Chernobog and Belobog, the Slavic Gods who Don’t Exist?

There are many forgotten gods in the world. Though the great pantheons of history endure along the crumbling ruins of the empires that spawned them, there are many lesser deities who run the risk of being forgotten entirely.

Many pantheons as rich and varied as those of Egypt, Greece or Rome have already been half forgotten, or indeed fully lost. What can we say about the pagan gods of pre-Roman Britain, for example: what were all those druids actually doing?

Often whether the knowledge of such gods survives to the present day is down to mere chance. Many religions and myths exist through the eyes of foreigners, captured as a curiosity and distorted by misunderstandings. 

Whole pantheons can be lost this way, major religions about which we know only a fraction. What myths and legends of the Inca pantheon have been lost, for example, hidden maybe forever in their undeciphered quilpu knotwork writing? Who knows how the Minoans worshipped, or the Polynesians of Rapa Nui?

• The Beast of Set, the Unknown Creature at the Heart of Ancient Egypt
• Fire from the Sky: The Terror of the Paris Gun

And how many minor gods have been forgotten entirely, gone along with their religion leaving no trace, their very passing unnoticed. Sometimes the very existence of such gods is thanks to the unlikeliest of sources.

Take for example Chernobog and Belobog, powerful gods of the Slavic Wends. These gods exist only thanks to a Saxon Christian, recording the pre-Christian cultures of central and eastern Europe. 

We should be grateful, one would think, for this chronicler’s efforts in preserving a lost culture. But things are rarely so straightforward, and there may indeed be something a little off about these two. Nobody can seem to decide whether they actually existed at all.

The Wends?

The Wends, also known as the Polabian Slavs, were a loose collection of Slavic communities concentrated around the river Elbe in what is now eastern Germany. Arriving in the region in the 6th century AD, they spread out to form a loose conglomeration over the next few centuries.

Modern archaeology has been able to identify their first arrival in the area from pottery fragments and other remains to around 525 AD. Here they would stay until the 9th century, when they were conquered by the Danes and Saxons. They disappeared, their language and culture extinct, and with only the modern Sorbs in the region as their descendants.

We know a surprising amount about the Wend culture, largely because they were right in the middle of European politicking and warfare for three centuries. But we know next to nothing by comparison about their gods, except for their fortuitous inclusion in the Chronica Slavorum, a documentary history of the Slavic peoples by the Saxon Helmond.

It is thanks to Helmond that we know of Chernobog. All later sources derive from his work and his descriptions of this “black god” associated with misfortune and cruel fate.

For Chernobog was not a god to be worshipped, but one to be feared. Hermold even makes the link between this deity and the Devil, noting that the Slavs who followed the old ways would pass a bowl among themselves, saying a prayer to this evil presence and looking to ward off bad fortune.

The thing is, Helmond wasn’t himself a Wend, and at the time of writing these were ancient beliefs indeed. The Chronica Slavorum was written in the 12th century, long after the Polabian Wends had been absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire and Christianity.

We have lots of later information on Chernobog, but this is either derivative of Helmond or entirely without a recognizable source. An entire 19th century theoretical structure about Slavic culture and “dualism” arose from the belief that Chernobog was one half of a pair of gods, but this whole thing rests on extremely shaky ground.

For, if you can believe it, Chernobog is actually the better-attested of these two Slavic gods who apparently complemented each other. The other, Belobog, is almost entirely derivative.

Helmond talked of “two gods” in his Chronica, one good and one bad, but only named the evil one as “Zcernboch” which literally means ”black god.” That the opposite was a “white god” which translates to “Belobog” is purely an assumption by later historians. Somehow this god doesn’t exist even more than the other.

Modern historians are unable to reach a consensus about these two figures. It is possible that they existed, captured by the 12th century historian, and even possible that some of the later information we have comes from lost sources and is a genuine recounting of how the Slavs of the Elbe saw him. It is even possible the Belobog, a god rebuilt from a reflected suggestion, is accurate in description and depiction.

Helmond’s Christianity should not be discounted, however, and it is also possible that these are figures from Christianity, either misapplied and used metaphorically by the author in his description. The Wends wouldn’t be the first pagan culture to be accused of being Satan worshippers.

Or, and perhaps most likely, it is something between the two. Helmond may have heard of Slavic worship of spirits good and evil, or simply their fear of bad luck, and build a Christian-influenced mythology on top of this misapprehension about what they were doing.

If this is true, it would be his mistake to anthropomorphise the fear of misfortune as an evil god who must be appeased. Chernobog was not a deity, and the Slavs with their bowl were merely warding off bad luck. Belobog, then, would simply be “good luck”, and all the Slavs were really doing was saying cheers.

Was Helmond using too much artistic license in his work? Certainly all those who came after, building to the great theory of Slavis dualism in their religion, were doing so. Or is it just possible that, hidden amongst the extrapolation, misunderstanding and outright invention of the later authors, the skeletal remains of Chernobog can still be found for those who have the wit to separate the original from the derivative?

For, after all, the Slavs had gods. Why not the black god of misfortune, and even the guessed-at god of good luck among them?

Header Image: Chernobog and Belobog may have been nothing more than the idea of good and bad luck. Source: Maxim Sukharev (Максим Сухарев) / CC BY-SA 4.0.