Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic

1 7 7
Mythology1

-
Martin Golema

1 5 5
2 0 0 7 ,
The author makes an attempt to interpret fragments of tales that were layered by folk
tradition upon an ocial church interpretation of some saints in the Slavic environment
from the perspective of new comparative mythology by Georges Dumzil and his school. At-
tention is mainly focused on the leitmotif of ploughing a certain space around by the saint.

-
Similar leitmotifs can also be found in dynasty legends of Western Slavs, a ritual correlate

X
of these tales has been preserved in several regions of Central and Eastern Slavic Europe
almost till the present time in the form of ploughing around the village to protect against

S L A V I C A
the plague and natural catastrophes. Looking for the common meaning of these tales and
corresponding rituals inside of the system discovered by Dumzil and reconstructing a three-
functional Indo-European ideology, researchers connected them mainly with the third func-
tion of fertility and production, out of the presumption that it was typical agrarian magic.
The author proposes an alternative interpretation that reveals the possible position of these
tales and rituals within the legal pole of the rst function of religious sovereignty.

In this article we would like to present the fragments of tales which medieval folk
tradition built up on the basis of the official church interpretations of saints of the Slavic

M Y T H O L O G I C A
world; we will interpret them from the perspective of Georges Dumzil and his school of
new comparative mythology. The object of our interest is the motif of ploughing done by a
saint, as well as the fragments of further tales which could possibly be related to this motif.
In dynasty tales of the Western Slavs there were similar motifs interpreted in a similar way:
Pemysl, a ploughman, a hospitable ploughman Piast, also Hungarian kings ploughmen
St. Stephen or Matej Korvn, who were given the same attributes by the folk tradition.2 A
ritual correlate of these tales has been preserved in many locations of central-East Europe
almost until today in the form of ploughing the village around as a protection from the
plague and life destruction.
Looking for a common meaning of these tales and rituals related to them inside
a system of three-functional Indo-European ideology discovered and reconstructed by
Dumzil, the researchers connected it mainly with the third function of fertility and pro-
duction, taking the standpoint that it is a typical agrarian magic. We will propose an alter-
S T U D I A

native interpretation which reveals a possible place for these tales and rituals within the
legal sphere of the first function of religious sovereignty.
1
The study was written within the grant of The Research Grant Agency at Ministry of Education of the Slovak
Republic and Slovak Academy of Science (Vedeck grantov agentra M SR a SAV) number 1/2260/05.
2
KOMOROVSK, J.: Kr Matej Korvn v udovej prozaickej slovesnosti. Bratislava : Vydavatestvo SAV, 1957, p.
4149.

155
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

Dumzils research showed an important common feature of the majority of Indo-

European religious systems, which is the division of gods into three groups related to
a specific society order and systematic concept of magic-and-religious existence, where
every type of deity has a particular function and mythology related to it.3 This kind of
three-part systematic reorganization of the whole magic and religious life was roughly
accomplished before the division of proto-Indo-Europeans. The last, or rather the most-
known outgrowth of this archaic ideology is a medieval doctrine about three kinds of
people. According to the same code (the first function of religious supremacy, the second
function of war, the third function of fertility and production) the epic heroes were distin-
guished. The aim of our interpretation attempt is to show that in folk legendary presenta-
tion some saints and mysterious dynasty founders were divided this way as well.
Other important, but less known discoveries by Dumzil are connected with the
inner dualism of the first Indo-European function of religious supremacy. We believe that
ritual ploughing as a motif, which Slavic oral tradition strikingly often added to the official
church legends, can reveal its meaning only against the background of this dualism; hence
it is not productive to interpret it within the third function of fertility and production,
which has for the present dominated in studies based on Dumzils discoveries.4
Indo-European religious dualism was based on the idea that supremacy is dual, it
has two faces, one of which is more cosmic, more mysterious and terrible, another is more
human, closer connected to the law, and more religious ...5 The inner dualism of the first
function of religious supremacy has found its probably most pure, most archaic and best
documented expression in the Indo-Iranian pantheon, where it is most vividly seen. Here,
theology puts at the first level of its three-functional hierarchy not a single god, but two
closely-connected supreme gods, one of which is more cosmic, mysterious, fearful, and
the other one, whose name means agreement, who is more turned to a human being, cares
for law and is more benevolent.6 One of them is a guileful, sinister, and restraining god
of distant lands, the other is a benevolent protector of agreements. 7 The first is called
Varuna, the other is called Mitra.

3
ELIADE, M.: amanizmus a nejstar techniky extze. Praha : ARGO, 1997, p. 321. (Translated by M. G.)
4
For example, BANASKIEWICZ, J.: Podanie o Piace i Popielu. Studium porwnawcze nad wszesnoredniowieznymi
tradycjami dynastycznymi. Warszawa : Pastwowe Wydawnictvo naukowe, 1986, p. 4085. The author presented
his argument in a chapter with a characteristic title Trzeciofukcyjny charakter Piastowskiej tradycji dynastycznej:
krl Oracz-ywiciel i jego maonka (Three-functional Character of Piast dynasty tradition: King, the Ploughman
and the Breadwinner, and His Wife). Dumzil himself assigns the figure of a hero from Russian epics Mikula
Seljanin, the ploughman, to the third function. (DUMZIL, G.: Mtus a epos I. Praha : OIKOYMENH, 2001, p.
660664.) The same interpretation of dynasty legends of Western Slavs is given by Le Goff: Many medieval dynas-
ties had as a legendary ancestor a king, a farmer and food producer ... Among the Slavs, Pemysl, a forefather of the
Czech Pemyslovecs (Pemyslovci), according to the chronicler Kosma, he was called up from the ploughing to be
made a prince, as can be seen on the fresco of St. Katherines cathedral in Znojmo dating back to the beginning of
the twelfth century A.D., or Piast, a founder of the first Polish dynasty, called by Gallus Anonymus a ploughman,
an arator, a peasant, an agricola ... (LE GOFF, J.: Kultura stedovk Evropy. Praha : Vyehrad, 2005, p. 323). (Trans-
lated by M. G.) Similar ideas are expressed by Merhautov and Tetk: We can hardly doubt that originally Libue
and Pemysl were gods in what way can they be put into the Indo-European and Slavic three-functional system?
Despite expectations, they surely do not belong to the first juridical function the function of a ruler; Pemysls
ploughing and the whole meaning of the sacred wedding points to the third function. (MERHAUTOV, A
TETK, D.: Romnsk umn v echch a na Morav. Praha : Odeon, 1983, p. 28). (Translated by M. G.)
5
DUMZIL, G.: Mty a bohov Indoevropan. Praha : OIKOYMENH, 1997, p. 19. (Translated by M. G.)
6
DUMZIL, G.: Mty a bohov Indoevropan. Praha : OIKOYMENH, 1997, p. 18. (Translated by M. G.)
7
PUHVEL, J.: Srovnvac mythologie. Praha : NLN, 1997. (Translated by M. G.)

156
 Martin Golema

Persian Mitra killing a bull, marble basrelif

(, . .: . In:
2, .
: , 1988, p.
155) (TOPOROV, V. N.: Mitra. In: Mify narodov
mira 2.)

Varuna includes all that is inspired, unpredictable, frenetic, quick, mysterious, ter-
rible, dark, ordering, and totalitarian (iunior), etc.. Mitra includes all that is restrained by
rules, exact, grand, slow, legal, friendly, clear, liberal, measuring according to the merits
(senior), etc.8 From the Old Indian texts it becomes clear that Mitra is a god close to
the society of people and originates from this world, while transcendental Varuna has his
throne in another afterlife world. Mitra guards the day, while Varuna guards the night. Mi-
tra watches over the agreements and makes the relations between people easier. Varuna, a
dreadful wizard, rules with strong magic. Mitra is friendly to a man, while unpredictable
and quick-tempered Varuna is violent, irritating and fearful. Mitra is connected to peace,
prosperity up till the limits of pastoral idyll. Varuna has vivid military, wild, even savage
character; it is a god of a conquering war.9
According to Toporov, a researcher of Indo-European culture, the differences be-
tween Mitra and Varuna create a clear and certain system of contradictions: Mitra is con-
nected with well-being, while Varuna is connected with the contrary; Mitra is connected
with the right side, Varuna is connected with the left. Mitra is close (connected with inter-
nal), Varuna is distant, external, Mitra is connected with the East, the sun, the day, sum-
mer, and fire. Varuna is connected with the West, the Moon, the night, winter, and water.
Mitra is connected to the cosmos, Varuna is connected with chaos, Mitra is connected
with the collective, Varuna is connected with the individual, Mitra is connected with the
social, Varuna is connected with the natural, Mitra is connected with law, Varuna is con-
nected with magic. That is the reason for these figures to be the basic qualifiers in a model
of the world of Vedic Hindus.10
The division of competence in religious matters into magic (Varuna) and law (Mi-
tra), which has its expression also in space division into two opposite spheres, is not only a
Hindu issue. Functionally identical pairs of contradictions, both antagonistic and comple-
mentary, have been disclosed by Dumzil and his followers in religious traditions of other

8
CURTIUS, E. R.: Evropsk literatura a latinsk stedovk. Praha : Trida, 1998, p. 191. (Translated by M. G.)
9
DUMZIL, G.: Mtus a epos I. Trojfunkn ideologie v eposech indoevropskch nrod. Praha : OIKOYMENH,
2001, p. 626. (Translated by M. G.)
10
. .: . In: 2, . :
, 1988, p. 157158. (TOPOROV, V. N.: Mitra. In: Mify narodov mira 2. Enciklopedija v dvuch
tomach.)

