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materiał and concluded that the folk legends have mmmmi core: in all of them, when the Germans invade the tempie in Radogość, the Slavs escape from the stronghold with an efTigy of a Slavonic god, which is often gold, bury it somewhere, transfer to another town or drown it in a lakę. Some tales about Radogość follow the scheme of the legend of the drowned town. Beckmann supposes that the tales preserved in German until now might have been inherited from assimilated Slavs. The folk tales situated Radogość in the area of Lieps and Tollense Lakes and most ethnographic data come from that region, while late-medieval chroniclers and modem humanists until the times of Latomus opted for the area of Dymin and Muritz Lakę. According to Beckmann, it shows that the legends were not taken over from the literate culture. Ethnographic studies situate Radogość near Lieps and Tollense Lakes.

The pioneers of German archaeology shared this view. L. Bruckner (1887; 1889) advocated the thesis that Radogość lay in Fischerinsel in Tollense Lakę, which provoked a heated discussion. A special “Rethra Commission” was set up. On behalf of it G. Oesten (1904; 1905; 1906; 1912) took soundings in several villages, but without conclusive results. In the early 20s C. Schuchhard (1926, p. 27-63) searched in a stronghold near Feldberg at Grosse-Luzin Lakę and after two weeks announced that he had found Radogość. Even before the war his interpretation of the excavations was questioned (Wienecke, 1940, p. 223-225; Rajewski, 1948, p. 321-325 accepted it). Herrmann’s excavations (1968, p. 198-204; 1969, p. 33-69) car-ried out in the same site in 1967 discovered some remnants of a tempie, but they are dated to the 7th-9th century. In the times when chroniclers wrote about Radogość this place had already been deserted by its inhabitants. The question of the location of RadogoSć remains open. Over six hundred years of attempts at finding it, diverse results have been achieved. Ekhard Unger (1958) compiled 29 alleged localizations of the sanctuary, spread from vill-age Rehna upon stream Radegast in the west (near Lubeck), to Stargard in Pomerania in the east, and from Loitz upon Piana (near Dymin) in the north to Gransee near Berlin in the south. Even renowned historians took seriously rather absurd combinations. E. Wienecke (1940, p. 222) desperate-ly tried to identify Radogość with Szczecin.

Nowadays the search is again concentrated around Lieps and Tollense Lakes. In 1969 in Fischerinsel two wooden statues were excavated, but no traces of a tempie were found. V. Schmidt (1984, p. 21, 70; 1992, p. 59-61) suggests that the sanctuary may have been located in Hanfwerder island in Lieps Lakę, based on the allegedly sacred character of one of the houses (sized 4.8 m x 4 m) found there, which is not very convincing. The only argument for his thesis are sculls of an aurochs and a horse, and deer homs found in its foundations, which should be rather interpreted as founding offerings. Moreover, the bpilding comes from the tum of the 13th c. According to the same reseacher, there was another cult building (24.4 x 9 m) in the

22 - Róbel, 23 - Rothemuhl, 24 - Stargard/

/Mecklemburg, 25 - Stargard Szczeciński, 26 - Szczecin (Stettin), 27 - Treptow/Tollensee, 28 - Wanzka, 29 - Wolgast, 30 - Wustrow. Other symbols: B - Brandenburg, G - Gutzkow, GR - Gross Raden, K - Korzenica/Garz, L - Lubeck, N - Neubrandenburg, NS - Neuster-litz, P - Parchim, R - Rostock, S - Spandau, SO - Stari gard-Oldenburg, Sz - Schwerin, W - Wolin. After E. Unger, 1958, p. 50.

burial ground in Usadel, situated exactły opposite the Hanfwerder island. Its alleged traces, which are irregular stone constructions, are not convincing, even if we assume that the object had been built as a log construction. Volker Schmidfs newest studies (1984; 1992) show, however, that the settle-ments of Tolensans and Redars were probably centered around the men-tioned lakes, so we can suppose that RadogoSć was situated in this region.

Thietmar recorded the name of the sanctuary as Riedegost and calls the deity worshiped there Zuarasic. Adam of Bremen and Helmold cali the

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