollonius Rhodius says the following:
“The Amazones of the Doiantian plain [by the river Thermodon on the Black Sea] were by no means gently, well-conducted folk; they were brutal and aggressive, and their main concern in life was war. War, indeed, was in their blood, daughters of Ares as they were and of the Nymphe Harmonia, who lay with the god in the depths of the Akmonian (Acmonian) Wood and bore him girls who fell in love with fighting.”
(Argonautica 2. 986 ff (trans. Rieu) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.))
Synthesis
Łada was a Goddess – the sister of Jassa – and the wife of Łado.
Łado was a God and and the husband of Łada.
Gardzyna – It may well be that Łado was a “War God” and, in that capacity also the gardzyna that is “hero” or “champion” of Jassa. But, if Łado was “Ares” then Łada as an “Amazon” could likewise be a powerful champion for Her Brother.
Finally, Demeter seems to be very much in the above telling the “Earth Goddess” Who is “ploughed” so to speak by Iasion. It is tempting to speculate that Demeter may be similar to the Goddess Marzanna who was identified by Długosz as Ceres – which is, of course, the Roman name for Demeter.
So we have a wedding between the “war pair” with the female being the sister of Jassa – the Polish Jupiter. At that wedding Marzanna and Jassa just go and do their own thing. The actual names still in use in Polish peasant songs were, of course, Marysia and Jasień. Occasionally, there was also Kasienia or Kasia as Jasień‘s woman.
Now the only question is how does “Zeus” fit into this. My guess is that Piorun (Thor but also Tyr and Taranos) was simply an aspect of Jassa (Odin) that, at some point in time, became a “Storm” God in his own right, traveling the world as a “war hero” – quasi-Ares – Bohater, Багатур or Bagatyr. Thus, from Sarnicki we learn that:
“Rossi… de heroibus suis, quos Bohatiros id est semideos vocant, aliis persuadere conantur.”
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