157
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

Indo-Europeans, but also in their heroic epics, where many retired myths have often been
turned to, mainly after being rejected by the new religious practice.11
Dumzil understands this double religious function as a special Indo-European pair
theologeme, which within the system of three functions is responsible for the first func-
tion of religious supremacy, which divided itself two parts of the all-mighty world order.
We can also put it like this: it divided the world into two parts human and non-human.
In this connection what becomes interesting is an attribute of Iranian Mitra as a border
delineator12 as well as a lord of a wide pastureland.13 The pastureland, most likely ap-
pears here as a synecdoche, standing for a part out of entity, meaning the entity of the
human world, definitely presenting its border or a periphery organ. Iranian Mitra is at the
same time connected to the fire altar as a heart and sacred centre of a state.
In one part of the space structured in this way obligatory sacred codes are placed,
the codes which run the harmony of the social and inner world, the world of peace, ori-
ented on prosperity and fertility and peace by the law of an organized society. Another
part of basically different, but also sacred codes presupposes actions outside the inner
world, connecting itself to war, conquering or hunting.
Now let us pay more attention to the aspect of space within the religious sovereignty
of Old Indo-Europeans, for we believe, a large part of this archaic concept of space has
been preserved exactly in non-official secular interpretations of some medieval saints-
ploughmen. Time and space (chronotop) of the legendary tales, which will be in the focus
of our attention, is not a homogeneous chronotop like the Christian (biblical) one, which
has a single creator and a ruler. It is a chronotop cut into two zones, strictly separated, for
example, by a ploughed furrow, the dissimilar order of which is guaranteed by two abso-
lutely different sovereignties. For it a division into a centre and a periphery is not essential
(this kind of division corresponds to a biblical chronotop). What is essential here is a more
radical and archaic division into a domestic and cultivated part of reality under the direct
control of man and into a zone connected with wild and free nature which, according to
Budil inspired most various military, hunting and initiative brotherhoods and presented
their most characteristic element.14
These two spheres should be defined in mythological narration, differentiated and
separated in a particular territory, which can best be done by way of ritual demarcation
11
In the line of three-functional research among Slavs the self-contained hypotheses which would regard the
same difference within the first function of religious sovereignty are not known to us. Despite this, we suppose
that contradiction presents a corner stone of a three-functional system; since we can with reason assume its ex-
istence among Slavs, we also have to consider that the first function preserved the two dimensions mentioned.
Standing on the position that until we can assume in epics (hero Volch, Volha in Russian tales (bylina)) and in
pantheon (most likely Veles) Varuna, magic half of religious sovereignty, the system presupposes also the pres-
ence of its complete counterpart x, which existence is highly probable and perhaps necessary for the systems
functioning. The existence of such a nice pagan god, who gave law and peace, embodying the benevolent spirit
(and hence more appropriate for almost complete Christianization, than any other pagan god) has almost been
stated by Tetk in Mr a dobr rok. esk sttn ideologie mezi kesanstvm a pohanstvm (In: Folia Historica
Bohemica 12, Praha, 1988, p. 2345). The key aspects of this function have been captured by a medieval legend
presentation of St. Vclav.
12
.. . In: 2, . :
, 1988, p. 157158. (TOPOROV, V. N.: Mitra. In: Mify narodov mira 2. Encyklopedija v dvuch
tomach.)
13
Obti ohm. Vbr z pamtek staroirnsk a stedoirnsk literatury. Selected and translated by Otakar
Klma. Praha : Odeon, 1985, p. 98114.
14
BUDIL, I. T.: Za obzor Zpadu. Praha : Triton, 2001, p. 13. (Translated by M. G.)

158
 Martin Golema

of the borders. Hence, one of the arbitrary, but extremely conceptual methods of plough-
ing around ones residence (sometimes followed by fencing and fortifying) is proposed;
occasionally this concept is taken wider as a whole human world including seasonally, for
example pastures for cattle to feed on (the borders of the human world are moving, throb-
bing in vegetation rhythm, shrinking to the size of a house in winter, and expanding to the
size of the pastures as its periphery organ in spring).
The polarity of such basically different spheres of space was studied by Vernant, a
researcher of Hellenic culture, in another, Greek mythological tradition, where he shows a
vivid dualism in an archaic depiction of space. The space demands a centre, a stable point
with an exclusive position, starting point enabling orientation in the Greek mythology
this function is taken by a home fireplace as a stable centre and its personification a god-
dess Hestia embodying this aspect of archaic space organization. Around the fire place
as a sacred centre a human world surrounds, demanding a border which would vividly
separate it from a chaotic wilderness. At the border of the human world (for example, at
the door, at the gate) as well as outside there exists a domain of Hermes, a god of shepherds
(close to him is a Slavic god of cattle called Veles) and a counterpart of Hestia (her neigh-
bour, as Vernant defined it).15 Similar dichotomies can be observed in many traditions,
but the Indo-European one includes an important original element, connecting a ritual of
ploughing a certain space around and fixing its centre by setting a sacred fire.

In 1941 Dumzil drew attention to a demonstrably archaic Vedic ritual (atapatha-

brhmana, VII, 2, 2, 12), according to which the shape of space where a sacred fire should
have been lit, was ploughed around ... The ploughing of each furrow is accompanied by ad-
dressing the Cow of Plenty to soothe the desires of all the living ... The fact that it was not
a typical agricultural ritual, but something more important, is proved by a simultaneous
addressing of the deities of all the three functions, first of all religious sovereignties: Fill
up (as if with milk) their desires, the Cow of Plenty, the desires of Mitra-Varuna, Indra,
both Ashvins (desires) of animals and plants.16 We believe it was no magic agricultural
ritual related to the third function at all, but the first functional liturgical action of estab-
lishing cosmos out of chaos by its division into two zones followed by their entrustment to
two deities Mitra and Varuna. One of the ritual components is the fixation of the world
centre, which is a sacred fire. A similar function has a common fire of a village (Hestia,
Vesta) in Greek and Roman religious tradition, where it functions as a state centre and a
symbol of a social union.17 Among the Scythians, the neighbours of Fore-Slavs, a similar
function of a royal fireplace was documented by Herodotos.18 In an oral tradition of the
Slavs (and not only Slavs) a house fireplace functions as a sacred centre of the house.19

15
VERNANT, J. P.: Hestia a Herms. Studie k duchovnmu svtu ek. Praha : OIKMEN, 2004.
16
DUMZIL, G.: Mtus a epos I. Trojfunkn ideologie v eposech indoevropskch nrod. Praha : OIKOYMENH,
2001, p. 53.
17
VERNANT, J. P.: Hestia a Herms. Studie k duchovnmu svtu ek. Praha : OIKMEN, 2004, p. 41.
18
When a king of Scythians falls ill, he sends for three most famous prophets who prophesy to him in the follow-
ing way. Usually, they state that this or that one took a false oath on the royal fireplace, giving a name of a citizen
who comes to their mind. According to Scythian habits, one takes an oath on a royal fireplace when promising
a most important oath. (HERODOTOS: Dejiny. Bratislava : Tatran, 1985, p. 252). (Translated by M. G.)
19
, . .: . In: , . : . -
. : , 2002, p. 351353. (PLOTNIKOVA, A. A.: Og. In:
TOLSTAJA, S. M. et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija. Enciklopedieskij slovar.)

159
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

Roman box from ierne Kaany depicting the foundation of Rome by

a ploughman (DVOK, P.: Stopy dvnej minulosti 3, Zrod nroda.
Budmerice : Rak, 2004, p. 143).

The second component of the ritual, which is ploughing a certain space around, is
less universally spread; it gives an undefined space a clear structure by shaping the world
out of unbeing,20 we believe it happens by dividing space into two zones: cultural human
(season usage of the pastureland is its periphery organ) and a wild zone, tied to foreigners,
barbarians, hermits and wild animals. Ploughing around was preserved among the Slavs
until the nineteenth century21 as a magic rite to separate and protect a certain cultural
space (usually villages) and its people from plague, epidemics and life destruction. The
furrow functioned as a magic equivalent of a fortification. Ploughing around meant that
a furrow was ploughed around a village symbolizing a border of no crossing.22 In such a
way, with the help of a liturgical act of a semiotic nature the space was divided into ones
own and alien.23 Both components of the ritual setting a fire and ploughing around the
estate could function as independent, though we suppose that a ritual setting of an alive
fire and fulfilling a sacred ploughing, richly documented in connection with the Slavs,
Baltic nations, and other Indo-Europeans, has its roots in a common mythological herit-
age. A valuable documented relic of such heritage, most likely, illustrates a ritual preserved
in Bulgaria, where the setting of a holy fire was even connected with a ploughing around
the village24 as Zbrt has described it in more details.25

20
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 118.
21
Many examples are shown by ELIADE, M.: Od Zalmoxida k ingischnovi. Praha : Argo, 1997, p. 169172.
22
, ..: . In: , . : . -
. : , 2002, p. 345. (AGAKINA, T. A.: Opchivnie. In:
TOLSTAJA, S. M. et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija. Enciklopedieskij slovar.)
23
detailed semiotic analysis of this binary opposition is given within the reconstructed fore-Slavic world model
by , .. , . .: .
: , 1965, p. 156165. (IVANOV, V. V. TOPOROV, V. N.: Slavjanskie jazykovye
modelirujuie semiotieskie sistemy.)
24
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 143.
25
In Bulgaria in the time of cattle plague two oxen are harnessed into two ploughs and the furrow is ploughed
around the village so that the oxen are moving towards each other. In the place they meet, they are killed and
dug down. On this place the fire (div ohe) is set by means of rubbing two wooden pieces against each other.
With this fire a log above fixed on two wooden columns is burnt. The construction like the gallows stands on
the place of the animal burial. Under the wooden columns two brothers the eldest and the youngest in the
family stand and hold the knives with which the oxen were killed. Around them people lead cattle for the
brothers to pat each animal with the knife on the back. In another region in Bulgaria the fire is set by two left-
handed men when the cattle plague begins. People lead the cattle through this fire. (ZBRT, .: Seznam povr
a zvyklost pohanskch z VIII. vku. In: Rozpravy AVU, I, vol. 3, no. 2, Prague, 1894, p. 9394). (Translated by
M. G.)

