Slavic Pantheon
Triglav
Triglaus (Latinized by Ebbo and Herbord)(Triglávŭ)
Also known as Triglaus
- sky, earth, and the underworld (per the chroniclers' gloss)
The three-headed chief god of pagan Szczecin, whose temple and golden idol were destroyed during Bishop Otto of Bamberg's Christianizing mission of 1124–1128.
About Triglav
Attestation
Triglav is known from the Lives of Otto of Bamberg, written within a generation of the events they describe by the monks Ebbo (Vita Ottonis, c. 1151) and Herbord (Dialogus de Vita Ottonis, c. 1158), recounting Otto's mission to convert Pomerania in 1124–1128. Both describe a three-headed idol at Szczecin (Stettin), its heads covered by a golden veil or blindfold that the chroniclers gloss as meaning the god chose to see, hear, and speak no evil of the three realms (sky, earth, and the underworld) the three heads were said to survey. A black, divinatory horse comparable to Svantevit's white one at Arkona is also recorded at Szczecin.
A missionary's frame
As with Svantevit, the surviving account comes from writers celebrating a bishop's conversion campaign, so the neat symbolic reading of the three heads (sky/earth/underworld, or "see/hear/speak no evil") may be the chroniclers' own interpretive gloss rather than a doctrine the Pomeranians themselves would have stated that way. The idol's fate is recorded precisely: after the temple's destruction, a golden likeness of Triglav's heads was reportedly sent to Pope Honorius II in Rome as proof of the mission's success.
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Triglav
A black horse was kept for divination before military or civic decisions, its refusal to step over crossed spears read as an unfavorable omen, per Ebbo and Herbord's accounts of Szczecin.
Sacred sites
- The chief temple at Szczecin, destroyed during Otto of Bamberg's mission of 1124–1128; a related cult is also recorded at Wolgast.
In the atlas
Where Triglav appears
Artifacts
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.
- Ebbo, Vita Ottonis episcopi Babenbergensis (paraphrase)
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. About the author. 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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