Another relatively late source for Polish Gods is a mention from the year 1611 by Marcin Błazowski (aka Błażewski or Błażowski). Błazowski was the translator of Marcin Kromer’s chronicle (written in Latin in the original) into Polish. While translating the passage about Polish Gods (which Kromer mostly got from Długosz), Błazowski decided to expand on Kromer’s brief description providing some additional information about Łado that he, it seems, felt comfortable supplementing Kromer on by reason of Błazowski having experienced some of the related celebrations in Ruthenia (around Sambor in Ukraine). He also gives more detail than Kromer on Pochwiściel.
Here are the relevant passages:
“Thus, the Poles and other Suav nations worshipped as Gods Jupiter personally, Mars, Pluto, Cerera, Venera, Diana: calling them: Jessa, Lada or Ladon, Nya, Marzana, Zezylia, Ziewonia. It is those that they understood as such; it was them that they offered altars, steeles, groves and priests to; it is to those that they made sacrifices to; killed cattle for; for their fame did they come together to annual holiday celebrations, feasting, dancing, clapping, singing and playing a variety of games. Of these idolatrous celebrations Dlugosz himself, having experienced them in his days some time after the Christian conversion, speaks of, saying that men and women, the old and the young would gather together in the fields for games and dances, precisely during our holidays; which gatherings they called stado [meaning “herd”] as if referencing a herd or a flock of some kind. From this, apparently, Ruthenia and Lithuania, the villagers especially, preserve the custom of dancing, clapping their hands and repeating Lado. Kromer does not discuss Ladon sufficiently, favoring pithy assessments, I guess; for this reason, having been born in this land, I provide a more complete description from Ruthenian texts and customs that I was able to get a hold of. For Ladon, the Ruthenian nations, took at times for such a God to whom they ascribed the rule over all fortune and important matters, making him the Lord of all good fortune; for this reason they called to him during the baptism of their children, during games, parties, weddings and all other matters of relevance. Much as the Catholics [would call upon] Hymen, the Greeks [upon] Iao or Bacchus and others. All of Ruthenia retaining this souvenir of paganism till this day, especially in wedding songs, they bring up the afore-mentioned Ladon: for either with their hands [hitting] against the table or with hand against hand [clapping], at each stanza of a song, they sing of him. Let us now return to Kromer…”
“…I would, however, say that Pochwiściel is a whistling wind or tempest, which whirls with great momentum and whatever it hits, it swirls it around; and even its name itself indicates this: for it it appears to be called Pochwiściel from the manner of its blowing (for it whistles as it blows) or from the lifting of things it comes upon [chwytać – to grasp, grab, lift]. But I will leave this to the judgment of the reader. I think though that also Ruthenia and not just the Mazurs worshipped this Pochwiściel (if he is a wind) for this reason: even today in Ukrainian Ruthenia, whenever a this gale appears in front of their eyes, they bow their silver heads to it in various ways.“
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