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grew in places elevated over the surroundings and - except of the largest ones - were fenced (Moszyński, 1968, vol. 2/1, p. 251-252). Slavonic holy mountains were encircled with impressive embankments, although as the sources often stress, they had been chosen as signs of sacrum because of their naturę and they would not seem to need any man-built statues, altars or constructions, just like sacred waters, Stones or trees. Tacitus (Germania, 9) explicitly said about the Germans that “regarding any confinement of gods within walls and representing them in the human shape as shameful, they devote groves and oak forests to them.” Such sanctuaries had no temples or statues, just like the Slavonic grove of god Prove. Nevertheless, groves, mountains, trees, Stones and waters were attributed their religious significance by people, which was reflected mainly in various ways in which they were singled out from the world of profanum. Each sanctuary should have at least a yard for gatherings, moreover, we cannot decisively exclude the possibility that inside or near the “natural” sanctuaries statues, poles, altars, fire-places or even roofed buildings stood. Lucian described a Celtic sacred grove near Marseilles, in which there were altars and sculptured efflgies of gods (Gąssowski, 1979, p. 133). According to Tacitus (Annales, I, 61), during a campaign undertaken to revenge Verus’s defeat, Germanicus found in Teutoburg Forest altars of the Cherusks situated on a glade. Roman centurions and tribunes were sacrificed on the altars.

Ali the Slavonic temples and cult halls mentioned in the previous chap-ters constituted integrai parts of strongholds, towns or important settle-ments. The location of open-air sanctuaries seem to have followed another pattem. We have no motivation to claim that they preceded temples, as all the sources at out disposal datę from the same epoch and show very clearly that in the Middle Ages all the types of cult places coexisted in Slavonic culture. We are not entitled to conclude that groves, mountains, etc., as morę primitive forms of sanctuaries had lower rank that temples or circles with statues, if they sometimes enjoyed the status of main tribal sanctuaries.

Only a few cult circles of Western Slavs are mentioned in written sources. Ebo’s text (III, 1), ąuoted above, refers to some idols standing in the open air in Wolin. We can speculate about another sanctuary in Riigen. In abbot Herbert’s Boók of Wonders, written around 1180 in Clairvaux, there is an outstanding series of Danish and Slavonic tales. One of them supposedly describes Arcona, another, entitled “How the demon of evil tried to revenge the insult of his bumt and broken statuę,” most probably regards Rugen as well (Szacherska, 1968, p. 80-88). The text brings a description of an open-air sanctuary in which the object of cult was “an enormous statuę madę of wood and covered with tar on the surface, which stood like a beam set near a tree trunk.” Pagans from a nearby village came there “to pray to it secretly or even to bring oblations.” Two young Christians who found the place (one of the versions specifies it as a grove) by chance, inflamed with “religious ardour (...) broke the cursed statuę into pieces and having set fire to it tumed it into embers and ashes,” for which one of them was severely punished by the demon (Herberti Thurium... De miraculis libri tres, PLat, 1897, vol. 185, p. 1381; Palm, 1937, p. 44; Szacherska, 1968, p. 80-88). The tar protected the statuę from decay, but it also allowed to paint it, whiłe, if the legend is reliable, it remained “sooty and black.” Helmold (I, 52) recorded that Polabian Slavs worshiped Zernoboch (The Black-God). Also in Riigen a deity corresponding to Herberfs description was worshiped. It was Tjarnoglofl, i.e. The Black-Headed, listed in Knytlingasaga (ch. 122) among the idols destroyed by king Valdemar and Absalon in Rugen. The saga says that he was “their god of victory, their companion in wars. He had silver moustache. He survived for the longest time, but in the third year after it [i.e. after 1168] they were defeated as well.” The hypothesis that Herbert and Knytlingasaga refer to the same sanctuary is very tempting. A. Haas (1918, p. 35-39) localized the shrine of The Black-Headed in the stronghold of Herthaburg, situated near Herthasee lakę. These two names are artificial and until the mid 19thc. the lakę was called the Black Pond (Schwartze See).

Several other sanctuaries have been excavated. Near Trzebiatów (Trep-tow), 500 metres to the south-east from the Rega river, there is a Iow hill called David’s Mount (Dawidsberg) situated in a morass area. In the 30s J. Malotki, custodian of the local museum, organized excavations there. Their results were published by W. Filipowiak in 1957. The two oval struc-tures found in the area were interpreted as Slavonic cult circles from the 9th/10thc. The first, sized 10x13 metres, was surrounded with a ditch containing some burnt clay, charcoal and fragments of pottery. The middle of the circle was occupied by two fire-places, and in its Southern part remnants of three poles were found. Further three pairs of poles stood outside the circle. The other structure lay 65 metres from the first one. It was also an ovai ditch, sized 8x10 m, with the longer axis orientated to the north, just like the in the case of the first one. Apart from charcoal, bones and pottery, a silver coin of Antoninus Pius was found in it. In the middle of the circle there was a fire-place. Three big hollows, possibly left by poles, adjoined the outside of the ditch. Other finds from the area close to the circles include two hollows filled with Slavonic pottery, remnants of poles, a skeleton and five fire-places which remained uninterpreted. The stronghold which might have been connected with the sanctuary upon the Rega was incorporated in the town of Trzebiatów, mentioned as early as in 1208 as a locaL centre. In Białoboki (Belbuck), situated one kilometer from Trzebiatów, in the late 12thc. - the exact datę is disputable - a monastery of Premonstratensian order was founded. According to a late, eighteen--century record, in spite of an attempt at introducing the German name Peters Burg, the settlement retained its native name, derived “from Belbog, a Pomeranian idol, a god of white colour sumbolizing the good.” The mention comes from the history of the Premonstratensians written by

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