Swarog

Polish cosmogony

At the beginning there was only light, the endless sea and the swan circling in the form of a swan over the vast abyss god Świętowit.

At the beginning there was only light, the endless sea and the swan circling in the form of a swan over the vast abyss god Świętowit. Loneliness teased God. But he saw his shadow on the water. So he decided to separate the shadow and body associated with the shadow. In this way, the gods Svaróg and Weles were formed.

Swaróg twined the boat out of the light and settled in it, swaying on the waves. Weles dived into the depths and spent most of his time there. However, both gods were bored with the monotony of the sea and wanted to create a permanent land. Swaróg persuaded Weles to dive deep into the bottom of the abyss and bring him a handful of sand. During the collection of sand, Weles had to say a formula with magical words that would contain a grain of cooperation. Weles was to renounce the formula “With Swaroga’s power and mine.” Weles dived twice, but he could not reach the bottom of the endless sea. It was only at the third attempt, after saying the correct formula, that he managed to reach the bottom of the abyss and grab a handful of sand. However, Weles wanted to create the land only for himself, so he hid a few grains of sand in his mouth.

After emerging, Weles extended his hand to Swarog. Swaróg took a few grains of sand from his hand and scattered the surface of the water. Sand after contact with water turned into dry land and grew. Also grains of sand in Weles’ mouth began to grow. Weles was forced to spit out swelling beans. Where the spit began to pile up the mountains. The cradle of the world created by the gods was small. On this small island, the two gods were barely located. The selfish Weles decided to control the world himself and decided to push Swaroga into the sea and drown in the abyss. As soon as Swaróg fell asleep, Weles picked him up and began carrying him toward the shore. But when he tried to get close to the shore, the shore moved further into the sea. The world was getting larger and larger as the desperate Weles carried Swaroga to the sea. He finally gave up.

When Swaroga woke up, he saw that the land was growing larger. Weles joyfully informed him that the world is constantly growing. At first they were both happy, but after some time Swaróg began to worry that the sky would become too small and would no longer be able to cover the land. Although he shared his anxiety with Wels, he did not want to listen to him and did not care.

So Swaróg began to suspect that Weles was hiding something from him and created a bee he sent to spy on. The bee sat quietly on Weles’ shoulder and followed his actions. A Weles from the sea waves created a goat and talked to him. He was laughing at the stupid god Swaroga, who can not stop the world from expanding. Weles told the goat that it would be enough to set all sides of the world with the club so that it would cease to grow.

When the bee came back to Swaroga and told him what she had heard, he turned the wave and the light from the stick, set it all sides of the world and said “Just Earth.” The world has stopped growing and became as we see it today. The gods looked at each other and began to argue over the domination of the heavens. But Świętowit could not stand it anymore. He called Swaroga and Weles to himself and divided the world between them. Swaróg was supposed to rule over land, and Weles was to rule under the ground. In this way the lands of the gods were separated and Weles was taken over by Nawia, a land where God could graze on the meadows the souls of dead people. Swarag, on the other hand, became the god of fire, sun and earth.