Re: [tied] Nostradamus and Dumezil

Thanks,

As you know, there is so much garbage published it is difficult to
differentiate between fact and fantasy. Sometimes I can recognize it,
sometimes not. I wish there were more knowledgeable publishers that
can stop junk from making it into their books.

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> The Bielobog/Chernobog struggle is an invention of 17th-century
(and later) erudites. Its classic version (disseminated uncritically
by various popular publications and Internet sources) was created and
popularised by Wilhelm Boguslawski, a 19th-century Polish historian
whose myth-making talents anticipate _Silmarillion_.
>
> Manichaean elements in Slavic myths have been read into them by
modern authors. "Chernobog" occurs in a single early source --
Helmold of Bosau's _Chronica Slavorum_ (12th c.). Helmold mentions a
hostile deity of the Polabian Slavs, "Diabol sive Zcerneboch, id est
niger deus", the bringer of misfortune. Helmold's information
on "Zcerneboch" is not confirmed by other sources, and in his list of
Polabian gods there are quite a few highly suspect items, so
*c^IrnobogU ('Blackgod') is at best a might-have-been entity (if not
a figment of Helmold's interpretatio christiana). "Bielobog"
('Whitegod') is not mentioned at all by any early authors. His name
was coined for the sake of Manichaean symmetry some 600 years after
Helmold.
>
> The native Slavic words used to translate "devil"
(diavolos/diabolus, itself borrowed as *dIjavolU or *dUjabUlU) were
*c^IrtU and *be^sU -- but their exact pre-Christian content is
difficult to reconstruct (mischievous spirits, anyway, rather than
Slavic Ahrimans).
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: cas111jd@...
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 5:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Nostradamus and Dumezil
>
>
>
> PS: The Bielbog and Chernobog struggle, IMO, also reflects the
struggle between Ormazd and Ahriman. There is even a creation myth
between them that recalls elements of the Zoroastrian version. It is
a struggle between the forces of light/summer and darkness/winter. It
is played out in many IE myths, such as Balder and Hodur in Norse
myth, and various Celtic gods. The Norse and Slavic annual struggles
are on the solstices, but for some reason the Celts have their on
Beltane and Samhain.