160
 Martin Golema

The Plough which could have been used in ritual

ploughing around the town of Zvolen. (BALAA, G.:
Mestsk mzeum vo Zvolene. In: Krsy Slovenska
(tematick slo 700-ron Zvolen), vol. 22, 194344,
no. 9, p. 193196).

An interesting epic piece which serves as a very consistent mythological explanation

of the ritual meaning is preserved in a folk tradition of the Eastern Slavs in etiological stories
about the origin of the so-called Dragons banks (old fortified lines in the Middle Dniper
Podniprovye) or rivers the bed of the Dniper. (Here we would like to make a digression
saying that a similar epic piece is preserved not only among the Eastern Slavs; an example
of it can be found close enough. It is an old legend from Zvolen, a fragment of which was
mentioned by Terzia Vansov in her novel A Curse (Kliatba): under the gate of Zvolen
fortification a huge plough is dug down, a plough with which the giants ploughed out a bed
of the river Hron.26 Similar etiological legends about the origin of famous extremely large
medieval banks in Bna near the Hron, where the devil ploughed by a women27 or a legend
written down by Jn Botto under the title A Myth of Turiec (Bj Turca),28 which tells how
Turiec became habitual only after an old lake, which was covering Turiec, was let out by the
priest Turan with the help of a plough harnessed with a hundred giants.)
In Ukrainian folklore there is a more detailed story about God, who sent down to
the earth a dragon (Zmij) who demanded human sacrifices. When it came to the tsar,
the latter escaped from the dragon saying a prayer and hiding in a smith forge, where
the saints Boris and Gleb had been forging the first plough for people (in these legends
a mythological ploughman is at the same time a smith who forged the first plough). The
saints caught the dragon by its tongue with the heated pliers, harnessed it and ploughed a
furrow by it the furrow since that time has been called Dragons banks;29 they did not
kill it then, rather tamed it. Another variant of this entry was adjusted to the official cult
of another pair of saints, which is analyzed in detail and with numerous references to
secondary sources by Tetk in his monograph Myths of the Czech Tribe (Mty kmene
26
Mgr. Zora Myslivcov who works in the State Gallery in Bansk Bystrica drew our attention to an interesting
detail in connection with this story. In the fund collection of the Museum of Forestry and Wood in Zvolen
there is a quite mysterious Zvolen plough, the function of which Gejza Balaa, unfortunately, not completely,
commented the following way: A plough by which the local town moats were ploughed. (BALAA, G.: Mest-
sk mzeum vo Zvolene. In: Krsy Slovenska, vol. 22, 194344, no. 9, p. 193196). As far as we learnt in the
museum, there is no evidence about the plough usage, hence the ritual function cannot be extracted from it; it
could mean that the relicts of ritual ploughing have been preserved recently in Zvolen. The plough is atypical
enough for doing moats, they could be moats around the town fortification. It is just a hypothesis, which for
the time being can be neither supported, nor completely rejected.
27
DVOK, P.: Stopy dvnej minulosti 3, Zrod nroda. Budmerice : Rak, 2004 , p. 264.
28
BOTTO, J.: Sborn dielo. Bratislava : Slovensk vydavatestvo krsnej literatry, 1955, p. 302306.
29
, .: , . In: . . :
, 2002, p. 357358. (PETRUCHIN, V. J. Pchar, ortaj. In: TOLSTAJA, S. M. et al.:
Slavjanskaja mifologija. Encyklopediekij slovar.)

161
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

ech).30 He draws attention to a group of Ukrainian and Byelorussian legends mostly

from the Middle Dniper region, which tells about the ploughing of the primary furrow
around the world. The legends tell how the holy smiths Kuzma and Damian (Kosmas
and Damin) released people from the pressure of a horrible dragon (Zmij) by flattery,
harnessing it into an enormous plough and ploughing a huge furrow, which can be seen
even today as Dragons banks. This folk tradition turns the saints Kuzma and Damian into
smiths and ploughmen without any direct basis in their own legendary tradition: The
reason is simple: the similarity between the words Kuzma and kuznja (in Ukrainian) a
smith forges.31 Within the tradition Kuzma and Damian often appear as a single figure
Kuzmodemjan.
In Bulgarian apocrypha How Christ Ploughed and How King Prov Called Christ
His Brother (Kak Christos plugom oral a Kak Prov car Christa bratom zval), the
full text of which was published in a study by Mazon, a French Slavist,32 the country is
ploughed around even by Christ himself. Beside the character of Christ in the text there
is also an interesting pair of characters: a blind king Selevkij (Selvkyi) and his son Prov
(Prov). We suppose that Christs ploughing in the apocrypha means planning out the
space, defining its double nature and demarcation of the human world borders. A motif
of a ploughing Christ as a pagan relic can suggest that in the text there could have been
hidden other relics, probably even an entire transformed myth. We will try to show some
interpretation possibilities of this puzzling text, full of pagan symbolism, coming out from
our hypothesis about the first-function character of the ritual ploughing (we do not want
to conceal that the translation of the text was problematic for us, and also the context of its
composition is not completely known;33 that is why we propose risky and shaky hypoth-
eses, which should be judged further by more qualified Slavists).
According to the plot, Christ will be in direct contact only with one of the characters
tsar Prov, who was looking for a remedy for his blind father Selevkij. A ploughing Christ
would pick him up, throw him over the furrow and give him a magic fish as a remedy for
his fathers blindness. Selevkij and his wife, thanks to this fish, would regain their health
and would convert, though they would not see Christ himself for only their son was al-
lowed to see him. Tsar Prov, close to Christ (calls him brother) and to people (takes taxes
for his remote father who, being disqualified in the human world because of his blindness,
leaves this work to be done by his son) has an eloquent name, most likely pointing to the
performance of law, hence to a kind legal part of the religious sovereignty function. An
analogous name has another deity from another part of the medieval Slavic world: a god
of Polabe Obodrits Prov, who belonged to the first and main gods of Oldenburg country,
of which informs the Slavic Chronicle (Chronica Slavorum) of a priest Helmond of Bosau

30
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003.
31
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 121. (Translated by M. G.)
32
MAZON, A.: Mikula, le prodieux laboreur. In: Revue des tudes Slaves XI. 1931, p. 149170.
33
In old lists of forbidden books the story about Christ ploughing is assigned to a Bulgarian bogomil pope Jere-
miah (Jeremi). Legends and songs on this topic are frequent in Russia and in Eastern Slavic countries. The
connection between the Bogomil sect and pre-Christian religions in Bulgaria were analyzed by HAVIERNIK,
P.: K monm vzahom bogomilstva a predkresanskch nboenstiev v prvom bulharskom crstve. In: Po-
hanstvo a kresanstvo. Ed. R. Koiak a J. Neme. Bratislava : Chronos, 2004, p. 139146.

162
 Martin Golema

Christ crucied slaying the Dragon, rst half

of the 13th century, Germany (KOUTSK,
K.: Draci stedovkho svta. Praha: Mlad
fronta, 2005, p. 97).

(approximately 1108 1177).34 In another study35 we have already tried to define the place
of this Polabian deity within the assumed three-function system; its individual centre
was, most likely, Mitrian, a juridical part of religious sovereignty.
In the case of tsar Selevkij we, most likely, have a talking name, but talking a more
complicated language using cryptic techniques, particularly anagrams, words which are
first put into letters and then fixed in writing, coded and pushed into some other words.
Anagrams are also used often enough in pseudonym creations (the so-called anagranonym,
a common kind of it are ananyms turned names, understood only by the initiated).36 Let
34
: . : , 1963. (GEMOD: Slavjanskaja
chronika.)
35
GOLEMA, M.: Stredovek literatra a indoeurpske mytologick dedistvo. Bansk Bystrica : Pedagogick fakul-
ta Univerzity Mateja Bela, 2006.
36
These kinds of cryptic techniques are richly documented in many mythological traditions. The names of dei-
ties would break into pieces and would be put in different parts of the text, hidden in other words. After this
operation only a poet or an experienced listener may synthesize a name of a deity again by means of backward
combination of its parts from anagrams. The cases of telescopage, anatomization or other means of hiding
deities names are frequent. For example, an old Indo-European myth about a god Thunder Thrower (Hro-
mobijca) who defeats his enemy by means of cutting him into pieces and throwing them around the world, is
reinforced in texts by cutting the enemys name into pieces and hiding it inside other words. (, .
.: . In: 2, . : ,
1988, p.508510.) (TOPOROV, V. N.: Imen. In: Mify narodov mira 2.)

