313 
gods. Nor do these matters seem to have been much investi- 
gated by any contemporaneous foreign writer ; so that almost 
all which survives consists of a few names of divinities and a 
vast mass of folk-lore, which on analysis is found to harmonize 
with that of other branches of the Aryan family, but does not 
concern our present purpose.* * * § Beginning with the general 
name for “ god,” we find that amongst the Letts it is dewas ; 
old Prussian, deiwas ; Lithuanian, diewas ; old Irish, dm; 
Latin, deus ; Greek, theos ; Sanskrit, deva, “ the Bright-one,” 
Dyaus-Zeusjf and as we know the concept and character of 
Zeus-Jupiter, “ the supreme Aryan god,” we see by the faith- 
ful testimony of language that the Letts, like the other archaic 
Aryans, J worshipped a great heaven-father, of whom the 
bright blue sky was the material symbol. Among the Slavs 
the common name for “ god ” is Bogu, which, as we have 
seen,§ is the Vedic Bhaga, “the Distributer,” a phase of the 
Supreme as Isodaites, “the Equal-divider,” who gives to all 
their portions in due season. In the Avesta Bagha is used 
in the general sense of “god,” and the Slavonic religion 
“knew a biel-bog, or white god, and a czerny bog , or black 
god,” || two personages corresponding to the Iranian Ahura- 
inazda and Angromainyush. It is to be observed that in some 
instances, both of language and belief, there is a special con- 
nection between the Iranians and the Wends, which, amongst 
other reasons, may be accounted for by original geographical 
proximity. Czernv-bog appears further west as the Anglo- 
Saxon malevolent divinity, Zernebok, € f the nocturnal potency 
which appears at times in a semi-humorous aspect, as in the 
tricksy Puck ; whence, next, the name Pug, applied first to 
a monkey from its tricks and playfulness, and afterwards to 
the now-familiar Dutch breed of dog, as having a monkey-like 
face. To such strange uses do august and sacred terms often 
descend ! We know from the previous investigation that 
Bogu, the distributing god, is Dewas, the Bright-one ; and that 
Lett and Slav have thus, like Indian and Greek, selected 
different names to express the same great Being. 
* Mr. W. R. S. Ralston, author of The Songs of the Russian People , 
Russian Folk-Tales , etc., has made this field especially his own. 
t Vide Zoroaster, sec. 12. 
I “Fick agrees with Pictet ( Les Origines Indo-Europeennes ) in discover- 
ing indications of monotheistic thought in the midst of the naturalism of 
the primitive Aryan people ” (Pezzi, Aryan Philology, 178). 
§ Zoroaster, sec. 19. || Haug, Essays on the Par sis, 273. 
IT Cf. Scott, Ivanhoe, cap. xvi., “ Mista, Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of 
the ancient Saxons.” 
