CULTURE AND RELIGION The general impression is one of a people which lived in small communal groups, so impatient of authority that they scarcely combined for their own defence, and in spite of indi vidual bravery only formidable to others when cemented together by some alien element : hence they all at one time or another fell under an alien yoke ; the last survivals of Slavonic licence being the vece of Novgorod, and the Polish diet with its unpractical regard for any minority. The Slays were acquainted with the beginnings of the domestic arts, and were probably more given to agriculture than the early Germans, though they practised it after a fashion which did not long tie them to any particular district—for all writers agree in telling of their errant nature. They were specially given to the production of honey, from which they brewed mead. They also appear to have been notable swimmers and to have been skilled in the navigation of rivers, and even to have indulged in maritime piracy on the Aegean, the Dalmatian coast and most of all the Baltic, where the island of Riigen was a menace to the Scandinavian and German sea-power. The Oriental sources also speak of some aptitude for commerce. Their talent for music and singing was already noticeable.
Of their religion it is strangely difficult to gain any real informa tion. The word Bogii, "god," is reckoned a loan word from the Iranian Baga. The chief deity was the Thunderer Perim (cf. Lith. Perkimas), with whom is identified Svarog, the god of heaven; other chief gods were called sons of Svarog, Daibog the sun, Chors and Veles, the god of cattle. The place of this latter was taken by St. Blasius. A hostile deity was Stribog, god of storms. There seem to have been no priests, temples or images among the early Slays. In Russia Vladimir set up idols and pulled them down upon his conversion to Christianity ; only the Polabs had a highly developed cult with a temple and statues and a definite priesthood, perhaps in imitation of Norse or even Chris tian institutions. Their chief deity was called Triglav, or the three-headed ; he was the same as Svetovit, apparently a sky god in whose name the monks naturally recognized Saint Vitus. The
goddesses are colourless personifications, such as Vesna, spring, and Morana, the goddess of death and winter. The Slays also believed, and many still believe, in Vily and Rusalki, nymphs of streams and woodlands; also in the Baba-Jaga, a kind of man eating witch, and in Besy, evil spirits, as well as in vampires and werewolves. They had a full belief in the immortality of the soul, but no very clear ideas as to its fate. It was mostly supposed to go a long journey to a paradise (raj) at the end of the world and had to be equipped for this. Also the soul of the ancestor seems to have developed into the house or hearth god (Domovaj, Kfet) who guarded the family. The usual survivals of pagan festivals at the solstices and equinoxes have continued under the form of church festivals.
Wherever heathen Slavonic tribes met Christendom missionary effort naturally came into being. This was so along the Dalmatian coast, where the cities retained their Romance population and their Christian faith. From the 7th century the Croats were nomi nally Christian, and subject to the archbishops of Salona at Spa lato and their suffragans. From the beginning of the 9th century from Merseburg, Salzburg and Passau the Gospel spread among the Slavonic tribes on the south-eastern marches of the Frankish empire, in Bohemia, Moravia, Pannonia and Carinthia. Despite the zeal of these missionaries, as Germans they belonged to a na tion which was once more encroaching upon the Slays, and as Latins (though the Great Schism had not yet taken place) they were not favourable to the use of their converts' native language. Still they were probably the first to reduce the Slavonic tongues to writing, naturally using Latin letters and lacking the skill to adapt them satisfactorily. Traces of such attempts are rare ; the best are the Freisingen fragments of Old Slovene now at Munich.