Триглав: Померандық мифтердегі құдай

Deity from Pomeranian myth

Triglav ( "Three headed one") was the chief god of the Pomeranian and probably some of the Polabian Slavs, worshipped in Szczecin, Wolin and probably Brenna (now Brandenburg). His cult is attested in several biographies of the bishop St. Otto of Bamberg in the years immediately preceding his suppression of it in 1127.

In Latin records, this theonym is noted as Triglau, Trigelaw, Trigelau, Triglou, Triglaff, Trigeloff. Information about Triglav comes from three sources, the oldest being Life of Saint Otto, Bishop of Bamberg (Vita Prieflingensis) by an anonymous monk from Prüfening Abbey, written by 1146, the second source is the 1151 Life of Saint Otto, Bishop of Bamberg by the monk WD=, the third is Dialog on the Life of Saint Otto of Bamberg by the monk WD=, written around 1158 1159. These sources are biographies of St. Otto of Bamberg and describe his Christianization missions among the Baltic Slavs.

It is possible that the cult Triglav was mentioned by the 13th century writer WD=, who was well informed about the battles for Brenna in the mid 12th century, according to whom a three headed deity was worshipped in the stronghold, but he does not give its name. Some authors believe that Adam of Bremen's information about "Neptune" worshipped in Wolin may refer to the Triglav.

Scholars have tried to find any references to the Triglav beyond the Polabia and Pomerania. In this context, Mount Triglav in Slovenia and the legend associated with it are often mentioned: "the first to appear from the water was the high mountain Triglav", although Marko Snoj, for example, found the mountain's connection to a god unlikely. Aleksander Gieysztor, following WD=Q60613108, cites the Triglav stone near Ptuj, whose name was mentioned in 1322. There is a village Trzygłów in Poland, but it is within the range of the Szczecinian cult. In western northern Poland, folklorists have collected a number of local legends, according to which the statue of Triglav taken from Wolin was supposed to be hidden in the village of Gryfice, in Świętoujść on Wolin, in Tychowo under the erratic boulder Trygław, or in WD= ("Trzygłów's Lake").

The Hill on which Szczecin's temple to Triglav was located is most likely identical to Castle Hill. At the top of the Hill there was supposed to be a circle surrounded by a ditch, which was originally a sacred circle (from the 8th century), later a temple of Triglav was built there, and later a Christian temple. Brandenburg's Mound of Triglav is located about 0.5 kilometers from the fortress located on the island. A bronze horse, iron and decorative objects, including a lot of pottery, were discovered in the stronghold, indicating its importance and that an extensive religious cult may have been associated with it.

According to Aleksander Gieysztor, it should be considered that Triglav was a tribal god, separate from Perun, as indicated by Herbord's information that in Szczecin, in addition to temples, the place of worship included an oak tree and a spring, which are attributes of the thunder god. Gieysztor recognizes that Triglav was a god close to the chthonic Veles. According to him, this interpretation is supported by the fact that a black horse was sacrificed to Triglav, while Svetovit, interpreted by him as a Polabian hypostasis of Perun, was sacrificed to a white horse. Andrzej Szyjewski also recognizes Triglav as a chthonic god. He mentions the opinions of some researchers that the names Volos (Veles), Vologost, Volyn and Wolin are related to each other, and Herbord's information that "Pluto" – the Greek god of death – was worshipped in Wolin.

According to Jiří Dynda, Triglav may have been a three headed god who combined the three gods responsible for Earth, Heaven, Underworld. In doing so, he cites the pass of "Neptune" worshipped in Wolin and links this to Slovenian traditions regarding Mount Triglav, a three leveled idol from Zbruch, a Wolin's sacred spear attached to a pole, and an oak tree with a spring which, according to Dynda, corresponds to the Norse Yggdrasil and the wells beneath it, and the hiding of the god's statue in the tree all of which are said to be connected to the Axis mundi. Dynda proposes the following interpretations:

Relationship to Heaven: Triglav has his mouth and eyes covered to "not see or hear the sins of men." In Indo European mythologies, "dark" gods have a vision problem: Odin, Velnias, Varuna, Lugh. However, the blindfolds on the eyes of Triglav can be linked to the Sun in the context of "paradoxical mutilation" – a principle concerning some Indo European deities proposed by Georges Dumézil – the Greek sun god Helios is called "[he], who sees everything and hears everything"; the Vedic Surya is called "all seeing" or "men watching." Relationship to Earth: a description of the difficult journey to find the god's statue and his "rulership of three kingdoms." This may correspond to Hermes, the god of roads and paths, who is sometimes described as "three formed" or "three headed," and the three headed Hecate who is the protector of the crossroads and who was given a piece of sea, land and sky to rule equally from Zeus. The connection to the Underworld: the comparison of the Triglav to Neptune. This is supposed to correspond to Indo European beliefs that the afterlife is beyond the Sea; in a Slavic context, this may correspond to a Czech text in which a man wishes his malicious dead wife to turn into a goose and "fly somewhere beyond the sea to Veles" with Veles being usually interpreted as god of death.

According to Henryk Lowmianski, the Triglav originated in Christianity – in the Middle Ages the Holy Trinity was depicted with three faces, which was later taken over by pagans in the form of a three headed deity. However, this view cannot be accepted, since the depiction of the Holy Trinity with three faces is attested only from the 14th century, and the official condemnation by the Pope from 1628. The depiction of the Holy Trinity with three faces itself may be of pagan origin (Balkans). According to Stanislaw Rosik, Christianity may have influenced the development of the Triglav cult in its declining phase. The significance may have been that for the Slavs the Christian God was a "German god," associated with a different ethnic group, but known from neighborly contacts and the later coexistence of the cult of Jesus and the Triglav (the so called "doublefaith"). As pagans understood it, they linked the power of the deity to the military political strength of the tribe in question, so the Pomeranians reckoned with a new deity, and the monolatrous (or henotheistic) worship of Triglav may have fostered his identification with Jesus on the basis of interpretatio Slavica. Such an alignment of religiosity fostered a later highlighting of the separateness of Jesus and Triglav, in accordance with Christian theology, and further demonization of Triglav after the final christianisation of Pomerania, which perhaps finds an outlet in the 15th century Liber sancti Jacobi, where Triglav is referred to as "the enemy of mankind" and "the god or rather the devil."

Manuscript by Bronislaw Trentowski: With the word Halu Jessa created the world and all that existed in it. Therefore Triglav, having heard it, tore off his three heads, and from the blood that flowed from them arose hosts of three successive deities. It is possible that the Triglav was already depicted in 12th century French epic, along with Muhammad, as a pagan enemy of Christianity (in Old French: Mahomet et Tervagnan). However, it's also possible that this name was derived from Hermes Trismegistus, or from an "occitanization" of a vulgar Latin present participle from terrificans ("terrifying").