The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Slavic/Part 3/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
DAŽBOG
THE statue of the divinity Dažbog, or Daždbog, whose name probably means "the Giving God,"[1] stood on a hill in the courtyard of the castle at Kiev, and beside it were the idols of Perun, Chors, Stribog, and other pagan deities.[2] In old chronicles Dažbog is termed "Czar Sun" and "Son of Svarog;"[3] and the fact that early Russian texts frequently translate the name of the Greek god Helios[4] by Dažbog[5] may be taken as proof that he was worshipped as a solar deity. In the old Russian epic Slovo o pluku Igorevě[6] Vladimir and the Russians call themselves the grandchildren of Dažbog, which is easily explicable since the ancient Slavs often derived their origin from divine beings.[7]
Dažbog was known not only among the Russians, but also among the Southern Slavs; and his memory is preserved in the Serbian fairy-tale of Dabog (Dajbog), in which we read, "Dabog, the Czar, was on earth, and the Lord God was in heaven,"[8] Dabog being here contrasted with God and being regarded as an evil being, since in early Christian times the old pagan deities were considered evil and devilish.
- ↑ Cf. Krek, Einleitung, p. 391, note 2, Leger, Mythologie, p. 121. The deity is, accordingly, plainly to be compared with the Samogitian god "Datanus [*Datanùs, "Inclined to Give"; see T. von Grienberger, in ASP xviii. 19-20 (1896)] donator est bonorum, seu largitor," of Lasicius, ed. Mannhardt, p. 11.
- ↑ Nestor, xxxviii (tr. Leger, p. 64).
- ↑ Cf. supra, pp. 286-87, on Svaražic and infra, p. 298, on Svarožič.
- ↑ See Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 241–43.
- ↑ Chronicle of Hypatius, ed. V. Jagić, in ASP v. i (1881).
- ↑ Tr. Boltz, pp. 17, 20.
- ↑ Cf. Krek, Einleitung, p. 393; Leger, Mythologie, pp. 5–6, 121, note 2, is very sceptical as to the mythological value of this epic.
- ↑ Cf. V. Jagić, in ASP v. 11–12 (1881).