163
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

us now ask the question of who could be hidden under the pseudonym Selevkiy (Mazon
directs attention towards the fact that it was not a historical figure, for the derivation from
the Seleukovecs is hardly possible). If we read backwards the first five letters of the name
Selevkiy, we will get teonym Veles, which may be quite accidental, but is not necessarily
due to chance. To present another mythological name an ananym in a similar way was
the aim of Toporov, a Russian scholar, when interpreting a name of Solovej-Razbojnik
from Russian bylina, an antagonist of Ilija Muromec, who defeated enemies with a hor-
rible whistle, a relative of the Dragon, Falcon with horns (Solovej) in the Byelorussian
epic. Ilija strikes him in the right eye, partially blinding him, and cuts him into pieces.
Toporov comments on the name Solovj, which, according to him, is connected, if not
genetically, then anagrammatically, by the intentional sound similarity accompanying the
meaning similarity, with the name of god Volos (Veles), an antagonist of the Thunder
Thrower (Hromobijca);37 it is enough to take the first five letters of the name Solovj and
read them backwards.
It seems to us that Solovj and Selvkiy are the ananyms of the same Slavic pagan
deity which appeared in the result of cryptic technique usage in the process of transforma-
tion of the two most important myths. The first myth has already been thoroughly recon-
structed as a version of a basic Indo-European myth about the fight of Thunder Thrower
(Hromobijca) with his enemy. In Slavic mythology it is about the fight of Perun and Veles.38
It has been stated that within the Slavic pantheon it tells about the pair with the oldest
(Indo-European) roots39 and the strongest resistant ability against the changes of religious
reality. Due to cryptic and transformation techniques, this pair reappeared after the decay
of the pagan pantheon in Russian bylinas, surviving the beginning of Christianity as a pair
of heroes with a new epic identity. Perun was transmuted into a figure of Ilija Muromets
(whose name refers to St. Elias, associated with a storm) while a supreme magic god (Ve-
les?) was transmuted into a hero Volch or Volg,40 the wizard, turning into animals, but also
into a demonic antihero Solovj Razbjnik.
In another myth about a division of the world between two sovereigns by means
of ploughing a border furrow, which probably has its roots also in the Indo-European
tradition, there appears a supreme magic god with a new, already human identity and a
new name a blind tsar Selevkiy; by his side there stands another supreme god of law
Christs brother tsar Prov, transmuted by epics and closer to people. Both figures are
complementary, separated only by a furrow over which Christ, the ploughman, threw the
37
, . .: -. In: 2, . :
, 1988, p. 460. , . . , . .:
(
). In: ,
6, , 1973, p. 4682. (TOPOROV, V. V.: Solovj-Razbjnik. In: Mify narodov mira 2 IVANOV, V.
V. TOPOROV, V. N.: K probleme dostovernosti pozdnich vtorinych istonikov v svjazi s issledovanijami
v oblasti mifologii (Dannye o Velese v tradicijach severnoj Rusi i voprosy kritiky pismennych tekstov). In:
Trudy po znakovym systemam, v. 6, Tartu, 1973, p.4682.
38
, .. , ..: .
. , 1974. (IVANOV, V. V. TOPOROV, V. N.
Issledovanija v oblasti slavjanskich drevnostej. Leksieskije i frazeologieskije voprosy rekonstrukcii tekstov.)
39
JAKOBSON, R.: The slavic god Veles and his Indo-European cognates. In: Studi lingvistici in onore di Vittore
Pisani, Torino, 1969, p. 579599.
40
PUHVEL, J.: Srovnvac mythologie. Praha : NLN, 1997, p. 279; also DUMZIL, G.: Mtus a epos I. Trojfunkn
ideologie v eposech indoevropskch nrod. Praha : OIKOYMENH, 2001, p. 660664.

164
 Martin Golema

tsar onto his side (as if converting him). After that, the tsar brought his father magic fish,
its bile would return to Selevkiy his eyesight, its viscera, which had the might to drive out
the devils from the human souls, would be consumed by all, because the old tsar wife was
also possessed as well as the son (Prov?) was not healthy. The old tsar Selevkiy converts
and orders all people in his house and kingdom to believe in Christ (but to see Christ is
not allowed to him for only Prov, Christs brother, had been thrown over the furrow of the
guarded human world). A kind of conversion was probably done not only to a person,
but also to the name of the old tsar (Toporov points out41 that the personal name usage in
the text could be identical to what is done to the bearer of this name, for example, when
Thunder Thrower (Hromobijca) cuts his enemy to pieces, the same is done to the name of
his enemy in the text: it is also cut into pieces, preserving itself in other words). It is pos-
sible hence, that the original name of Veles together with his bearer became an ananym,
turning from Veles to Selev-kiy. The author of apocrypha could have tried on his own
synthesis of old myths and gospels, similar strategies were not out of practice in the times
of Christianization.42 In apocrypha Prov makes Christ his brother, and himself a son of
Selevkiy; it is indeed a refined synthesis of two different legends, pleasant to the ear of
those listeners who are not willing to reject the old religious practice, telling a model story
of Christianization (pagan gods are transformed into rulers, due to magic fish their souls
are cleansed and they accept Christianity, finally even ordering people to do it). Similar to
St. Elias, the functional heir of pagan Perun (in epics Elias name sibling Ilija Muromets,
the embodiment of the second Indo-European war function), who had to take up periodi-
cal cutting of Veles (Solovj) at the time of a storm in the first myth; in the second myth
the not less important binding and harnessing of Veles (the god of cattle characteristi-
cally substituted by oxen) into a plough with a further ploughing is taken on by Christ, a
brother of a young tsar (together with him they present juridical part of the first function
of religious sovereignty; that makes them brothers). Both myths can be interpreted in a
coherent and meaningful way as a certain application of the three-functional ideology.
In connection with the folk legend about St. Kuzma and Damian, Tetk points
out an important difference between killing dragons (or other non-human monsters) and
their taming, binding, harnessing, which, as we believe, has its origin in another archaic
myth: While all the heroes who fight with a dragon always kill it, Kuzma and Damian only
bind him and then harness,43 we are adding that afterwards they divide the world into two
parts with the help of it. It is not productive enough to connect this type of heroes the
tamers to the second function of war power, for its individual centre was most likely
(as for Christ, the ploughman, in the apocrypha) mitrian, a juridical part of religious
sovereignty.
Another similar piece, being considered a Slavic cosmogonic myth in changed
clothes (creolized if we use a true, though maybe a somewhat politically incorrect term
of Indoeuropeists Toporov and Ivanov), is known from ethnographic sources from the
41
, . .: . In: 2, . :
, 1988, p.508510. (TOPOROV, V. N.: Imen. In: Mify narodov mira.)
42
KOIAK, R. NEME, J.: Pro praefatione alebo niekoko poznmok k vskumu cirkevnch dejn. In: Pohanst-
vo a kresanstvo. Ed. R. Koiak a J. Neme. Bratislava : Chronos, 2004, p. 913.; SLIVKA, M.: K nboenskmu
synkretizmu v strednej Eurpe. In: Pohanstvo a kresanstvo. Ed. R. Koiak a J. Neme. Bratislava : Chronos,
2004, p. 147162; KOIAK, R.: rski misionri a poiatky kresanstva u Slovanov v stredovchodnej Eurpe.
In: Pohanstvo a kresanstvo. Ed. R. Koiak a J. Neme. Bratislava : Chronos, 2004, p. 103124.
43
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech.. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 123. (Translated by M. G.)

165
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

Balkans and the Eastern Slavs territory. According to it, the world is made of two kinds of
being God and Devil. A man Adam was created and taught to plough by God. Both crea-
tors afterwards make a deal; here, we suppose, it is necessary to interpret it not as an ex-
pression of weakness of the benevolent powers guarding the human world (as it was com-
mon to interpret among Christian missionaries), but as their enormous cosmogonic suc-
cess: with the division of the world, a ritual ploughing which is omitted or hardly marked
here, which would have been done by both powers, could have made this deal visibly on
the ground. Other versions tell about binding the Devil by a chain (the motif adjusts also
a biblical piece about Archangel Michael), the Devil tries to set himself free, but every year
with the first thunder on the day of St. George (Juraj), he is again enchained.44
The Egyptian mythological fund proposes a remarkable analogy which could clear
up the myth mentioned above. In connection with it Assmann points out special symbols
of duality formed by means of narration: both brothers Hor and Suthech substitute more
than just a geographical division into Higher and Lower Egypt. Hor embodies civiliza-
tion; Sutech embodies the wilderness, Hor order, Sutech disorder. The entity can be in-
stalled only by reconciliation of both opposed principles and the reconciliation is possible
only if one subdue the other one. Law, culture and order must fight and win, they cannot
be established spontaneously. They cannot be established in a way that they absolutely
demolish all the chaos, disorder, wilderness and violence, but they can bound it. The
myth then does not give a foundation for certain permanent order, but for the unfinished
project which is the binding of chaos and establishment of the order This myth is not
told only for a moral or an entertainment. It functions both ways. On the one hand, it
plans out the world, which is divided onto two parts and can be kept in action only by
uniting the two parts into one higher entity, thanks to which the order will keep the
advantage over chaos, culture over wilderness, law over violence. (The bold type M.
G.) At the same time the myth mobilizes energy needed for the installation of entity and
continuation of the world movement.45
In ancient Old Slavic versions of the myth about world division a different figure than
that of a dragon slayer can be traced. That is a figure of a dragon tamer, the one who would
measure his strength with it, would tame it or harness it, make it agree to the world division,
with the further confirmation of both sides, for example by a common ploughing around
as if establishing mutual borders. Most likely, it was a mythological being (or beings, which
divided for themselves the aspects of this function) with a high position in the pantheon,
whose competence makes a logical and consistent entity only then, when experimentally
put into a concept frame of the three-functional ideology, to the frame of a juridical part of
religious sovereignty in particular. This dragon tamer and ploughman was not a protector/
patron of the warriors, but the keeper of the sacred, sovereign in the world of people, a pro-
fessional to make agreements, who left sovereignty behind the furrow to his agreed partner
of demonic, non-human, and zoomorphic (dragon, bull, wolf) character in an agreed way.
He guaranteed and embodied a kind, legal and benevolent aspect of the function of religious
sovereignty. Similarly as Mitra from Irani Avesta, the direct descendant of a Vedic Mitra and
a bearer of his numerous functional competences (beside being a source of the light and
fire, having an interesting attribute kar.rzah, which in Russian means

44
TETK, D. Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p.125.
45
ASSMANN, J.: Kultura a pam. Praha : Prostor, 2001, p. 148. (Translated by M. G.)

