Chmielowski’s Nowe Ateny

We have, thus far, only been through the oldest sources on Polish religion. The latter works are generally more prone to repetition and suspected of elaboration leading to fancy. Nevertheless, caution given, a relatively late work may be worth mentioning here.

This is a work by a priest Benedykt Joachim Chmielowski (Nowe Ateny albo Akademia wszelkiej scjencji pełna) from 1745-1746 (dedicated “to the wise as a mnemonic, to the idiots so as to educate them and to the politicians for entertainment”!). This work was so popular that, in a kind of technological regression, extra copies had to be handwritten (!) when the print runs ran out (or at least when the printed editions were halted). Here is what he has to say about Polish but also Czech, Baltic and East Suav paganism:

“Thus, the Poles worshipped with great aplomb, pomp and celebration, singing, dancing, burning of offerings, the idols, Jasen, Lada or Niwa Manzena, Zyzylia, Ziewana or Ziewie, the Goddess of breath and yawning. Nia the idol, supposedly had its temple in Gniezno as Długosz attests. They venerated too Pogoda, Pochwist, that is the air weather. Lelum polelum, supposedly, the stars of Castor and Pollux and in life inseparable friends and for that reason did the Poles call upon them when in happy company [n their role] as the preservers [conservatores] of friendship. These too idols did the Czechs also call upon and in addition to these also others, as I had read in Republica Bohemica, that is Chwot Zielon, Pohoda, Moskasla, Pochwist or Nehoda, Nerod, Radmasz (supposedly Rhadamanthus); Niwa, Wieles, Tasawi, Sudice, Wili, Tzybek, Lel, Pelel, Ssetek or Skrzytek, Diblik. Among these Czechs the first name was Prun or Peron, the second Swantowit (was this not Saint Vitus, the patron of the Czechs?).”

“It is these Deities’ names that the historians in Poland and in Czechia generally understand all the powers of superstition, that is Jove, Mars, Pluto, Cerera, Diana, Sol, Venera, Mercury, Rhadamanthus, the Furies, the Parcae (the Moirai), Castor, Pollux, etc.”

“The Prussians, remaining in paganism, venerated as God: the moon, fire, water, snakes, groves, especially honoring oaks. The priest of their superstitions went by the name Krywody. As Kromer says when discussing Bolesuav the First Polish monarch: And this Bolesuav desiring not to leave the smallest vestige of pagan superstition ordered the cutting down of an oak, six elbows wide, strangely grown from the earth to the boughs and taken as a God by the inhabitants of the Prussian town of Romowe. There was there another oak in a town Oppen [?] which was supposedly also used for divinations [and] long preserved, such that it came to reach  such width that in [the inside emptiness of] its rot Albert the Prussian Duke could safely turn his horse around which was easily achieved when its width reached 27 elbows as Henneberger [Kaspar] testifies in his Prussian Chronicle. This [oak] succumbed thereafter to cuts of different names [inscribed in it] of those who were there making offerings in accordance with the ancient rite to this idol [Deaster – supposedly a pseudo-Latin invention of Sebastian Castellio’s]. Also the Livonians or Inflantians venerated true idols [as in statues as opposed to trees] as Peter of Duisburg attests.”

“It is a great wonder that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania many were [living] in the errors of idolatry. They bowed to the golden Baba, that is to a statue that was raised by the roadsides; and those that carried or transported something would toss small bits as offerings, hair or flakes in place of other things they would toss from their clothes [?]. Those who did not do this were immediately punished with sickness or poverty, according to Olao [?]. She was supposedly taken for one of the ancient Goddesses, either as Ceres or as Tellus or as that Roman Abeona, or Abeona the Goddess of Travelers. This golden Baba was venerated in Muscovy in the Obdoria Province with the following statue: she held a child in her hand and another stood by her side. This idol was worshipped by nearby nations by the killing of elk and the smearing of their blood on its eyes and lips as also through offering of sable furs. There they also venerated thunder and fire as in all of Ruthenia and Muscovy, whose church in Vilnius Wladyslaw Jagiello the Polish King and Lithuanian Duke – having first extinguished with the water of Holy Baptism the sparkles of superstition in his own person – cast down and put out the perpetual fire [burning there previously]; for this reason, supposedly, in Lithuania and Polesia they call fire Bagacz from the altered name of God. They held in esteem the smith’s hammer, as I read in Aenae Sylvio [Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini], the later Pius II, the Supreme Pontiff.* They supposedly wanted to use this hammer to forge gold forever.** They also venerated Lucos, that is groves and trees the cutting down of which was a monstrous crime and a sacrilege. Similarly, to kill at home or on the road, the Snake, a House God, was deadly for the entire family. Lakes, caves were divine places as well as rivers, which is even shown in the very name of the Podolian river Boh, which river, according to Sarnicki, the Podolians held to be a God, a superstition they were taught by Lithuania.”

