Slavic tales of how the world began
Slavic creation myths
A set of Slavic tales explaining how the world was created, preserved in chronicles and in Christianized folklore. Its most widespread version is the earth-diver myth, in which God and the Devil must cooperate to form the land.
The myth
According to the earth-diver myth, at first there was only water. God and the Devil, who have equal power, must work together: the Devil dives and brings up a handful of earth under his tongue, and as the world grows the sand bursts from his mouth. In another version, the Devil pushes God toward the sea from the four cardinal points, but the land keeps expanding. God blesses it by tracing a cross, and the Devil ends up thrown into the abyss by lightning.
Worship and religion
The Polabian Slavs worshipped Chernobog and Belobog, the black and white gods to whom this myth also fits, and in the Primary Chronicle the Ruthenians swear oaths by Perun and Veles, suggesting the weight of both.
Legacy
These tales survived in Christianized popular tradition. In South Slavic folklore, St Elijah, heir to Perun, is opposed to St Nicholas, heir to Veles. The Russian scholar Afanasyev, one of the first to study Russian folklore, recorded them in 1859.
Ancient sources: The Primary Chronicle of the Ruthenians, which mentions oaths sworn by Perun and Veles, and the Byzantine writer Procopius on the religion of the Slavs.