Young god

Solar rider from a Celtic coin...

In Slavic mythology, Svetovid was associated with a white horse, which was kept in his temples and used for divination...In this article I will talk about a Serbian ritual song which talks about solar rider and Christmas...

"Dodaj meni hladne vode, Koledo Koledo, Da kupamo, okupamo mladog boga, tog Božića Svarožića… Konjic mu je jarko sunce, bojni doro ognjeviti"

"Pass me cold water, o Koledo, to bath the young god, Božića Svarožić... His horse is the bright sun, a flaming war steed"

This is a Serbian ritual "Christmas song" recorded in Bosnia by Milojević in 1869. In it the narrator asks Koledo for water. Koledo is winter solstice. The end of the old Kolo (wheel, Solar wheel, solar year) and the beginning of the new Kolo (wheel, Solar wheel, solar year)...

The water is needed to bath "the young god" who is called Božić. In Serbian the word "Bog" means god and the ending "ić" means small, young.  So Božić literally means young god, but also it means Christmas...So far so Christian...🙂

But the young god Božić is also called Svarožić (young Svarog). Triglav (Dabog), Serbian supreme deity, consisted of Svetovid, Perun, Svarog. Svetovid represented Sun, Perun represented Thunder and Svarog represented Fire. I talked about Triglav in my post "Triglav, Trojan, Trinity, Trimurti, Agni"

So Svarožić (the other name of the young god) means "young fire". This "young fire" is the fire of the sun, which is rekindled on the day of the winter solstice, the day when the new sun is born and the new solar year, new "kolo" starts...

The main ritual performed over Christmas (Solstice) is "lighting the Yule log in the evening, keeping it burning through the longest night, and then making it spark in the morning". 

Watching over Christmas (Solstice) fire, Serbia

I talked about this in my posts "Badnjak" and "First footer"

In this way people helped "preserving sun's fire", "rekindling of the fire of the new sun"...This was not just symbolic action. People believed that "all fire is one" and that if their fire was kept burning, the sun's fire would be kept burning through the longest night...

This equates Svarožić (young fire) with Jarilo (young sun) who is born during the longest night...Svarožić is Jarilo's fire. Jarilo's name comes from "jar' which means both young and fiery, raging...It is his fire which grows ever stronger and warmer which brings spring...

That Svarožić (young fire) is Jarilo (young sun) can be seen from the second verse which says that Svarožić rides on the bright sun, which is his flaming war horse...He is the Solar rider... 

Depiction of the solar rider from Bosnia from my post "The horseman"

Christmas is coming, get your Badnjaks (Yule logs) ready...🙂