Veles (god)
Veles or Volos is one of the main gods in Slavic mythology . He is originally a god of fertility and magic, protector of cattle and harvest and ruler of the realm of the dead . His responsibility for the economic sector, the preservation of wealth and the safeguarding of the legal order is derived from this basic function.
As the god of the earth , Veles is the opposite of the thunder god Perun , which corresponds to the contrast between the Indian Indra and the demon Vala and points to a great age of this cult. Veles is depicted as a horned snake with a long beard.
Veles is mentioned above all in Russian sources, where it is nicknamed skotij bog 'god of cattle' . From the other areas only hints in place and person names, proverbs and songs have survived. South Russian harvest customs are associated with it, in which the first or last grain sheaves were sacrificed to the gods, nature demons or saints. The naming of the Pleiades by the Eastern and Southern Slavs as Volosyni (Russian), Vlascite (Bulgarian) or Vlašići (Serbian and Croatian) is also associated with Veles. His name still appears in the medieval Russian hero songs, the bylins . The clairvoyant singer Bojan appears as his grandson.
In the 10th century, Veles was invoked as the god of the legal order in addition to Perun when the Russian treaties with the Byzantine Empire were concluded. Idols of the deity mention the legends of St. Vladimir and St. Avraam Rostovskij : Prince Vladimir I had a statue of Veles thrown into the river after his baptism, Avraam destroyed a stone idol in Rostov .
After Christianization , Veles was reinterpreted as the devil , his name appears in proverbs in this function. The role of cattle protector was assumed by Saint Blaise , presumably due to the similarity of names .
He has been the namesake of the Veles Bastion mountain on the Brabant Island in Antarctica since 2015 .
literature
- Zdeněk Váňa: Mythology and gods of the Slavic peoples . Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-87838-937-X .