Would it not be better to retain the loyalty of a man whose assistance and counsel can be received as a tribute and convert a pagan people to Christianity?

For this reason, around 1018, the bishop and chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg, while criticizing the alliance with the pagans, briefly describes their religion in his Chronicle: In the land of the Redarii there is a city called Riedegost (Rethra), which has three corners and one door in each wall and which is surrounded on all sides by a great forest which is untouched and venerated by the local people.

Another error has been handed down since ancient times, to wit, when they are threatened by the cruel misfortune of war, a great boar with white tusks and glistening with foam emerges from the lake and, wallowing in the mire with terrible agitation, shows itself to many witnesses..[11] Svarozhits also appears in the Eastern Slavs in a homiletic work from the 12th century Sermon by One Who Loves Christ: "to the fire they pray, calling it Svarozhich",[6] and in Sermon by the Holy Father Saint John Chrysostom: Men who have forgotten the fear of God from neglect by renouncing baptism, approach idols and start to make sacrifices to the thunder and lightning, the sun and moon, and others, to Perun, Khors, the Vily and Mokosh, to vampires and the Beregyni, whom they call three times nine sisters.

[12]Ibn Rustah's work Book of Precious Gems may also refer to Svarozhits: "They are all fire worshippers and the majority sow millet.When harvest time arrives, they collect the millet grain onto a shovel, raise it towards the sky and say: “Oh Lord, you are the one who provides for us and we have none left".

[14] In Slovenian Styria, a demon named Švaržič (Shvarzhich) was known, which proves the cult of Svarozhits among the South Slavs.

[15] In 1952, Croatian ethnomusicologist Zvonko Lovrenčević wrote down a folk song from the village of Ciglena near Bjelovar, which was presented by Kate Kuntin (born 1868).

[16][c] The village of Verače is Slovenia was also called Tbaraschitzberg or Svarozhits Hill (Slovene: Svarozhichev hrib) in archival sources, but only since 1480.

[22] However, there is no general consensus on this interpretation, and the Sermon by the Holy Father Saint John Chrysostom, which mentions both Svarozhits and Dazhbog, is given as an argument against it.

[18] Perhaps Bruno mentioned St. Maurice, the patron saint of knighthood and armed struggle, in his letter because he considered him to be the christian equivalent of Svarozhits.