The earliest data for the history of the civilization of the Slavic race, we find in their mythology; and here their oriental origin again appears.  The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with among most of their tribes; and as even at the present time in some Slavic dialects every thing good, beautiful, praiseworthy, is to them synonymous with the purity of the white colour, they call the good Spirit Bielo Bog, the white god; the evil Spirit Tcherno Bog, the black god.  The Div of the old Russians seem to be likewise akin to the Dev of the Hindoo; the goddess of life, Shiva, of the Polabae, to the Indian Shiva; as the names of the Slavic personification of death, Morjana, Morena, Marzana, evidently stand in connection with the Indian word for death, Marana.  Strabo describes some of the idols of the Rugians, in which we meet again the whole significant symbolization of the East.  The custom prevalent among many Slavic nations, of females burning themselves with the corpses of their husbands, seems also to have been brought from India to Europe.

There are, however, other features of their mythology which belong to them exclusively, and which remind us rather of the sprightly and poetical imagination of the Greeks.  We allude to their mode of attributing life to the inanimate objects of nature, rocks, brooks and trees; of peopling with supernatural beings the woods which surrounded them, the mountains between which they lived.  The Rusalki of the Russians, the Vila of the southern Slavic nations, the Leshie of several other tribes, nymphs, naiads, and satyrs, are still to be found in many popular tales and songs.  If, however, we have compared them to the poetical gods of the Greeks, we must not forget to add, that their character has less resemblance to these gods, (who indeed appear only as ordinary men with higher powers, more violent passions, and less limited lives.) than it has to the northern Elf; and the German Nix and mountain Spirit—­without heart and soul themselves, but always intermeddling with intrusive curiosity in human affairs, however void of real interest in them; revengeful towards the most trifling offence or the least neglect; and beneficent only to favourites arbitrarily chosen.[7]

The earliest historians mention the Slavi as divided into several tribes and as speaking different dialects.  There are no very ancient remains of their language, except those words or phrases, which we find scattered through the works of foreign writers; and these mostly perverted by their want of knowledge.  Besides these we have the names of places, of festivals, partly still existing, and of some dignitaries, Knes, Zupan, etc.  There are, indeed, among the popular songs of the Bohemians, Servians, Russians, and several other tribes, many which are evidently derived from the pagan period; but as they have been preserved only by tradition, we must of course assume, that their diction, has been changed almost in the same proportion as the language of common life.  Hence, national songs, before they have been fixed by letters, are always to be considered as much safer proofs for the genius than for the language of a people.