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Tag: Perun

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Perun’s Oak – part 2

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…

perun oak

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Perun’s Oak – part 1

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…

Perun oak

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Slavic amulets – Part 3

The medieval tradition of worshiping paleolithic age stone tools has a pan-European spread and connects them with a Thunder cult. They were believed to be the divine weapon of the Thunderer, which he throws from heaven during a thunderstorm to strike the evil. It was widely believed that when a thunder struck, a “thunder arrow” (“thunderstone”) would go deep into the ground and after a few years it would gradually re-appear on the surface. Such beliefs in some regions existed until the 18-19 centuries.

We continue to familiarize you with the customs and beliefs of the ancient Slavic people, while working on the animated fantasy comic book series. In such posts, as if jumping forward in time, we shed light upon and help to understand the events that will occur in our story … 😉

The mythological context of worshiping “thunder” arrows, axes and hammers is directly related to the cult of Perun, since it was this god who represented the Thunder cult in the Slavic pantheon.

In the most archaic form these believes are found among the Belarusians, who preserved in folk tradition the ancient name of the God of Thunder – Perun, which has become the common name for “thunder”: “Perun has a quiver of arrows in his left hand, and in the right – the bow. He shoots arrows which strike his targets and cause fires. A miraculous arrow can be found at the place of a lightning-caused fire.”

To be continued…

This post was prepared based on the articles by E. A. Tyanina:
(1) “Tools of the Stone Age in the cultural layer of medieval Novgorod: pagan cult objects or random things?” // Novgorod and Novgorod land. History and archeology, 2008;
(2) “The discussion of the Perun’s cult in the Novgorod land (based on records of the archaeological research of Novgorod)” // COLLOQUIA RUSSICA; Series I, vol. 8; “Religions and beliefs of Rus’ (9th–16th centuries)”; Krakow 2018

Additional sources:
(3) “Slavic Antiquities” – encyclopedic dictionary in 5 volumes by Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
(4) M.V. Sedova, “An amulet from ancient Novgorod,” Soviet Archeology, No. 4, 1957
(5) A.N. Afanasiev, “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature,” vol. I., 1865

Slavic amulets