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Gods of the Old North

The thunderers, earth-mothers, and forest spirits of the pre-Christian Slavs, reconstructed from chronicle and folklore.

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13 entries

B

Baba YagaThe Witch of the WoodThe witch of the wood — the iron-toothed old woman in a hut on chicken legs, who eats some visitors and hands the others exactly what they need.Creature

D

Domovoi (Slavic House Spirit)Master of the HouseThe Slavic house spirit who lives behind the stove, guards the family and its livestock, and turns hostile if the household forgets to feed him.Creature

K

Koschei the DeathlessThe DeathlessThe undying sorcerer of Russian folktale who hid his death in a needle, inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside a chest, beneath an oak.Creature

L

Lada (Slavic Goddess)Contested Goddess of Love and SpringPopularly the Slavic goddess of love, spring and marriage. Most Slavists think she began as a song refrain misread as a divine name.DeityLeshy (Slavic Forest Spirit)Lord of the ForestThe Slavic forest lord who leads travellers in circles, owns the wolves and the game, and can stand taller than the pines or shorter than the grass.Creature

M

MokoshMother Moist EarthMother of the damp earth and the spun thread — the only goddess on Vladimir's hill, who outlived her own cult as a night spirit and as Saint Friday.DeityMorana (Marzanna)Goddess of Winter and DeathSlavic winter-and-death figure, drowned in effigy every spring. The rite is documented from 1420; whether a real goddess stood behind it is debated.Deity

N

NavLand of the DeadThe land of the dead — an old Slavic word for a corpse and for the dead who come back, and the least documented otherworld in European mythology.Realm

P

PerunGod of ThunderGod of thunder and the striking bolt — the oak-crowned sky lord of the early Slavs, sworn by in treaties and thrown into the Dnieper at Rus' baptism.Deity

R

Rusalka (Slavic Water Spirit)The Drowned MaidenSlavic water spirit of the restless dead: a drowned or unbaptised girl who leaves the river for one week each summer to walk the fields and the woods.Creature

S

SvarogGod of Fire and ForgeGod of fire and the forge — a smith-god known from one glossed line in a Kyivan chronicle, and one of the most over-reconstructed figures in Slavic myth.Deity

V

VelesLord of the UnderworldLord of the cattle and the world below — the second god the Rus' swore by, whose name survived as a curse, a saint's herd, and a beard of grain in the field.Deity

Z

Zmey, the Slavic DragonThe Three-Headed DragonThe many-headed dragon — the fire-breathing serpent of Russian epic song, met at a river crossing, and beaten only by a hero who refuses to stop swinging.Creature