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INTRODUCTION

Poland, analogically to Bohemia and Ruthenia, originated as a pagan country, as all Slavs entered the historical scene professing their traditional bełiefs, which they retained untii the beginning of their own organized States. Polabians (the Slavs from the area between the Elbe/Saale and the Oder) never abandoned the traditional faith voluntarily and under the imposed rule they lost their Slavonic identity. Pagan faith strongly influenced the behaviour of princes, priests and leaders, warriors and farmers, men and women. Religion, as it has always happened in history, introduced sense into their life and world. We know that pagan gods were believed to guarantee the law and oaths, to lead their worshipers in wars, to grant good harvest and prosperity, to give advise through oracles. The princes performed their duties as the guardians of peace and order, leaders and defenders. They knew that they were responsible for the well-being of their people. The songs that glorified brave deeds of heroes, of which only fragments are known today, created the ethos of warrior. Also the farmer, who knew that the soil, which feeds the people, was sacred, had his own ethos. The myths about the peasant origin of the Piasts, the Premysl dynasty and the princes of Carinthia prove that the work of a farmer was highly respected. The holi-days, motivated by religion, marked the stable points in the year, constituted the calendar. Time, similarly to space, had a sacred dimension.

Records which would convey a straightforward image of the world presented by the pagan Slavonic religion similar to the Scandinavian Poetic Edda have not been written down.. We can, however, infer much morę information from the records conceming the appearance and arrangement of Slavonic sanctuaries.

Untii now researchers have tried to interpret particular cult places of the Slavs through the relatively scarce data about their mythology. However, it seems worth to try the reverse procedurę. According to Mircea Eliade (1966, p. 361-380), the sacred places symbolize the elements of the cosmic order of the world. Therefore it is possible that the universal ideas of the centre of the world, axis mundi, the cosmic mountain, the tree of life, the omphalos, end or border of the universe, primeval waters, the source of the water of life, were reflected in the plans and locations of Slavonic sanctuaries which should be thoroughly examined. Not all data will be used here. The burial

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