54 Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 



for believing that it was at Prilvvitz, on the lake of Tollentz, where the anti- 

 quities which he has described were discovered. There seems to be no 

 reason for doubting that these are the very remains of the temple described 

 by Adam and bishop Dithmar, or rather by the latter, since no golden 

 image has been seen. I now proceed to make some observations on the 

 figures of Radegast, and on the remainder of the images.* 



The figures of Radegast represent him with a human body, surmounted 

 by a head, wliich is either that of a lion or a dog : his eyes are deeply sunk 

 in his forehead : he has a huge mane, which descends to his shoulders : on 

 his leonine head sits a goose. There were no less than five images of 

 Radegast in this collection. I have copied tlie most remarkable. One 

 of these is dressed in the usual habit of the Wends. It bears the head of 

 an ox in its right hand, before its breast. The Runic letters cut upon 

 different parts of this figure, give the name Radegast Bilbocg, that is, 

 Belibogc, or fVhite God, and Rhetra. 



Very little is known concerning the particular attributes of Radegast, 

 but from one of his names, Slavaradge, which, in the Wendish language, 

 means a counsellor of glory, Masch conjectures that he was a god of war, 

 and this seems indeed to be implied by the passage already cited from 

 Adam, of Bremen. 'J'he peculiar meaning of the forms and emblems given 

 to him could only be discovered by knowing more than we can ever know 

 of the mental habits and associations of the people whose imagination pro- 

 duced such a creature. Tlie head of the ox may be symbolical of strength. 

 It is difficult to imagine what attribute could be represented by the goose. 

 Some have supposed that Radegast was originally a Vandal god, and that 

 he was the Vandal king Radegaisus deified. However this may have been, 

 the style of his garnish is rather Slavonian than German. 



VODHA. 



Next to Radegast, Masch mentions Vodha, as he was termed by the 

 Vt'ends of Mecklenburgh. This, it seems, was the same as the Woden of 

 the Saxons ; at least such was the opinion of Masch, in which he has been 

 followed by Karamsin. The worship of Vodlia was probably borrowed by 

 the AVends from their Saxon, or other German neighbours, before the 

 conversion of tlie latter to Christianity, or both the Slavonian and Teutonic 

 nations may have brought it in common from the east. Most writers on 

 the antiquities of the ancient Germans and Scandinavians, since the time 

 of Maillet, have identified the Saxon Woden, or the Odin of the Edda, 

 with the Buddha of the Indian mythology ; and we here find a name given 

 to this divinity by the Slavonians, much nearer to the eastern designation, 



* " Accounts likewise remain of temples of Slavonic gods at Stettin, (See Karam- 

 sin, V. I. p. 118,) and at Arcon, (Ibid. 119.) The former is described in the Life of 

 St. Otho, the latter by Saxo Grammaticus." — See Gebhard's Geschicbte der Slaven. 