166
 Martin Golema

(),46 what we would translate as a delineator of borders) could have been

the lord of the wide pastureland,47 that is, peripheries of the human world used by seasons,
presenting its problematic and discussible border zone (or synecdoche as well, that is an
indirect name of a whole human world expressed by naming its most important part).
Pierre Touberts expression corresponds to this kind of border zone the pasture-
land adequately: The border has a linear character only in an abstract meaning, in real-
ity it is a zone. Its static is only apparent. It is always a result of movement and within the
space it only materializes the state of fragile harmony The border is never a fortification,
simple wall; it is always an alive membrane or a periphery organ It may seem that the
border produces often enough special types, for example, a warrior a peasant. This way
or the other, it creates a style of life, based on violence and disbelief in norms and dominat-
ing social mechanisms dominating in the central parts. The border world then is a world
of the so called out law.48
Persian Mitra, the lord of the wide pastureland and the establisher of such fragile
borders, simultaneously annually was catching (it means chaining) and killing an enor-
mous bull; according to Eliade, it was a constituent part of an archaic, already Indo-Eu-
ropean myth, the ritual form of which was a basic element at the celebrations of the New
Year, so the episode had a cosmogonic meaning.49

In a further presentation we will focus on St. George, the warrior and the martyr,
with whose name Slavic folklore tradition connected the relicts of interesting pagan rites
and a rich mythological topoj,50 which is not rooted in the official church tradition. In
Slavic folklore traditions there are two images of St. George. One of them is close to an
official church cult of a dragon slayer and a Christian warrior, pointing rather to a pos-
sible connection to the second military Indo-European function; the other one connected
him with the raising of cattle (the protector of the cattle) and farming, apparently with the
third function of fertility and production. Among Eastern and Southern Slavs this image
is connected with the beginning of spring, with the first pasturing of the cattle. In Croatian
songs on the day of his holiday the green St. George comes on a green horse; Slovenes on
that day open the arable land with a wooden key; Bulgarians and Serbs walk around the
fields ritually with an aim to protect;51 we would add here that it is possible to interpret
this action also saying that this is a possible, arbitrary means to explain and anew set the
borders of the human and non-human worlds. But the most interesting aspect to us is a
different original element added to the official cult among the Slavs and Baltic peoples, ac-
cording to which St. George is defined as a wolf shepherd. Still in the 19th century in cer-
46
, . .: . In: 2, . :
, 1988, p. 155. (TOPOROV, V. N.: Mitra. In: Mify narodov Mira.)
47
This constant attribute is repeatedly added to the name of Mitra in the hymnic poem of Avesta (Jat 10) Ku
poct Mithrov. In: Obti ohm. Vbr z pamtek staroirnsk a stedoirnsk literatury. Edited and translated
by Otakar Klma. Praha : Odeon, 1985, p. 98114.
48
TOUBERT, P.: Sted a periferie. In: Encyklopedie stedovku. Praha : Vyehrad, 2002, p. 729. (Translated by M.
G.)
49
ELIADE, M.: Od Zalmoxida k ingischnovi. Praha : Argo, 1997, p. 124.
50
, ..: . In: 2, . : -
, 1988, p. 273275. (AVERINCEV, S. S.: Georgij. In: Mify narodov mira.)
51
, . .: . In: , . : .
. : , 2002, p. 103104. (TOLSTOJ, N. I.: Georgij. In: TOLSTAJA,
S. M. et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija.)

167
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

tain regions of Russia a wolf was often called a dog of St. George;52 the following Russian
proverb has been preserved What a wolf has in its jaws, was given to him by St. George.53
According to a Russian legend, which has its parallels in Bosnia, Slavonia, and Bulgaria,
one shepherd noticed the grass being trampled down under the oak tree and climbed it
up to learn what was happening there. From the oak he saw St. George riding a horse, ac-
companied by a pack of wolves. They stopped by the oak, and from there St. George was
sending wolves in all directions, telling them what they may gorge. Finally, only an old,
lame wolf was left, which St. George allowed to take the one, who sits on the oak tree.
In two days the shepherd climbed down to be gorged by the lame wolf. An interesting
interpretation of similar motifs on the basis of mythological images of the Baltic and of
the Slavs was given by Lithuanian researcher Marija Gimbutasov, who sees behind the
folkloric image of St. George an archaic lord of wolves,54 who appears in epic transforma-
tion in a Russian bylina epos in an image of Volha Vseslavievich, a warrior, phenomenal
hunter and great conqueror, who could turn into a wolf.55 We would like to present a dif-
ferent hypothetical interpretation of this motif. St. George is not a lord of wolves, but he
has an agreement with that lord about the division of the world, by which St. George can
manage, limit, and paralyze his power, define what a demonic lord of wolves can or cannot
take by means of his demonic servants in a human world. In folk tradition St. George also
protects the cattle and people from the wolves (in official church tradition he centres the
human world, that is shown by a localization of his shrines,56 and as a soldier guards its
borders similarly to a folk wolf shepherd); if he allows his demonic contractual partner
to gorge something, it is interpreted as a punishment for the moral misdemeanour, due to
which the guilty one appears to be behind a protective covering of an important contract
of all contracts, which has a tragic consequence for the punished. We think that a folk St.
George is more similar to another character of Russian bylina epos Mikula Seljanin, a
phenomenal ploughman from Russian bylina (his name can be related to St. Mikul St.
Nicholas57). The above mentioned lord of wolves (not the shepherd of theirs), a phenom-
enal hunter and conqueror Volha Vseslavievich, and Mikula will divide the world in such
a way that he will make him a taxman and a governor of three Russian towns (that is a
governor of the human world, someone similar is tsar Prov in Bulgarian apocrypha) while
Volha himself, being incompetent in the sphere of the human world (he and his retinue
cannot take Mikulas plough out of the furrow), goes away (we suppose back to his realm
outside the human world). Similarly, another character from Russian bylina epos with an
eloquent name Dobrynya (a very special hero, who does not like weapons he fights with
a monks cap, he does not like to fight and to kill, he excels in politeness and settles con-

52
BUDIL, I. T.: Za obzor Zpadu. Praha : Triton, 2001, p. 44.
53
, ..: . In: , . : .
. : , 2002, p. 104. (TOLSTOJ, N. I.: Georgij. In: TOLSTAJA, S. M.
et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija.) (Translated by M. G.)
54
BUDIL, I. T.: Za obzor Zpadu. Praha : Triton, 2001, p. 44.
55
We paid attention to this character of bylina epos in the thesis for habilitation as docent already mentioned.
(GOLEMA, M.: Stredovek literatra a indoeurpske mytologick dedistvo. Bansk Bystrica : Pedagogick
fakulta Univerzity Mateja Bela, 2006)
56
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 72.
57
, . .: : . In: . -
. : , 1983, p. 107. (TOPOROV, V. N.: Russk. Svjatogor:
Svoe i uoe. In: Slavjanskoje i balkanskoje jazykoznanie.)

