The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Slavic/Part 3/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
SVAROŽIČ AND SVAROG
SOVAROŽIČ was worshipped by the Russians as the god of fire;[1] and his name, being a patronymic, means "Son of Svarog."[2] This latter deity, however, is actually mentioned only in an old Russian chronicle[3] which identifies him with the Greek Hephaistos[4] and speaks of him as the founder of legal marriage. According to this text, Svarog made it a law for every man to have only one wife, and for every woman to have only one husband; and he ordained that whosoever trespassed against this command should be cast into a fiery furnace—a tradition which seems to imply the importance of the fire (fireside, hearth) for settled family life.
That Svaražic, worshipped by the Elbe Slavs,[5] had the same signification as the Russian Svarozic may be considered very probable, though the identity is not yet fully established.[6]
- ↑ See Krek, Einleitung, p. 395, note i.
- ↑ Cf. the Elbe god Svaražic, supra, pp. 277, 286–87, and the similar statement regarding Dažbog (supra, pp. 277, 297).
- ↑ Cf. V. Jagić, in ASP iv. 412–27 (1880).
- ↑ See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 205–08.
- ↑ See supra, pp. 277, 286–87.
- ↑ If, as V. Jagić has suggested (ASP iv. 426 [1880]), the author of the Chronicle connected the name Svarog with Russian svaritĭ, svarivatĭ ("to weld, braze, forge"), the deity may be identical with the celestial smith of Baltic folk-songs (see infra, p. 330). For older explanations of the name see Krek, Einleitung, pp. 378–82.