Triglaw

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Image of the three-headed god in an Art Nouveau window of the Trieglaff Castle named after him

Triglaw , also known as Triglav , Triglaf or the three-headed , is a Slavic war and tribal god who was worshiped by the Pomorans especially in Wollin and Stettin , and later also in Brandenburg . Above all, three biographies of Bishop Otto von Bamberg , who undertook two mission trips to the Pomoran area in 1124 and 1128, report on the cult of Triglaw . In older literature, Triglaw was also depicted as a female deity.

Triglaw cult in Wollin and Stettin

The main temple dedicated to him was in Stettin. His three heads (sometimes blindfolded and mouthed so that he could neither see nor tell of people's sins) stand for heaven, earth and hell; in his hands he held a horned moon. With the help of a horse adorned with gold that has to cross lances, Triglaw gave information about the outcome of an upcoming battle. His places of worship were largely financed by spoils of war, with a tenth of the booty being given as tribute to the temple after each campaign.

When Stettin was Christianized in the course of the Wendenkreuzzug in 1127 , Bishop Otto von Bamberg had the places of worship destroyed and the statue of Triglaw overturned. The three heads were cut off, one of which was sent to the Pope in Rome. Another Triglaw statue, placed near the island of Wollin, was hidden by the priests and thus saved from destruction.

Triglaw cult in Brandenburg and Berlin

With the Christianization of the Mark Brandenburg, the Triglav sanctuary on the Harlungerberg , today's Marienberg in the city ​​of Brandenburg , was replaced by the new four-tower St. Mary's Church . The Triglav statue of Brandenburg is said to have been kept in this sacred building, which was demolished in 1722 on the orders of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, until the 16th century. According to contemporary chroniclers, as the Brandenburg city historian Otto Tschirch reports, it was given to the Danish-Norwegian King Christian II in 1526 . However, recent research has not yet led to any concrete clues as to the whereabouts of the culturally and historically significant figure of a god.

The very first Spree bridge that the river reaches in Berlin is called Triglawbrücke .

Triglaw cult in Westphalia

The historian Hermann Stangefol reported about the Drüggelter Chapel in 1656 :

“There in the very old temple, which is still standing, there was once an image of the goddess Trigla, who had three heads, to which the pagans usually fled in dire need, begging for assistance. It is plausible that this village derived its name from that very picture. This statue was completely lost in the Truchsessian War in 1583. "

Origin of names and parallels

The name is probably derived from the two Slavic words tri (three) and golowa, glaw, glawnyi ~ (main). Another theory suggests that the name Triglav is of Greek origin; the Greeks called the goddess Hecate namely also Trikephalos (the three-headed), therefore, would Triclaf and Triglav to be regarded as equivalent of this Greek name. It would also be possible that in the chronicles the monks chose a Greek name known to them to designate this deity, similar to the way Roman authors always used Roman gods to designate Germanic deities (in Tacitus e.g. Mercurius instead of Wodan ). It is therefore unclear whether “this (Triglav) is an original name or just the attribute of a differently named god who was given this name later because of his three-headed nature”.

Three-headed (or even three-loving) gods are also found in other Indo-European peoples, such as the Hindu god Trimurti , whose three heads embody the cosmic principles of creation, preservation and destruction, and Geryon in Greek mythology. The former Germanic main god Tyr is occasionally considered a three-headed giant, the Celtic god Sucellus is often accompanied by a three-headed dog.

swell

  • Georg Heinrich Pertz a . a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 12: Historiae aevi Salici. Hannover 1856, p. 721 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
    • Ebonis vita sancti Ottonis episcopi Babenbergensis
    • Vita Ottonis auctore monacho Prufeningensi
    • Herbordi Dialogus de vita Ottonis episcopi Babenbergensis
  • Wolfgang Gondolatsch: Studies on the development of the legend of the Harlungs and the faithful Eckehart: Leipzig, Univ. Diss. 1922

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Stangefol: Opus Chronologicum Et Historicum Circuli Wephalici [sic!] In quatuor libros congestum. 1656
  2. ^ Zdeněk Váňa: Mythology and the world of gods of the Slavic peoples , Stuttgart 1992, ( ISBN 3-87838-937-X ), p. 93.