The Mythology of All Races/Volume 3/Slavic/Part 2/Chapter 4

by Jan Hanuš Máchal

CHAPTER IV

ČERNOBOG

THE evidence of Helmold shows^[1] that at banquets the Slavs were wont to offer prayer to a divinity of good and evil; and being convinced that happiness comes from the god of good, while misfortune is dispensed by the deity of evil, they called the latter Černobog or Zcernoboch ("Black God").

The conception of Černobog as the god of evil in contrast to the god of good is probably due to the influence of Christianity. The western Slavs, becoming familiar, through the instrumentality of the clergy, with the ideas of the new faith and with its conception of the devil, transferred to the latter many features of the pagan deities, worshipping him as a being who was very powerful compared even with the god of good. He was regarded as the cause of all calamities, and the prayers to him at banquets were in reality intended to avert misfortunes.

PLATE XXXIV

Idealizations of Slavic Divinities

I . Svantovit

This modern conception of the great deity of the Elbe Slavs (see pp. 279–83) should be compared with the rude statue supposed to represent him (Plate XXXI).

2. Živa

While the ancient Slavs, like the Baltic peoples, worshipped many female divinities, the name of only one of them has been preserved, Živa, the goddess of life.

3. Černborg and Tribog

Černobog, or "the Black God," was the Slavic deity of evil, and Tribog, or the "Triple God" (cf. the deity Triglav, pp. 284–85, and possibly the three-headed deity of the Celts, Plates VII, XII), is regarded by later sources as the divinity of pestilence.

After pictures by N. Aleš.

1	2
3

1. i. 52.