On Stribog and Defining the Connection Between him and Dažbog

Not many things rival the beauty of feeling the Sun’s warmth on your face while you feel the gentle cooling winds blow in your hair. Thanks to etymology and source analysis, we can understand the roles of Dažbog and Stribog and their connection. Attestations from the Kievan Primary Chronicle and the Novgorodian Chronicle tell us about how, among other, Prince Vladimir of Kiev raised idols to Dažbog and Stribog and in both attestation they are mentioned one next to each other, first Dažbog and then Stribog.

Dažbog, also known as Dajbog and Dabog in south Slavic lands, is the Sun. This has been attested in the Hypathian Codex, where there is a tale by John Malalas which was translated from the language of the Byzantines. In it, the Sun was referred to as Helios, while in the Slavic translation, the Sun was referred to as Dažbog. By examining Dažbog’s name and all of other variations of it, we can note down root words daž, dažd, da and daj. First two mentioned words are connected or they directly mean rain in Slavic languages, both archaic and contemporary, while the last two words mean to give. Rain is viewed as a blessing that gives life to the soil and so is Dažbog, the Sun, the Giver of life and abundance.

Stribog is the God of Winds. His connection to the winds has been mentioned in Tales of Igor’s Campaign in which he has been referred to as the grandfather of the Great Winds. More about his function can be learned from the first part of his name, which is stri, which means to spread. His name is also connected to the term strujati, which means to flow. By observing historical attestations, the nature of winds and etymology, we can clearly see that Stribog is the Wind God, the Spreader.

We can determine that Dažbog and Stribog are a duo in which, like their mentions, one’s function comes after another’s. First Dažbog gives and then Stribog spreads around what was given by Dažbog. However, there is more to their connection, due to duality of Stribog. In his duality, Stribog displays an antagonistic role towards Dažbog. In the Tales of Igor’s Campaign, the daughter of Yaroslav of Galich addresses a prayer to the wind in which she asks why is the Great Wind bringing enemies on his wings against her husband’s warriors, which portrays Stribog as a warlord. This function correlates with the war function of Stribog’s Indo-Aryan (in this context more specifically Zoroastrian) counterpart Vayu, who can in his dualism display such an antagonistic role that he has been equated to Arhiman, the destructive deity that poses as the adversary to the creative deities or to Ormazd, another name for Ahura Mazda, while also displaying a spiritually higher side, for even Ahura Mazda worshiped Vayu in Zurvanism.

In south Slavic folklore we have mentions of a wind usually referred to as krivac (the crooked) or ćorac (the blind). In his tales, he blows either from the south or from the east. At one point he gotten himself into a conflict, either against an old man or against the northern wind and in this conflict he always ends up being defeated and wounded, which turns him partially blind and angered, making him crooked, unpredictable and strong, the wind that blows wildly, not following a straight path, but a crooked one. The south Slavic folklore mentions that this wind usually blows either from the south or from the Black Sea, but this would have been the same direction for these people before their migrations to the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans, meaning that this was an earlier mythological story which they brought with them. In Tales of Igor’s Campaign, it is written that Stribog sends his grandchildren - the Great Winds - from the sea, and the only sea which the Rus had access to in that time was the Black Sea, the same sea from which krivac blows, which connects him and his wild, untamable, blind, but once pleasant nature to Stribog.

To conclude, Dažbog and Stribog represent a pair of deities, Dažbog with the function to give and Stribog with the function to spread what has been given, usually wealth. This pair can become compromised by the fact that Stribog goes through a defeat in which he partially loses his sight which makes him wild and unpredictable. He then completes his role by spreading war and misfortune upon the descendants of Dažbog, making Stribog antagonistic towards him.