Simargl
And he placed idols on the hill outside the palace: a Perun in wood with a silver head and a gold moustache, and Khors and Dazhbog and Stribog and Simargl and Mokosh.
[2] In a later text from the second half of the 12th century, Sermon by One Who Loves Christ, Simargl is mentioned as two separate deities, Sěm and Rgel: [...] being unable to bear Christians who live a double faith and believe in Perun and Khors, Mokosh, Sim and Rgl and in the Vily [...][3] The Sermon further states: „Therefore, Christians must not hold demonic festivities, meaning dancing, music and profane songs, and offerings to the idols, who with fire under the fields of sheaves pray to the Vily, to Mokosh, and Sim and Rgl, to Perun, Rod, the Rozhanitsy and all the like.”[4] In copies of Primary Chronicle, the theonym is written (in the genitive) as Simarĭgla (Laurentian Codex), Sěmarĭgla (Hypatian Codex) and Semarĭgla (Radziwiłł Chronicle).
[6] In 1841, Potr Preys [ru] proposed that Sim and Rgel be considered characters corresponding, respectively, to the Old Testament Asima and Nergal.
[8] Alexander Famitsin, on the other hand, concluded that Simargl was a corrupted notation that was originally intended to read Sim Yaryl.
It was first proposed[11] by Kamilla Trever, a Russian historian and orientalist, according to whom the source word for Simargl was supposed to be Simurgh – a winged creature with a dog's head that was a protector of plants.
[6] Boris Rybakov was an ardent supporter of the Trever theory; he rejected the division of Simargl into two deities or the possibility of typos.
[13] Mikhail Vasilyev admits that there are some linguistic difficulties in deriving Simargl from Simurgh, but states that it is plausible and accepts the theory, at least until a better one is discovered.
Alexander Brückner stated that in the Primary Chronicle the conjunction is also not found between Khors and Dazhbog, and these are still separate theonyms, therefore Simargl should also be divided into two words.
[23] According to Martin Pitro and Petr Vokáč, if one considers the existence of two deities instead of one, it is possible that Sěm and Rgel were divine twins, the Slavic counterparts of the Dioskuri.
[25] Krzysztof T. Witczak and Idaliana Kaczor assumed that the basic Old Russian form of the theonym was Sěmъ and that it was etymologically related to Lithuanian Seme-pates, Roman Sēmūnes "deities of sowing", Sabine Simo Sancus Dius Fidius "some deity compared to Hercules", Old Irish Semon "hero or demigod" and Gaulish Σημόνη.
Michał Łuczyński, however, points out the errors of this etymology: the Latin notation Semepates should be read as the Lithuanian *Žemepatys (from žemė "earth"), while for the rest of the names it is possible to reconstruct the protoform, but it would be *seVmōn-, from the PIE dial.
The Lithuanian theonym is supposed to derive from rugti "to sour", this root in the form rug- also occurs in Slavic languages.
[29] Witczak and Kaczor reconstructed the PIE theonym *Rudlós "God of the wild nature" to be attested by the Vedic Rudra and the Old Russian Rgel (from the earlier *Rъdlъ).
[30] Łuczyński notes, however, that none of these etymologies can be accepted because their authors use erroneous notation of the deity when creating the etymology: Brücker gives notations of Rъglъ and Rъgъlъ,[29] and Witczak and Kaczor give Rъglъ[30] (all with ъ – a hard sign), while in the sources it is written as Rьglъ (with ь – a soft sign).
