Crnobog – god of darkness, evil and misfortune

The Black God, as his very name says, is the black god of the Slavs - god of the night, chaos and evil. Slavs believed that all evil originated from this god, so he, of all other gods, was the least favorably disposed towards men. Misfortune could befall the Slavs in various ways – through extreme cold, famine, poverty, illness, or simply through a combination of circumstances, and all of this was the responsibility of Crnobog. He thus became a winter deity and a god of darkness, a terrifying creature that shrouded the world in black. However, we should bear in mind that the Slavs considered Crnobog’s impact was necessary and that consequently Cernobog was respected as all the other gods.

A dark shadow

Crnobog was born of Svarog's shadow, a force formed from the initial darkness, a god that was completely contrary to Svarog or the Old Vid. Since in the beginning both gods were just worthless forces, they created lookalikes, divine beings made of matter, of which enormous and powerful Volos was Svarog's double while the Black God created Črt, a black creature covered with bristle hair, cow's tail and sharp teeth. Črt embodied evil, darkness, misfortune and loss. His power was divine, and he could assume all kinds of shapes, most often that of a huge fiery dragon. Prone to disguise and all sorts of mischief, sometimes he would take the form of a beautiful young man and bring restlessness and sorrow into the tender heart of some naive, young girl. Svarog ordered him to dive to the bottom of the sea and bring the golden dust from which he would create the world. Wanting to imitate the power and the divine skills of Svarog, when he dived to the bottom of the sea, he kept some magical dust of creation in his muzzle. To his astonishment, Črt, at the moment of Svarog's creation of the world, felt the dust begin to grow in his muzzle and spit it out quickly, and from that dust waterless wastelands, gloomy ravines, swamps and all sorts of nasty places emerged. Thus, Črt could once again be convinced that his power is much weaker than the power of the Great God.

The lower world

At the opposite end of the Tree of the World lies the dark empire of Crnobog, Trtar (or Terror), a place that the sun has never touched with its golden rays. In the foggy depths of Trtar there is Temnava, the island of death where the dark Lelej mountain stands. At the very top of the mountain is the town of Tamnograd (or the Dark City), the steel castle where Crnobog and his vicious retinue stands. At the very end of the deep day, by the bed of the river of oblivion, there is an entrance into the lower world. Through its murky waters, one comes into the underworld and the Empire of Crnobog. The dark courts are made of steel, and around them flows the blue fiery river of destruction.

In the beginning, life on heaven and on earth went smoothly, without significant events and excitement, because the gods were busy creating their empires, and the giants lived a scattered life filled with drunkenness and fights. That life, which otherwise suited them perfectly, bored them over time and they wanted new thrills. Jealous of Svarog who created the world, they sided with Crnobog and, with his powerful support, began to plot all sorts of mischief against the bright inhabitants of Nav, the abode of the gods in the very canopy of the Tree of the World. Their desire was to extinguish the stars, the sun, the moon and all the flourishing life on earth in order to bring the world back to the original darkness in which they would be rulers, but that venture failed because the earth creatures had powerful protectors in the heavenly gods and magical beings.

All this means that our forefathers thought accidents were also caused by their gods, or that even extreme cold, famine, death and disease were of divine origin. And what was sent by the gods certainly had to be respected. This illustrates how pagan perception of the world is different to Christian, because Christianity puts earthly life in the so-called vale of tears, while to pagans life, happy and unhappy alike, is a divine bestowal.