The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Slavic/Part 3/Chapter 3

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2879929The Mythology of All Races, Volume 3, Slavic, Part 3 — Chapter 3Jan Hanuš Máchal

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]

  1. See Krek, Einleitung, p. 395, note i.
  2. Cf. the Elbe god Svaražic, supra, pp. 277, 286–87, and the similar statement regarding Dažbog (supra, pp. 277, 297).
  3. Cf. V. Jagić, in ASP iv. 412–27 (1880).
  4. See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 205–08.
  5. See supra, pp. 277, 286–87.
  6. 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.