168
 Martin Golema

flicts successfully) draws up the eternal and unbreakable contract about the world division
with the dragon Goryni.58
According to the original mythological script, the wolves had two patrons St.
George (originally a mythological being or beings, personifying benignant powers, with
which the Christian saint is associated in folklore interpretation) in the human world (that
is the world behind the magic furrow) and a demonic ruler in the wild world in Latvian
tradition it is Velinas, a god of death, magic and the underworld (functional and lingual
equivalent of Slavic cattle god, who we interpret as Veles, a god of animals and wilder-
ness), in Christian interpretation identified with the devil, considered to be the creator of
the wolves, honoured also as a herd protector against wolves, to whom plentiful animal
sacrifices were given.59 He is a lord of wolves, but of another kind. He is a rank superior
over them.
In order to provide for lifes necessities, a man has to cross the borders of such a hu-
man/non-human world, though full of risks which demand him to maintain correct rela-
tions with both sovereigns. For example, in the Russian North a shepherd was considered
to be a magician related with a so-called leij () (a zoomorphic ghost of the woods
close to Veles60) and other dark powers. It was believed that the shepherd made a deal
with leij, according to which the shepherd gives a promise to bring him the best cow, and
to keep to many prohibitions, like not picking berries and mushrooms in the woods, not
shooing the flies and gnats, and not destroying the anthill. To confirm the deal, the shep-
herd walks around the herd with a lock and a key in his hands, digs down the text of the
contract at a distant spot, makes a groove across the road with a knife (a modest equivalent
of the ritual ploughing) for the evil powers not to cross this border.61
If we take into consideration the folk interpretation only, St. George is not the Drag-
on slayer, as well as the patron of the knights, the medieval heirs of Indo-European un-
derstanding of warrior embodying the second function of war powers; nor is he a perfect
hunter.62 The imagination of pagan Slavs at the threshold of Christianization more often
addressed the episode of the official legend, according to which St. George would first only
wound the dragon, making it in such a way disabled to move and thus would tame it; then
he would say to the liberated girl the following: Dont you hesitate and throw your belt
over its maze! When she did it, the dragon followed her as a most meek dog.63 We suppose,
in this very point of the action the relicts of pagan tradition were added, due to which in
folk tradition St. George had the competence of the wolf shepherd, centring the space of
the human world, setting and protecting its borderland as well as its important part, i.e.
the pasture, having made a deal with the lord of the wilderness. This hypothesis, which we

58
Rusk byliny. Selected and translated by Jn Vladislav. Praha : SNKL, 1964.
59
BUDIL, I. T.: Za obzor Zpadu. Praha : Triton, 2001, p. 44. Also JAKOBSON, R.: The slavic god Veles and his
Indo-European cognates. In: Studi lingvistici in onore di Vittore Pisani, Torino, 1969, p. 579599.
60
, . . , . .:
( e -
). In: , 6, , 1973, p. 4682. (IVANOV,
V. V. TOPOROV, V. N.: K probleme ... In: Trudy po znakovym systemam.)
61
, . .: . In: , . : . -
. : , 2002, p. 354. (PLOTNIKOVA, A. A.: Pastuch. In:
TOLSTAJA, S. M. et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija.)
62
In such a way his functions are presented by BUDIL, I. T.: Za obzor Zpadu. Praha : Triton, 2001, p. 42.
63
VORAGINE, J. de: Legenda aurea. Praha : Vyehrad, 1984, p. 157. (Translated by M. G.)

169
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

propose for further discussion, could help shed light more consistently or more precisely
in comparison with others, on the exceptional position and modifications of this saints
cult among the Slavic medieval peoples, for example, constructing his shrines at the spots
of previous cult places in the middle of the inhabited space.64 We can name some of the
important locations, for example, the p in Czechia, a legendary middle part of Czech
country, the Wawel peak in Cracow, where at the place of a mysterious dragon cave the
shrines to Archangel Michael and St. George, the dragon slayers, were built.65 We can also
mention medieval Hungarian Veszprm, a residence of the oldest Hungarian bishop, with
an old, most likely, Old Moravian church of St. George, and a less old, already Hungarian
church of Archangel Michael.66 We believe that St. George and Archangel Michael only
in late interpretations became the patrons of knights and ideals of all medieval heroes
fighting with dragons. At the earliest stage of Christianization among the Slavs they were
probably connected with a religious sovereignty, with the law.
At the places mentioned above, beside St. George we can find another competently
close character of a dragon binder, but not a saint Archangel Michael. We think that
while looking for the pagan aspects of St. Michaels cult in the Middle Ages, important
discoveries were found in the location of the Michalsk hill in Olomouc. Jozef Blha found
out that the very Michalsk hill was the ideological and cosmic centre of the local com-
munity (oikumena),67 during the Middle Ages in the surroundings of the local shrine of
St. Michaels meetings, courts and periodical fairs were held; something similar includ-
ing enthronement of a ruler is recorded about the royal Wawel.68 Blha reports on more
important records about the neutralizing function of dedicating former pagan places to
Archangel Michael, paying attention to Michaels cult modifications especially in the re-
gions of Middle and Eastern Slavic Europe.
Blha also focuses on other interesting mergings of the saint and the archangel St.
Michael and St. Nicholas in the Slavic environment, which mostly Russian researchers
dealt with. Many characteristics were shifted onto St. Nicholas; onomastic contamination
of names of both saints is recorded in the Olomouc necrology of 1236.69 In folk tradition
of the Eastern Slavs St. Nicholas is the higher among the saints, he can even heretically
substitute for God (or Christ) on His throne; in Russian on St. Nikolaj Zimnijs Day (St. Ni-
cholas Day) it was habitual to prepare a feast with beer, specially made for that day. It was
done according to a sacral ritual or habit, the breaking of which would mean the breaking
of the whole world order.70 We have to add here, that in the Russian bylina epos beer is pre-
pared by a namesake of St. Nicholas ploughman Mikula Selyanin who shares the world

64
TETK, D.: Mty kmene ech. Praha : NLN, 2003, p. 200. Also SLMA, J.: Svatojisk kostely na ran
stedovkch hraditch v echch. In: Archeologick rozhledy XXIX, Praha, 1977, p. 269280.
65
KOUTSK, K.: Draci stedovkho svta. Praha : Mlad fronta, 2005, p. 101.
66
STEINHBEL, J.: Nitrianske knieatstvo. Bratislava : Veda, 2004, p. 116.
67
BLHA, J.: K nkterm pohanskm aspektm kultu sv. Michala ve stedovku. In: Acta Universitatis Palackia-
nae Olomucensis. Philosophica Aesthetica, 23, Historia artium IV., p. 3749.
68
BLHA, J.: K nkterm pohanskm aspektm kultu sv. Michala ve stedovku. In: Acta Universitatis Palackia-
nae Olomucensis. Philosophica Aesthetica, 23, Historia artium IV., p. 44.
69
BLHA, J.: K nkterm pohanskm aspektm kultu sv. Michala ve stedovku. In: Acta Universitatis Palackia-
nae Olomucensis. Philosophica Aesthetica, 23, Historia artium IV., p. 44.
70
, . .: . In: , . : .
. : , 2002, p. 321322. (BELOVA, O. V.: Nikolj. In: TOLSTAJA,
S. M. et al.: Slavjanskaja mifologija.)

170
 Martin Golema

with demonic Volha.71 St. Nicholas in Russian folk exorcism protects against the wizards,
charms and spells, diseases, weapons, a fire dragon flying towards girls, cures people and
cattle; much like St. George, he is a protector of the cattle (i.e. a kind of pasture guard).72
Contrary to the horrid St. Ilja (Elias the attribute points to the second function of war
powers, St. Elias (Ilja Gromovik) among Eastern and Baltic Slavs inherited a lot from Pe-
run, a pagan warrior of heaven, patron of ruling army units, a horrible thunder-thrower, a
liberator of atmospheric water), St. Nicholas is defined as a merciful saint embodying the
mitrian pole rather than an old war function. St. Nicholas cult was first of all a folk one,
plebeian, blurring on the periphery with the relicts of pagan cults and connecting with the
pre-Christian personifications of powers of blissfulness.73
In oral tradition of not only the Eastern Slavs there is shaped a group of saints re-
lated by a juridical characteristic: St. George, St. Nicholas, St. Kuzma and Damian, St. Boris
and Gleb, as well as Archangel Michael and, finally, even Christ.74 This group of saints, who
71
The name Mikula is connected with the name of St. Nicholas (sv. Mikul), the protector of Russian people
(, . .: : . In: . -
. : , 1983, p. 107.) (TOPOROV, V. N.: Russkij Svja-
togor: Svoe i uoe. In: Slavjanskoje i balkanskoje jazykoznanie.)
72
According to O. V. Belova (note 70) the main functions of St. Nicholas (sv. Nikolaj) (the protector of the cattle
and wild animals, farming, beekeeping, connection with the outer world)... show, that in folk thinking the rem-
nants of the pagan cult of god Vesel are preserved. Considering pagan Veles to be a demonic and zoomorphic
sovereign lord of the wilderness, we believe, St. Nicholas embodies in folk thinking his complementary, closely
connected to him, neighbouring mitrian, loving antipode.
73
, . .: . In: 2, . : -
, 1988, p. 217. (AVERINCEV, C. C.: Nikolj. In: Mify narodov mira.)
74
St. Archangel Michael (Michal) and St. George (Juraj) are connected competencely by Hudk, in connection
with the cult of Archangel Michael in Medieval Slovakia he points out that St. Michael was comprehended as
a symbol of victorious fight with infernal powers, that is also with a pagan tradition, and simultaneously he
could substitute competencely close pagan deities. The church made attempts to Christianize the old belief
not with violence, but in succession to using home belongings, building its churches first at the places of
former pagan sacrificial places to have a guarantee that those would not appear clandestinely. To this func-
tion of St. Nicholas patrocinium points also the reality: the shrines dedicated to him are usually built on the
most high hills (the same can be said about the neighbouring countries, for example, in Krakow, Olomouc,
and opron) surrounded by the cemetery. This kind of buildings (patrocinium)also appears later, retardedly in
16th 17th century, in a way that always as a patron of new settlements, organized by means of inner coloniza-
tion (the borderlands of Orava, Liptov, Spi and Kysuce) At the beginning of Christianization a patrocinium
of St.George was of similar character, which in the time of its second wave, at the peak of the Middle Ages,
received the shape of knights protector. (HUDK, J.: Patrocni na Slovensku. Bratislava : Umenovedn stav,
1984, p. 19). (Translated by M. G.) In other studies Hudk also understands St. George and St. Michaels patro-
ciniums as similar: The oldest patrociniums (churches given under saints patronage) in Slovakia date back
to the times of Christianization, i. e. the 9 10th century A.D. As evidence of Christianization achievements
in Slovakia can serve the St. Michaels patrocinium, which in Slovakia is the most frequent out of a group of
hagiological patrocinia, including angelological as well as St. Georges, whose name bears the oldest preserved
sacred building Kostoany pod Trbeom, which after its second wave in the period of high Gothic acquired
rank plasticity (the protector of the knighthood, the patrocinium of castle chapels) (p. 460). We would like to
add here, that something more interesting for us is the first wave of honouring the saints. The honouring of the
same saints was continuing also in Hungary: New Christianization in the 10 11th century and its stabiliza-
tion in the 12 13th century is represented by missionary patrociniums (Michael, George) (p. 57). Similarly,
Slma differentiates two phases of St. Georges cult: At the beginning this saint was taken as a patron of war-
riors and fortified towns, in the time of the Crusades it became the symbol of perfect knighthood, and a patron
of nobility. Then the St. Georges honouring culminated. (SLMA, J.: Svatojisk kostely na ran stedovkch
hraditch v echch. In: Archeologick rozhledy XXIX, Praha, 1977, p. 270). The author next gives an interest-
ing note: Among patrociniums of several dozens of churches, built in the early Middle Ages in Czech territory
in approximately thirty castles, the most numerous is a group of churches named after St. George. Though the

