60 Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 



Venus, Djedjielia; and tempests, Pogoda.* It is evident that these last 

 writers were among those persons of narrow and confined views who 

 expected to find among all nations an exact counterpart of the theogonies 

 of Hesiod and Ovid. It is very probable that if we knew something more 

 of the Polish divinities, we should find Zievonia as unlike Diana, and Lelus 

 and Potetus as remote from Castor and Pollux, as Pogwist, of whom we 

 know something under his title of Piircunust, was remote from the Jupiter 

 of Mount Ida. 



Other relics besides those which I have ynentioned were among the remains 

 discovered at Prilwitz, for an account of which I must refer those who feel 

 curiosity on the subject, to the work of H6fprediger Masch. I have 

 already enumerated those objects to which the greatest interest is attached 

 on account of the light which they seem to throw on the superstitions of 

 the Obotrites, and the kindred nations. 



The collective results of all our inquiries into this subject, though to 

 several important questions, they afford no satisfactory reply, yet enable 

 us to arrive at some definite conclusions as to the general character of the 

 Slavonian Mythology. We have sufficient proof, for example, that the 

 idolatry of the Slavi belonged to that class of pagan superstitions which 

 personify and point out as objects of worship the powers of nature, the 

 most manifest and striking agencies of the elements, and the visible bodies 

 of the universe. To these were added imaginary beings, the mere creatures 

 of human desires and human necessities ; still merely physical agents, 

 endowed with powers to suit particular occasions, but having no moral 

 elevation above human nature, and susceptible of influence from human 

 motives of self-interest. As did other materializing superstitions, so that 

 of the Slavi deified not only the productive but likewise the destructive 

 powers of nature. The beneficent demons were to be stimulated by re- 

 wards, the malignant to be restrained by bribes from exercising their 

 wonted attributes. We are told by Procopius, and we have observed that 

 the assertion has been repeated in later times, that the Slavi, besides all 

 their host of inferior gods or genii, believed in the existence of one supreme 

 and universal deity. The assertion of a philosophical historian, whose previous 

 speculations on such a subject may have imparted a peculiar bias to opinions 

 derived from confined resources and difficult inquiries, may naturally carry 

 with them some degree of doubt, when unsupported by any trait which 

 indicates a corresponding enlargement of mind. But we cannot contradict 

 the positive declaration of Procopius. On one other particular his in- 

 formation is precise and conclusive. The Slavi acknowledged no fatality; 

 they knew nothing of that mysterous doctrine of destiny, which, coinciding 



* Hist. Polon. lib. i. ed. 1711. 



