Leshy Stories

Chroniclers of the 12th century talk about the worship of the sacred oaks by the Baltic Slavs in Lubeck and Szczecin. According to the testimony of Cosmas of Prague, the cult of trees in 12th century also remained among the Czech peasants. The gods were worshiped with sacrifices in an oak grove – “the favorite residence of the gods.” The Czech duke Bryachislav was known to be destroying these sacred groves and trees.
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The cult of the oak among the Slavs (as well as among the Balts) was associated with the cult of Perun, the god of thunder and lightning. Researchers also point out the common Indo-European nature of the connection between the Thunder God and the Oak – for example, in Ancient Greece and Rome, oaks were dedicated to Zeus and Jupiter, respectively. There is a reference of the “Perun’s Oak” in the letter of the Galician-Volyn duke Lev Danilovich (1302). There is a famous mountain called Perunova Dubrava in Dalmatia. The combination “Perkunas (Perun) Oak” is often found in Baltic sources.
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Gustynskaya Chronicle (beginning of the 17th century) describes the customs in Russia on the verge of Christianization (the end of the 10th century). It says that there was an “eternal fire” in the Perun’s shrine, and only oak wood was used for it. Any priest was executed if they neglected the sacred fire.
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To be continued…

In the general cult of nature among the Slavs, tree worship was especially widespread. It remained for a long time even after the adoption of Christianity. According to the Duke Vladimir’s Law, everyone “who prayed under the barn, or in the woods, or by the water” was subjected to church court. But even 600 years later, there was a record of a complaint from the orthodox priests of the Nizhny Novgorod province in 1636 that “… women and girls gather under the trees … and bring pies, porridge and fried eggs as sacrifices…”.
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According to written sources, the worship of the oak was especially widespread in the cult of trees among the Slavic tribes. In the treatise «De administrando imperio» (948-952), Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus describes the sacred oak worship by the Rus warriors on the island of Khortitsa: “… they make their sacrifices, because a huge oak tree grows there. They sacrifice live roosters, stick arrows into the ground in a circle… some bring pieces of bread, meat or something else, as their custom requires.”
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To be continued…