171
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

according to folk legendary tradition were granted the similar attributes, who were acting
in similar roles and tales, can be enlarged without any interpretation of violence by the
name of Czech saint Prokop, the founder of Szavsk monastery. According to a folk tale
put down in the 19th century, St. Prokop not only drove the devils out of his hermit cave
and expelled them to an empty place (the Lobec mountain, that is, he divided the spheres
of influence with them),75 but also in his cave he harnessed the devil and ploughed with it
a so-called Devils furrow between Szava and the village Chotou, his birthplace, a furrow
can be seen even today.76
Similar epic themes connected to ploughing can be found not only in the folk leg-
ends, but in Slavic dynasty legends. We suppose they are fragments and variants of the
same archaic piece and we also hope that in the case of dynasty legends the factor that as-
sisted in their arrangement was the three-functional ideology (in different shapes and dif-
ferent degree). Within the three-functional ideology discovered by Dumzil the plough-
ing motifs in dynasty legends are usually interpreted as symbolic expressions of the third
function of fertility and production. A mythological plough is in principal interpreted as
an agricultural tool, that is, as the third-functional appliance (granted in certain stories
magic power). On the contrary to this frequent interpretation, we suppose that the first
plough, a prototype of the plough,77 was first of all a very important liturgical first-func-
tional requisite used, for example, in case of voting or confirmation of the sacred chief and
in simultaneous symbolic enchainment, harnessing the zoomorphic monster or animal
(for example in the case of Czech Pemysl Or (Pemysl ploughmen) in Kosmas Kronika
esk (The Czech Chronicle)78 this task was fulfilled by ordinary spotted oxen, which most
likely substituted Slavic Cattle god Veles, and then eloquently sneaked away from the hu-
man world and totally disappeared in the rock). This requisite was first used by two sides,
cooperating and contracting, when defining the human world; the plough was left and
given to the third function as an agricultural appliance only later. After this first-functional
output the sacred ruler would mostly take centring the human world (the liturgical reli-

time of highest honouring and spreading of the St. Georges cult in the Czech territory is the end of the 12th
century, the buildings are considerably older. (p. 277); then everything confirms the older and less known
form of the cult of the protector of fortified (previously probably ritually ploughed around) towns. In this
connection, it is interesting that both St. George and Archangel Michael are found together again in the palace
of the oldest Hungarian bishop in Veszprm. At Veszprm castle ... St. Georges church was the most ancient
probably among all the Hungarian churches which were standing in the times of prince Imrich ( 1031). It was
older than the neighbouring St. Michaels church. When in the previous epoch the church was hardly ever built,
the rotunda had to be built already in the 9th century and serve Vesprem Christians also after the conquering
of the Zadunajsko (Behind-Danube-region) by the Hungarians. (STEINHBEL, J.: Nitrianske knieatstvo.
Bratislava : Veda, 2004, p. 116) (Translated by M. G.); it has to have even an older origin Great Moravian. The
beginning of the Veszprm episcopacy as well as St. Michaels church building is connected with the coming of
missionary bishop Bruno from St. Gallen to Hungary in the year 972, who christened the prince Gejza and the
other Arpdos. Gejzas younger brother, the future Prince of Nitra, received at christening the name Michael,
after Archangel Michael, who became also a patron of the episcopacy founded at the same time. ( p. 115).
75
Dv legendy z doby Karlovy (Legenda o svatm Prokopu, ivot svat Kateiny). Ed. J. Hrabk, V. Vn. Praha :
Nakladatelstv SAV, p. 52.
76
KADLEC, J.: Svat Prokop esk strce odkazu cyrilometodjskho. Praha : Benediktinsk arciopatstv sv.
Vojtcha a sv. Markty, 2001, p. 4142.
77
The ancient Scythians, the neighbors of fore-Slavs, but also and contemporary Osetins, the descendants of the
Scythians; this first plough was golden and red-hot, it fell down to earth together with an axe and a bowl, and
other functional talismans; they could be touched only by the youngest, the third son of the king.
78
Kosmova Kronika esk. Translated by Karel Hrdina. Praha : Svoboda, 1975.

172
 Martin Golema

Pemysl the Ploughman, a fore-father of the Czech family of

the Pemysls, a fresco from St. Katherines rotunda in Znojmo,
beginning of the 12th century
(http://www.znojemskarotunda.com/ikonsamo.htm)

gious function of a plough could have been actualized in annual or protective rituals, then
the sacred ruler or his plenipotentiaries would come back to repeat the ploughing).
This kind of ploughing presented a basic first-functional output needed for the duality
of the first function to become obvious and entrenched in space. The frame was only opened
to the third (as well as the second) function to be discovered: the basic cosmogonic condi-
tions were created for it to start functioning (for example, Mikula, the ploughman, from the
Russian bylina epos after his ploughing output would leave the plough for the farmers and
would go to centre the human world, collect taxes and see that the law was kept in three
Russian towns, which were left for him as for a more competent controller by his anti-pole
Volha, a demonic hunter and conqueror, who could turn himself into animals).
In his interpretation of a social legend of the medieval Scythians recorded by Hero-
dotos, Dumzil tried to connect the plough with the third function. The Scythians received
from heaven three golden and red-hot functional talismans as Dumzil calls them: a jar
(religious function), an axe (war function) and a plough (fertility and production func-
tion). We believe that the richer Slavic mythological material, though fragmentary, can
make this interpretation more precise: a golden plough primarily referred to a legal pole
of the first religious function and at the same time, secondarily, also to the third function,
it was a symbol which revealed and pointed to a mutual proximity of both functions, their
common inclination to peace and prosperity.
Something very similar is noticed by Vernant, the Hellenist researcher, in his bril-
liant three-functional interpretation of Hesiods myth about generation changing (gold-
en and silver generation are connected with religion, bronze and heroic generations are
connected with war, and an iron generation is connected with fertility and production).
According to Vernant: The first and the third functions, the kings and the farmers, are
connected by a mythological and real chain. Hesiods interest is aimed at problems dealing
with the first and the third functions and questions common for both of them ... This com-
bination is clearly illustrated in that part of Arats poem, where this author borrows from
Hesiod the myth of iron generations: the rule of Dik (the goddess of justice note M. G.)
appears here inevitably connected with cultivation (agricultural) activities. Golden people
(a personified religious function note M. G.) do not know any arguments and fights: the
cattle, the plough and Dik herself, which gives deserved estates, provide them with every-
thing in plenitude. Bronze people (a personified function of war note M. G.), who forge
a sword of war and violence, kill oxen and eat them.79 We would add that mythological

