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very beautiful and built with great skill. People came there to worship private gods almost as arduously as the public god in Arcona.” In peaceful periods the stronghold was not crowded, but in June 1168 it gave shelter to masses of people. “The main tempie stood in the middle of its own yard. Both the yard and the tempie had purple cloth instead of walls and the roof was supported by pillars only. Disclosing the yard for the purpose of cult, the priests pulled the curtains inside. When they were removed a statuę madę of oak wood, called Rugevit, became visible from all sides. It was badly blemished by swallows, which had built a nest beneath its nose, left their dirty muck on its chest. What kind of god it, whose beauty is spoilt by birds? Its head contained seven human-like faces, all situated on the circum-ference of this single head. The artist gave it the same number of real swords with sheaths, hanging on one belt. The eight, unsheathed one [Rugevit] held in the right hand (...). The effigy was broader than lifesize and its height was such that Absalon only on tiptoe was able to reach its chin with an axe which he usually carried with him. The deity was believed to lead warriors in wars and have powers similar to Mars. The sculpture did not impress viewers with anything cheerful, its shape was coarse and carved without skill. Finally, to great horror of the whole population, servants started to chop its calves. When they were cut across, the statuę fell down with a bang an hit the ground. The inhabitants of the town, seeing their god degraded by soldiers, despised the religion that they were to abandon. The hands of servants, unsatisfied with one fali, greedily reached for the statuę of Porevit, worshiped in another tempie. It had five heads and was shown without weapons. Having pulled it down, they went to the tempie of Porenut. This statuę, carved with four faces, had the fifth one situated in the chest in such a way that the forehead touched the left hand and the chin the right one.” The statues were chopped and bumt.

The earliest excavations in an impressive stronghold, preserved in good condition until now, at the outskirts of the town Garz, were carried out in 1868. In the 1920s C. Schuchhardt, O. Stiehl and W. Petsch (1928) continued the work there. Following the intuition that a tempie should have a wide, open area at the eastera side to be lit be sunrise, they initiated excavations in three points at the east-southern edge of the stronghold. They discovered two stone constructions and identified them, without any motivation, as the remnants of Porevit’s and Porenufs shrines. Other finds were traces of two pillars and a drcle of Stones, interpreted as the remains of Rugevit’s tempie, which is perhaps morę probable, but based on very shaky evidence.

In the 19thc. the stronghold near Garz appeared in several legends. According to one of them, in the stronghold there is an underground chamber, where a former pagan tumed into a black dog, guards his treasure and keeps beautiful princess Svanvitha in etemal confinement. Another tale says that the princess lives in a nearby lakę and emerges from it only on St John’s day. There is also a legend about two musicians, who got lost in

Fig- 14. Korzenica-Garz. The plan of the stronghold. I, II, III - the alleged traces of temples; s. - skeletons; after C. Schuchhardt, O. Stiehl, W. Petzsch, 1928, table m.

the stronghold at night and came wandering to a magnificent garden, where they spent a hole year without noticing that it elapsed (Haas, 1896, p. 77-78, 120-124; 1916, p. 257-277; 1918, p. 19).

The contemporary name of the settlement is Garz, which comes from Slavonic gard - stronghold, but it used to have another one. Saxo Gram-maticus recorded it as Karentia, Knytlingasaga as Karennz. Its etymology is

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