Perun
As early as the 6th century, he was mentioned in De Bello Gothico, a historical source written by the Eastern Roman historian Procopius.
A short note describing beliefs of a certain South Slavic tribe states they acknowledge that one god, creator of lightning, is the only lord of all: to him do they sacrifice an ox and all sacrificial animals.
In 980, when prince Vladimir the Great came to the throne of Kiev, he erected statues of five pagan gods in front of his palace which he soon thereafter discarded after his Christianization in 988.
Perun is not mentioned directly in any of the records of Western Slavic traditional religion, but a reference to him is perhaps made in a short note in Helmold's Chronica Slavorum, written in the latter half of the 12th century, which states (quite similarly to Procopius some six centuries earlier) that Slavic tribes, even though they worship many various gods, all agree there is a supreme god in heaven which rules over all other on earth.
An exemplary case are the South Slavic still-living rain rituals Perperuna and Dodola of the couple Perun–Perperuna/Perunika, Lord and Lady Thunder, shared with the neighbouring Albanians, Greeks and Arumanians, corresponding to the Germanic Fjörgynn–Fjörgyn, the Lithuanian and Latvian Perkūnas/Dundulis–Perkūna/Pērkons, and finding similarities in the Vedic hymns to Parjanya.
[8] Perun is strongly correlated with the near-identical Perkūnas/Pērkons from Baltic mythology, suggesting either a common derivative of the Proto-Indo European thunder god (whose original name has been reconstructed as *Perkʷūnos), or that one of these cultures borrowed the deity from the other.
[9] Artifacts, traditions and toponyms show the presence of the cult of Perun among all Slavic, Baltic and Finnic peoples.
While this may not seem to be much of a weapon, in many[citation needed] Slavic folk accounts, the golden apple appears as a talisman of ultimate destruction.
An example from a folk song from Montenegro with strong mythical elements relates: ...Те извади три јабуке златне И баци их небу у висине... ...Три муње од неба пукоше Једна гађа два дјевера млада, Друга гађа пашу на дорину, Трећа гађа свата шест стотина, Не утече ока за свједока, Ни да каже, како погибоше.
With Perun, this deity also shares common attributes (amulets in the form of an axe, a fiery four-pointed symbol, oak as the main tree[5]) and the origin of the name (from the PIE root *perk).
In the modern Baltic languages, related words associated with the deity Perkunas have been preserved: Lithuanian perkūnas ('thunder') and perkūnija ('lightning'); Latvian pērkons ('thunder').
In South Slavic traditions, marked oaks stood on country borders; communities at these positions were visited during village holidays in the late spring and during the summer.
He ordered that the statues of Perun which he himself had erected formerly, be dethroned, torn down with great dishonor and dragged through the streets as they were beaten with sticks.
He is considered a thunderer, the god of warriors, and a rival of Veles,[15][16] also embodying spring thunderstorms that fertilize the earth.
In the Book of Veles (recognized by scientists as a 20th-century fake), Svarog, Perun, and Svyatovit appear in the glorification of the Great Triglav.
[18] As part of the Slavic-Goritsa wrestling of Alexander Belov, the ideology is built on the cult of Perun, military honor, and valor and has many followers in Russia.
There are also places called: Perun (the famous mountain in Bosnia Herzegovina, Vareš), Perunac, Perunovac, Perunika, Perunička Glava, Peruni Vrh, Perunja Ves, Peruna Dubrava, Perunuša, Perušice, Perudina and Perutovac.
