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Slavic Pantheon

Stribog

Стрибогъ(Stribogŭ)

Illustration of Stribog, a deity of the Slavic Pantheon
Illustrative imageIllustration of Stribog. Generated with an AI image model; not a historical artifact. About our images
  • wind

A wind god among Vladimir's 980 idols, remembered in the Tale of Igor's Campaign as the ancestor of the winds that blow arrows against the poem's defeated Rus' army.

About Stribog

Attestation

Stribog is named fourth–fifth among Vladimir's six idols in the Russian Primary Chronicle's entry for 980. His function as a wind god rests almost entirely on one striking line in the Tale of Igor's Campaign, which calls the winds "Stribog's grandsons," blowing arrows from the sea against Prince Igor's host. Beyond his name in the idol list and that one poetic image, nothing about his myth, temple, or worship survives.

An inference, held with appropriate caution

The wind association is widely accepted by Slavicists precisely because of how specific and vivid the Tale's image is, but it remains an inference from a single later literary reference rather than a chronicle statement of his domain; the Primary Chronicle itself never says what Stribog governed.

Worship and cult

Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Stribog

No medieval source records a rite, temple, or festival for Stribog; he is known only from his place in the 980 idol list and from a single poetic image in the Tale of Igor's Campaign describing the winds as his descendants.

In the atlas

Where Stribog appears

Sources and further reading

Source notes

These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.

  • Russian Primary Chronicle, s.a. 980 (paraphrase)

    Catalog date: entry for 980 CE; chronicle compiled early 12th c.

  • Tale of Igor's Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve), paraphrase

    Catalog date: describing events of 1185; surviving manuscript copy 16th c., first printed 1800

Cite this page

No publication date is recorded for this page, so each citation uses n.d. and today's date as the access date.

About this entry

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. . Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.

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