79
VERNANT, J. P.: Hestia a Herms. Studie k duchovnmu svtu ek. Praha : OIKMEN, 2004, p. 130. (Trans-
lated by M. G.)

173
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

Pemysl (an embodiment of justice) does not kill and eat his oxen (as contract partners),
but would set them free and soothe his hunger in a characteristic primeval function way
with bread and cheese served on an iron table a plough.
We believe that in a similar way the rite of a new prince crowning can be interpreted
among the Carinthian Slavs, where the rite was preserved in a modified way until the 15th
century. Before the prince-to-be was supposed to be seated on a stone throne amid St.
Marys field (Gosposvetske eld), he was dressed in peasant clothes, seated on a mare, and
led around the stone throne three times while the people present were singing Slovene
Kirieeleison. The ceremony was finished with a service in the main Carinthian church of
St. Mary (Gospa Sventa), which was built near by in the year 760.80 We believe that the
symbolism of peasant clothes in this ritual does not stress the peasant origin of the princes
power. On the contrary, together with other symbols (a mare, a stone throne) it shows how
by means of the primary agreement between two poles of religious function (a prince rid-
ing a saddled, tamed mare) a protected human space was drawn in the country (by triple
going or riding around which is equal to a ritual ploughing). Only then could this space
be filled in with the third function, chronologically younger. After this ride the agreement
partners separated and in a characteristic way occupied their domains: the prince was
ritually seated on a stone throne (an equivalent of a holy fire as a state centre) in the mid-
dle of the human world and a holy horse most likely went to a zone behind its borders.
The plough in the analyzed tales was most likely a symbol of a primeval deal about
the division of the world between the kind and human and juridical (the plough mas-
tering) pole of religious sovereignty on the one hand, and the magic, horrible, demonic,
non-human and zoomorphic (harnessed into a plough) pole of the same sovereignty.81 We
80
TETK, D.: Potky Pemyslovc. Vstup ech do djin (530 935). Praha : NLN, 1997, p. 345.
81
The dualism present in this Scythiam functional talisman caused interpretational problems also for Dumzil.
(DUMZIL, G.: Mtus a epos I. Praha : OIKOYMENH, 2001, p. 473480.) In ancient references about Scythian
plough, its two components are always mentioned a yoke and a plough (iugum boum, aratrum). Along with
royal Scythians, most likely specialists for religious supremacy, and nomadic Scythians, the fighters, Herodo-
tos mentions also another two kinds of specialists for the third (?) function Scythians, the ploughmen, and
Scythians, the growers. This disproportion between the number of symbolic items (3) and division of Scythi-
ans into four functionally defined groups would probably stop being the inexplicable anomaly and become
an expected result, if we try to accept the plough as a religious symbol in a more complex and dualistic way,
that is also with human service (corresponding to the plough) and animal driving force (corresponding to the
yoke), as we show it in the scheme proposed, and it is also shown in an old Iranian riddle, which we quote here:
What is that, that has ten legs, three heads, six eyes, six ears, two tails, three pairs of testicles, two hands, three
noses, four horns, three backs and life, and existence of the whole world depends on it? There is a harness
with two oxen and a man. (Obti ohm. Vbr z pamtek staroirnsk a stedoirnsk literatury. Selected and
translated by Otakar Klma. Praha : Odeon, 1985, p. 255). The text of the riddle stresses the participants of
ploughing, while we are more interested in the relation between them, which represents the plough and the
yoke, omitted from the riddle, illustratively, imaginarily and indirectly. At this point we need to comment on
our scheme beneath the article. In it we tried to concentrate on our main discoveries. The upper part of the
scheme is constructed according to the differences of denotation and connotation levels in the myth about
the plough. The difference between denotation and connotation level of the myth was elaborated by Roland
Barths in another context. (BARTHS, R.: Mytologie. Praha : Dokon, 2004, p. 109115; MARCELLI, M.:
Prklad Barths. Bratislava : Kalligram, 2001, p. 220225.) The lower part of the scheme is based on methodo-
logical principles of Levi-Strauss about the model constructions as tables of relations, where the relations have
logical and methodological priority before the elements which they connect (LVI-STRAUSS, C.: Mylen
pirodnch nrodu. Praha: Dauphin, 1996, p. 176-177; KANOVSK, M.: Kultrna a socilna antropolgia. Bra-
tislava: CHRONOS, 2004, p. 185). The scheme gives a model of space within which the plough together with
the human service and animal driving force had a function of a certain classification, the bearer of the notion
and dualistic symbol of the primeval contract about the division of the world. The symbol of the plough could

174
 Martin Golema

can apply to it one of Claude Lvi-Strauss important discoveries: by its dualistic nature
the plough belonged to a group of things, which could be used as binary operator, as Lvi-
Strauss put it.82 From the logical point of view, the plough can be related to the problem,
which also is binary, hence there is a certain affinity between the object as a plough, and a
problem which is according to the myth about a primeval deal being solved.
The mythological plough was at the same time the most complex, trans-functional
symbol, showing not only the relation of both poles of the religious sovereignty function,
but also their relation to the third function, as is shown in the scheme below (Picture
1). The ploughman had an exceptional importance in the myth: only due to his plough-
ing output could the human world find its place, a protected territory, in the middle of
a wilderness full of demonic creatures. In oral tradition the plough, being an important
liturgical requisite, after the abolitions of the old religious practice had to be again taken by
some medieval saints and mythological founders of the dynasties in order to demonstrate
convincingly their ability to centre the human world and to protect its borders as new
representatives of the juridical pole of religious sovereignty.

indirectly name an identical in its sense contract relation between historically and culturally different pairs,
always representing two functionally complementary poles of the religious sovereignty function.
82
LVI-STRAUSS, C.: Mtus a vznam. Bratislava : Archa, 1993, p. 28.

175
 Medieval Saint Ploughmen and Pagan Slavic Mythology

DENOTATION SYSTEM CONNOTATION SYSTEM

assigning the meaning to a per- systems of another meanings, adding second-
ceived object ary meanings and functions
real or terminological code con- rhetorical code connected with myth en-
nected to logic ables wider communication, involves emo-
tional and ideological world, pictures social
and cosmologic world model

Plough = a farming tool, characteris- Plough = concrete classificator, bearer of the

tic for the third function of fertility notion, symbol of the primary agreement in
and production Indo-European world model, first-functional
liturgical requisite (confirms in a sensually
perceptive way that mythological problem
was solved, contradiction was overcome and
the human world was excluded from non-
human)

Non-Human World (disorder, wilder- demonic deities (snake Varuna) and epic
ness, violence) heroes, mythological monsters, animals,
inhabited by animals, mythologi- (dragon harnessed by St. Kuzma and St.
cal, monsters, strangers Damian, devil harnessed by St.
wilderness, wood, water Prokop, giants who ploughed
areas the bed of river Hron with a
gigantic plough, spotted oxen
of Pemysl the Ploughman,
demonic hunter and conqueror
Volha turning into a wolf from
Russian bylinas, wolves as
dogs of St. George, dragon
chained by a princess on St.
Georges order, mare of a Car-
inthian prince

Border zone furrow as a border (magic

equivalent of fortification,
fence) made by a plough (sym-
bol of agreement connecting
both sides)

Human World (law, culture, St. George as a wolf shep-

order) herd, Iranian Mitra as a lord
seasonal usage of pasture of wide pasture
as a periphery organ of Saint ploughmen (Kuzma,
the human world Damian, Prokop), plough-
cultivated lands, fields men founders of dynasties
human settlement (forti- (Pemysl, Piast), characters
fied settlement, village) from epos (Mikula the plough-
dwelling man), who border and protect the human
sacred centre of a house, state world
(e.g. a fireplace, stone stool, sa- saints centring the human world (St.
cred building) George, St. Nicholas), founders of dynasties
(Pemysl after elected a prince), Carinthian
prince seated on a stone stool

Scheme

176
 Martin Golema

Stredovek svt ori a pohansk slovansk mytolgia

Martin Golema

tdia sa poka interpretova (z perspektvy novej porovnvacej mytolgie G. Du-

mzila a jeho koly) zlomky prbehov, ktor stredovek udov tradcia navrstvila na ofi-
cilne cirkevn podanie o niektorch svtcoch v slovanskom prostred. Zaujma ns najm
motv oborania uritho priestoru svtcom. Podobn motvy orby s doloen aj v dynas-
tickch povestiach zpadnch Slovanov, ritulny korelt tchto prbehov sa zachoval na
viacerch miestach strednej a vchodnej slovanskej Eurpy takmer do sasnosti v po-
dobe oborvania obce ako ochrannho prostriedku proti moru a ivelnm pohromm.
Pri hadan spolonho vznamu tchto ritulov s iastone zachovanm mytologickm
komentrom vo vntri systmu Dumzilom objavenej a rekontruovanej trojfunknej in-
doeurpskej ideolgie ich bdatelia spjali hlavne s treou funkciou plodnosti a vroby,
vychdzajc z predpokladu, e ilo o typick agrrnu mgiu. Pokame sa o alternatvny
vklad, ktor odhal pravdepodobn miesto tchto prbehov a ritulov v rmci prvneho
plu prvej funkcie nboenskej suverenity. Nazdvame sa, e takto ritulna orba robila
zmyslovo vnmatenm star indoeurpske rozdelenie kompetenci v sprve posvtnho
na mgiu a prvo. To sa prejavovalo aj v rozvrhnut priestoru na dve protikladn zny:
udsk a ne-udsk, na ktor si podelili svet dvaja vemi odlin suverni. V mte o rozde-
len sveta medzi dvoch suvernov pomocou vyorania hraninej brzdy, majcom korene
pravdepodobne v indoeurpskej minulosti, sa objavuje zvrchovan magick boh ako za-
priahnut bytos zoomorfnej, asto dmonickej (draej) povahy. Prostrednctvom pluhu
ho sptava a zapriaha uom bli a ovea priateskej zvrchovan boh prva Or, aby
spolu s nm mohol realizova zkladn kozmogonick kon. Obe tieto postavy sa navz-
jom kompetenne dopaj, oddelenie udskho sveta a divoiny je v princpe ich spolon
vkon, majci podobu zmluvy. Pluh v tchto prbehoch bva funkne interpretovan ako
v princpe ponohospodrske, teda treofunkn nradie (obdaren sce v konkrtnych
verzich magickmi kvalitami). Na rozdiel od tejto astej interpretcie sa domnievame, e
prv pluh mytologick prototyp pluhu bol predovetkm vemi dleitou liturgickou
prvofunknou rekvizitou, vyuvanou napr. pri vobe i potvrden posvtnho nelnka a
sasnom symbolickom sptan, zapriahnut zoomorfnej obludy i zvieraa. Liturgick
nboensk funkcia pluhu sa vak me aktualizova vo vronch alebo ochrannch ritu-
loch, vtedy sa sakrlny vldca alebo jeho splnomocnenci vracaj opakova orbu.

177