Stribog was the Slavic god of the wind, of the air, of the spaces between earth and sky. He is mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle's list of gods at Vladimir's pantheon and in the Tale of Igor's Campaign, where the winds are called "Stribog's grandsons." The etymology of his name is debated: from stry- (an old Slavic root meaning "to scatter," appropriate to a wind-god), or from a Iranian-Slavic borrowing from a deity-name connected to Persian Sraosha (which would suggest contact between the Slavs and the Sarmatians of the steppe). The cult is otherwise sparsely attested; the figure is principally a name to which scattered references attach rather than a developed theological figure.
Before thisDazhbog
Next on the wallMokosh
Curator’s note
What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay
The principal sources are the Primary Chronicle (980) and the Tale of Igor's Campaign. The Iranian-borrowing etymology is in some modern scholarship (Vasmer's etymological dictionary); the native-Slavic etymology in others. The case is undecided.
Kin in the sources
Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.
Compared withSraoshaa Iranian-Slavic borrowing from a deity-name connected to Persian Sraosha
Named as the same god asRodSome scholars have tried to identify him with various other Slavic gods (Stribog, Svarog)
When the sources speak
Dated witnesses for The Slavic Gods and Spirits. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline
- 2nd–1st millennia BCE
- Indo-European language dispersals and regional Bronze Age cultures provide a remote comparative background, not a recoverable common canon.
- c. 500 BCE–1 CE
- Iron Age material culture, names, sanctuaries, and classical ethnography offer early but external evidence for Celtic and Germanic religions.
- 1st–4th centuries CE
- Roman inscriptions and provincial cults preserve many Celtic, Germanic, and local divine names.
- 4th–8th centuries CE
- Migration-period and early medieval conversion transform ritual institutions while heroic traditions continue.
- 8th–11th centuries CE
- Viking Age poetry, runic evidence, archaeology, and Scandinavian conversion form the core context of Norse myth.
- 9th–12th centuries CE
- Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic traditions enter chronicles and missionary accounts, often through hostile observers.
- 11th–14th centuries CE
- Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic manuscripts preserve major narrative corpora in Christian literary environments.
- 12th–16th centuries CE
- Saxo, saga compilers, Baltic chroniclers, and later antiquarians systematize or reinterpret older material.