Cosmogony - Slavic Religion

A myth known to all Slavs tells how God ordered a handful of sand to be brought up from the bottom of the sea and created the land from it. Usually, it is the Devil who brings up the sand; in only one case, in Slovenia, is it God himself. This earth-diver myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well.

The 12th-century German missionary Helmold of Bosau recorded in Chronica Slavorum (Chronicle of the Slavs) his surprise in encountering among the Slavs on the Baltic a belief in a single heavenly God, who ignored the affairs of this world, having delegated the governance of it to certain spirits begotten by him. This is the only instance in which the sources allude to a hierarchy of divinities, but its centre is empty. The divinity mentioned by Helmold is a deus otiosus; i.e., an inactive god, unique in the mythology of the Indo-European peoples. Such a deity is, however, also found among the Volga Finns, the Ugrians, and the Uralians.