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The role of water “is to precede the creation and reabsorb it, while it [water] can never surpass its own manner of being, that is it can never appear in any form.” Water has existed sińce the beginning of the universe. According to many mythologies it surrounds the world, which emerged from it (de Vries, 1956-1957, vol. 2, p. 373). Is it possible to confine such an elusive element in descriptions of cult places? It turns out that there were sanctuaries in which the cult was concentrated around a spring, lakę or river. To quote some Germanie examples, Tacitus (Annales, XIII, 57) recorded a conflict between Hermundurs and Chatts over the right to a certain river. It was believed that the gods listened most gladly to the prayers and wishes sent from its banks. The Allemans, Franks and Saxons celebrated sacrifices at springs or river banks (de Vries, 1956-1957, vol. 1, p. 347-350). We should devote special attention to human sacrifices madę by the Germans in morasses (Tacitus, Germania, 12, 1937, p. 149; Dieck 1965). We know some remains of Germanie sanctuaries situated at waters (Jankuhn, 1965, p. 135-146). An object of that type, coming from the Roman period (3rd-5th c. AD) was dis-covered in Otalążka in Mazovia (Bender, 1969, 1972; Bender-Stupnicka, 1974; Makiewicz, 1993). According to Landnamabók, Thorstein, one of the pioneers of the Scandinavian colonization of Iceland, madę a certain Icelan-dic waterfall sacrosanct (de Vries, 1956-1957, vol. 1, p. 347-350; Stróm, 1975, p. 215). Springs were attributed healing power, which is related to the aąuatic symbolism of resuttection and rebirth. The conviction about their healing properties was deeply rooted among the Celts (Eliade, 1966, p. 188-211; de Vries, 1977, p. 228). The relationship with the element sym-bolizing the primeval chaos from which everything emerged, connects the man, with the mythical dawn and provides him with prophesying power. According to Plutarch (Caesar, 19) “the holy women” of the Germans “foretell the futurę looking at rivers, from their whirls, currents and the roar of the waves.”

The role of water in the pagan cult of the Slavs was stressed by Procopius of Caesarea, who wrote (III, 14) that Sclavinians and Ants “wor-ship (...) rivers, nymphs and some other spirits. They bring them offerings and make divination during the ceremony.” In Thietmar’s relation about Radogosc (VI, 24), where a boar emerging from the nearby lakę fore-shadows a civil war, water appears as the scenery in which gods’ will is revealed through the oracie or another sign.

Thietmar (I, 3) described also the holy spring of the Dalemincs, and this is the best account concerning a Slavonic cult place connected with water. According to the bishop of Merseburg, the futurę king Henry I, then only a son of the Duke of Saxony, “when his father sent him with a great army to the land of the tribe that is called Daleminci in German and Glomaci in Slavonic, he retumed victorious, having competely destroyed and bumt the country. Now I must relate how the country got its name. Glomać is a spring situated not morę than two miles from the Elbę. Its waters create a large morass, on which, as the peopłe from the area and witnesses claim, strange events happen. As long as the natives enjoy the blessing of peace and the soil is not short of harvest, the morass is covered with wheat, oats and acoms and gives joy to the neighbours who crowd around. When-ever a war rages, blood and ash inevitably mark the futurę. Each inhabitant reveres and respects that spring morę than any church, although what he can expect from it is so uncertain. The whole country spreading from the Elbę to the river Caminizi got its name from the spring.”

In his relation Thietmar contaminated two campaigns of Henry I, king of Germany sińce 919. As follows from Widukind’s chronicie (I, 35) the first of them took place between 906 and 919; the Dalemincs were reinforced by the Hungarians then. The second one was organized around 928/929, when a ten-year peace treaty between the Germans and the Hungarians, con-cluded in 926, was operative. During that campaign Gana, the Capital stronghold of the Dalemincs, was captured and its defenders were exter-minated (Łowmiański, 1963-1985, vol. 5, p. 262). Widukind does not men-tion the sacred spring, but we can assume that it lay near the main stronghold of the tribe. Its name has been preserved in the name of the present village Lommatsch in the Oschatz district (Eichler, 1981, p. 206; 1975, p. 67-72). W. Coblenz (1977) interprets the stronghold Burgberg, 7 km from Lommatsch, as remains of Gana, the Capital of the tribe. The thesis is supported by such evidence as the size of the object, traces of a fire and the location upon the river Jahna, whose name corresponds to the name of the stronghold that is searched for (Jahna < Gana).

Allegedly Glomać was covered with wheat, oats and acoms in the time prosperity. It is possible to explain this miraculous phenomenon by pointing to the forms of cult that probably gave rise to the mention. According to Kosmas (III, 1), Bohemian villagers, “still half-pagan,” in the times of Bretislav II observed the following customs: “on Tuesday or Wednesday of Whitsuntide they killed sacrifidal animals at springs and strewed flour and salt for the devils.” Some traces of similar rituals were discovered at the spring in Biskupin (Rajewski, 1970). Thietmar’s text may refer to offerings madę in Glomać; we can hypothesise that wheat was supposed to assure the well-being of people, oats - of horses, while acoms - of pigs.

In the fragment conceming Glomać the motif of the spring as a source of fertility, which is one of the most important properties ascribed to water, appears. It is significant that in Midsummer rituals Slavonic girls floated wreaths down the water, which was connected with foretelling marriages (Moszyński, 1968, voł. 2/1, p. 393-398). In this case the fortune-telling is intertwined with the wish for fertility. Primary Russian Chronicie (PSRL, vol. 1, 1926, p. 13-14), describing the customs of Ruthenian tribes, glorifies the Polanians and does not favour their neighbours: “The Drevlans lived like animals and beasts (...) and they had no weddings, but kidnapped maidens at the water.” The method is specified in the description of the

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