Veles

Attestation

The Russian Primary Chronicle has the Rus' swear by Volos, "the cattle god" (skotii bog), together with Perun and their weapons, in the treaties of 907 and 945. Unlike Perun, Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargl, and Mokosh, Veles is conspicuously absent from the six idols Vladimir sets up on the Kiev hill in 980. Later medieval and early-modern hagiographic tradition associated with Vladimir's baptism places a Veles idol separately, on the lower ground of the Podil district by the river, a detail that postdates the Primary Chronicle itself and should be treated with more caution than the 907 and 945 treaty text.

A modern reconstruction, clearly labelled

The absence of Veles from the hill, and his separate association with lower/wet ground, underlies Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov's influential 1974 reconstruction of a cosmic conflict between a sky-based Perun and an earth- or water-based Veles, echoing comparable Indo-European storm-god-versus-serpent combats (Indra/Vritra, Thor/Jörmungandr). No medieval Slavic text narrates this combat; it is inferred from later folk tales, place names, and comparative mythology, and is presented on this site strictly as a scholarly reconstruction. Later folklore also associates Veles with poetry, magic, and (via the 12th-century Tale of Igor's Campaign, which calls the poet Boyan "Veles's grandson") skilled speech, though the Tale's own authenticity as an unaltered 12th-century text has been debated by some scholars.