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The 3rd coin in this series, after: Perun and Svetovit.

There is no any historical image of Stribog, that I could be inspired by. He is just the Slavic god of the wind. That’s why the composition had to be dynamic and… stormy.

Stribog was also supposed to be the god of water and war. In the foreground we see three slavic ships with three slavic gods symbols (starting from the left: Perun, Stribog and Svetovit) on their sails.

My first sketch depicted Stribog blowing an unnaturally large horn. Finally the size of the horn was reduced (blue lines in the middle sketch below) to open up the space around the main character. The red arrows follow the air movement. The composition of the whole reverse is subjected to the wind. The trees, the sea waves and even the folds of Stribog’s shirt bend with the wind.

Three of teh four elements (water, earth and air) are depicted on the coin. Each of them is subjected to the wind. Fire, too, but I simply didn’t include it in the composition…

The patterns of the shirt and the ornament on the horn refer to the Ukrainian folk ornaments.

The obverse of this coin is the same as on the two previous coins in this series. See more.

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Svetovid or Svetovit (“sacred lord”) was the main deity of the Polabian Slavs. He was a god of war, light and power. Some researchers say that Sventovid was the same god as Perun (see: the first coin in this series). But Perun, until the times of Vladimir the Great, was an amorphous god. First known statues of Perun was erected by Vladimir, however Svetovid, according to Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, was always sculpted as a four-headed god. On my drawing Svetovid has faces wrinkled as if they were carved in old wood. We don’t know if we see a real organic god standing in front of us or a simple wood sculpture…
The attributes of Svetovid:
— a horn filled by the priest during the holidays with honey – this fortune-telling was supposed to foretell an abundance of harvests;
— a sword—in my design it is decorated with typical Slavic ornament;
— a white horse that foretold victory or defeat before the battle, depending on whether it was starting to gallop from the right or left leg.

Behind Svetovid on the right we see a warrior on horseback: the horse starts from its right hoof! On the left side of the reverse, I reproduced a scene taken from the painting by Józef Ryszkiewicz, The Wróżba przed bitwą (Devination before the battle). But I changed some details of this painting, for exemple: instead of a man with a hat made of an animal’s head, I drew a Slavic warrior in a chain mail.

There was a problem with the symbol of Svetovid on the insert. On the reverse of Perun the sign engraved on wooden instert was indeed an actual symbol of Perun used by the tribes of the Slavs. The slavic symbol of Svetovid was swastika, the common solar sign. As we know swastika became a nazi emblem, so I invented my own neutral symbol of Svetovid: four petals of flowers (harvest), symbolizing faces looking at the four corners of the world.

The obverse is the same for all coins in this series. See: Perun.

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Perun was for the Slavs, like Zeus or Jupiter for the ancient Greeks and Romans. He was the supreme god in Slavic mythology, the ruler of the heavens, storms, thunder and lightning. He lived in the oak forests. The oak was considered a sacred tree by Slavs — it symbolized the strength, life and longevity.

“Piorun” in Polish means lightning.

The attributes of Perun are: lightning, arrows (like lightning), oak, Slavic ax, and eagle—the king of the sky. The wolf symbolizes Veles, the god of the Slavic underworld defaeted by Perun.

Some scientists suggest Perun’s analogies with Thor—Germanic or Norse god of thunder and storm. It’s probably due to appearance of the Varangians (Scandinavian Vikings) Kievan Rus’ (today areas of Ukraine and Russia). Originally there were no statues devoting to Perun. He was a god living only in the trees. First statues of Perun were erected during the time of Vladimir the Great in Kievan Rus’.

The interlace knots under the feet of Perun apparently are not typical for Eastern European culture. This pattern seems to have a Celtic origin. During the great migration of early Middle Ages, Germans from Jutland (or from Scania) drove the Celts out from today’s German territory. However the Celtic culture had a huge impact on these newly arrived Germanic tribes. At the same time, archeologists found the traces of Celtic culture not only in today’s Germany, but also in Slavic Central Europe, including today’s Poland territory and… in the Crimea! These knots are Celtic, German or Slavic? Who knows…

In the next coins in the series I will draw more typical Slavic motifs.

The insert is made of oak wood and was engraved with a Slavic symbol of Perun.

On the obverse we have: an eagle, a large oak tree (two Perun symbols) and a wolf with a bear (two symbols of Veles, defaeted by Perun ). In general eagle, wolf, bear, oak are also the symbols of the slavic primary forest. The iconography of the obverse became so universal and could match other Slavic themes.