[* note: perhaps he means the future Pope’s “Tale of Two Lovers”; incidentally, also relevant to Suavs, that Pope’s letters too contain a mention of the one of the best known descriptions of the enthronement ceremony of the Carinthian dukes.]

[** note: it is also “striking” that the Latin “cudo” means to strike, beat, originally perhaps also “forge”. Despite the fact that the “c” was pronounced as a “k” whereas the Suavic “c” is pronounced as a “ts”, it is tempting to note that “cud” in Suavic means “miracle.”]

“In Samogitia or Żmudź [Žemaitija], before the Holy Faith lit up that country, that is around the year 1413, the Samogitians venerated, in addition to trees, the following Gods: Auxtejas Wissagistis, who was powerful among them; Zemolaci, that is Gods of the Earth; Perun, whom the tillers would offer bacon during thunderstrikes and when he stopped, they themselves partook of this offering with oatmeal [kasza] or noodles; Audres, the God of the sea and water; Algis, supposedly an Angel; Ausea, the Goddess of the rays; Bezlea, the Goddess of the Evening; Bregsua, the Goddess of darkness; Ligez the God of alliance or of consensus; Datan, supposedly the giver God; Kirnis, the God of cherries and blueberries;* Lizyusz, the God of young men; Gondu, the God of maidens and girls; Modeyina, Ragaina, Kierkiez, Silimicz, forest idols; Kurwayczyn and Erayczyn, who preside over sheep and lambs; Prigerstitis, the God who listens to murmurs and whispers, for this reason they observed a great quiet and modesty when talking; Dereintos, the God of peace who caused agreements: Laupatim was honored by the tillers; Ratainicz was called upon by the horse owners; Kristosi they asked to maintain crosses and stones on graves; Tawols, the God of wealth and poverty; Ulanicza, the Goddess of all house gear and she who wakes those that are asleep; Krukis the God of Swine;  Alabathis, the God of linen and yarn; as also, the Goddess Wasganthos for the same purpose was venerated by maidens and girls; and to the God called Ziemiannik, having on November the 2nd filled the tables with [various] courses they celebrated sacrileges, offering hay, bread, beer, calf, pig, rooster and goose, thanking for all the earthly blessings and asking for new ones in the future. Smik, Smik, Perlewenu, the God of tillers to whom, when beginning to till [in the year] they always offered the first sliver of the field, throughout the year then wary, as if it were a great sin, to cross it. Aitweros, the God of fences. Latawiec was venerated in Samogitia. Kaukie they called the night terrors and ghosts; they worshipped snakes too, taking them as House Gods and calling them by the name Givoytos; Orthus or Ezeonim, the God of Fishing Lakes was there also venerated, so writes Jan Łaski.”

[* note: strangely, a cherry is Kirsche in German which may suggest a solution as to who the mysterious Curche was]

“In Ruthenia – before the Holy Faith illuminated it through Olga or Helena, a Russian Lady and through Anna, the sister of Basil and Constantine, Greek emperors around the year 971 – the Ruthenians venerated Perun, Strib, Hors and Mokosl, as Kromer testifies. To this idol Perun, a human form was erected with a silver head, a golden nose and in the hand a thunderbolt. They worshipped him in Great Novgorod, burning  fires to him from oakwood only. In this place there now stands a monatery called the Perunian.”

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