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customs of the Radymichs, Viatychs and Severians, who did not practice weddings either, but organized “merrymaking for various settlements; they met for merrymaking, dancing and singing devilish songs, and here they kidnapped their girls with whom they had arranged it previously.” Kidnap-ping a wife was a way of marriage typical for Indo-European warriors. The kidnapping took place near the water, during a festival which can be regarded as a model of Midsummer rituals known from ethnographic studies. In the Ruthenian sermon Slovo nekoevo Khristolubtsa there is a fragment conceming a wedding rite strongly dissaproved by the preacher, in which phałiic images were placed in vessels (Anichkov, 1914, p. 374-375). Some phallic images, presumably connected with rituals of that type were found in a well of the stronghold in Łęczyca (Abramowicz, 1955, p. 345; Szafrański, 1987, p. 378). Thus, it is possible that wells also had some cult function.

The morass around Glomać were the place of offerings. In Ruthenia The Orthodox metropolitan John II condemned those who madę sacrifices to devils, morasses and wells (Łowmianski, 1979, p. 136). W. Baumann (1971) discovered an object interpreted as a lakeside place of sacrifices at the overgrown Góttwitzer Lakę. We have already mentioned the alleged cult lakę from Stara Koufim. Supposedly, there was a sacred lakę in the Little Poland. Traska*s Annales (year 1278) recorded a story about a lakę in the Cracow diocese, in which the devil resided disturbing the fishing. In winter a procession with crosses and church banners approached the lakę and a monster with a goat’s head and red eyes was caught, but the people fled in panie at the sight of it, leaving the crosses, so the monster managed to escape. Other sources only generally refer to the worship of water (Kosmas, I, 4; III, 1; Homiliarium de Opatovitz, vol. I38b, 225b; Łowmiański, 1979, p. 136).

Thus, the Slavs had sanctuaries in which the main sign of sacrum was water. One of them, GłomaĆ, functioned as the central shrine of a tribe, but generally water only accompanied other cult objeets. Such was the situation in Radogość, where the role of the lakę in the myth and cult was recorded by Thietmar. Waterside location seems to have been a recurrent feature of Slavonic temples, and this pattem reappeared in some open-air sanctuaries.

Medieval written sources, except of very generał references (Helmold, I, 84; Kosmas, I, 4), do not bring any information about sacred stones. Numerous rocks surrounded by folk legends await studies. Some of them are marked with mysterious signs, viewed by folk mentality as footprints or handprints of a saint, or on the reverse, traces of devil's claws (Baruch, 1907; Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, 1890, vol. 1, p. 465; Moszyński, 1968, vol. 1/2, p. 248-249; Fischer, 1928, p. 206; Wienecke, 1940, p. 42-49; Haase, 1939, p. 177-180; Gieysztor, 1982, p. 170; SSS, vol. 2, 359; Makarov, Khrenesov, 1988). Some were called “divine feet,” which is an old expression. In the document from 1281 in which prince Mestvin endowed the Cistercian nunnery from Żarnowiec with the village Świecin, the border of the land bestowed on the nuns was delimited “straight through the grove to a certain stone (...) called divine foot [Bozistopka]” (Pomme-rellisches Urlundenbuch, 1882, no. 372; cf. Baruch, 1907, p. 12-13, 50-52). Let us also mention a large rock called Buskam, which means “a god’s stone,” standing out from the sea 300 m from the coast of Rugen, near Góhren (Witkowski, 1970, p. 376). It was the subject of many legends written down in the 19thc. (Holstein, 1947; Haas, 1921, p. 53-54).

Stones played an important role in the enthroning ceremonies of Slav-onic rulers (Słupecki, 1992a). A prince sat on a stone, whose tough matter symbolized eternity and permanence, and which marked the centre of the cosmos as omphalos, the hub of the universe (Eliade, 1966, p. 230-233), sanctifying the ruler by placing him in the centre of his domain. The stone throne gave the ruler majesty and power. Such stones were usually located on hills and mounds, quite often situated not in strongholds, but - at least originally - in fields serving as places of gatherings for all the subjects (Banaszkiewicz, 1986a, p. 458-459; TfeStik, 1985, p. 291; Labuda, 1966; Eliade, 1966, p. 231; de Vries, 1956-1957, vol. 1, p. 345-349; Jedlicki, 1927, p. 483).

From Slavonic examples, most information about the enthroning stones of Carinthian princes and Bohemian Premysl dynasty is accessible. In Carin-thia the prince was initially elected by the assembly of warriors-free peas-ants. Since 828 the Emperor imposed the ruler, but in the enthroning ritual, preserved in the old form, an important part was performed by the Slavonic kosezi, half-peasants, half-nobles. The throne of the Carinthian princes con-sists of several stone plates which support a base of a Roman column, coming from the ruins of the former town Vimum, on the foundations of which Kmski Grad, the Slavonic centre of Carinthia, the land named after this town, was built. The throne had stood in a suburb of Kmski Grad, from where it was transferred to a museum in Klagenfurt in the 19thc. (Grafenauer, 1952, p. 146, 242; P. Korośec, 1986, p. 104; SSS, vol. 2, p. 139, 520; Kurnatowska, 1979, p. 118-119, 166-167).

The enthroning rite of Carinthian princes is described in various sources, which have been exhaustively studied by B. Grafenauer (1952). Schwabenspiegel says that the prince should be elected by free peasants. They appointed one of themselves as a “judge” (rihter), who asked whether the candidate proposed by the Emperor “seems suitable and good and whether he is desirable for the country.” When the majority decided that it was the case, the enthroning ceremony took place during the assembly: “And they dress him in a grey robę and gird a red belt on him, adding a large red sack (...), to which he puts his cheese, bread and his provisions, and his hunting hom fastened with red thongs. They also dress him in shoes decorated with red embroidery and a grey cape

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