28 Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 



The most authentic sources of the history of the Obotrites and other 

 Slavonic tribes in Mecklenburg, and the German provinces on the Baltic, 

 is to be found in the Chronica Slavorum, or Slavonian Chronicle of Hel- 

 moldus, which was published from MS. by Henry Bangert, at Lubeck, in 

 1559. The editor informs us that Helmoldus lived in Wagria, which was 

 that part of Holstein bordering on the Baltic. He had a temple and 

 a domuncula in Bosow, and laboured in the conversion of the Wagrians, who 

 were pagan Slavonians. Helmoldus died, a. d. 1170. "Nobody before 

 Helmoldus," says Baugert, "wrote fully on the history of the Slavi." 



Helmoldus, in his description, says " that the Baltic is so called, because 

 it extends, like a belt, through the Scythian regions as far as Greece — 

 raeaningjSaysBangert, Russia." "TheDaniandSueones,termedNorthmanni, 

 inhabit the northern side of this sea. On the south of it are Slavonian 

 nations ; first, towards the east, are the Ruzi ; then the Poloni, leaving 

 the Pruzi to the north, and the Bojohaemi to the south, as also the Moravi 

 and the Sorabi." The Pruzi are probably the Prussians ; but Helmoldus 

 was quite mistaken in supposing these to be Slavonians. He says " that 

 the Pruzi had not yet received in his time the light of Christianity ; they 

 use," he adds, "the milk and the blood of their cattle for drink, 'ut ine- 

 briari dicantur.' " To the westward of the Poles, Helmoldus places the 

 -Winali or Wends. The first of their provinces, from the eastward, is 

 Pomerania* — reaching to the Oder, at the north of which was Vineta, the 

 greatest and most celebrated city in all Europe, which was destroyed by 

 the Danes, while the people obstinately adhered to pagan idolatry. Be- 

 yond the Odora, that is on the western side of it, several other Wendish 

 states are enumerated by Helmoldus as the Tholentzi or Redarii, on the 

 lake of Tollentz. Of these people and their idolatrous worship at Rhetra, 

 I shall have occasion to say more when I come to the history of the Sla- 

 vonian Mythology. The Obotrites in Mecklenburg were another tribe. 

 Their country, as Bangert shews, has three times changed its owners. It 

 first belonged to the Vandals, a German nation j then to the Slavonian 

 Obotrites, who were conquered and partly expelled by Henry the Lion, 

 duke of Saxony, the great founder of the Guelphic family. 



We have thus traced the progress of the Slavonic nations, in one direction 

 towards the south, and in another towards the north-west. We have seen 

 that tribes of the eastern division of the Slavic race, termed by Procopius 

 and Jordanes, Antes, issuing from their original country or from the 

 region where they had dwelt from immemorial time to the northward of 

 the Krapak about the sources of the V'istnla, passed that barrier into 

 Pannonia or Hungary soon after it had been deserted by the Goths, who 

 were migrating into Greece and Italy. From Pannonia, where they 

 occupied the northern shore of the Danube, they long molested, by their 



* The name of Pomerania is from Slavic words Po, on, and Mer, sea. 



