Saxo Grammaticus on Slavic Pre-Christian Religion: The Relevant Fragments from Book XIV of Gesta Danorum

Duke Henry the Lion, King Waldemar, and Bishop Absalon answer the Pope's call for the Northern Crusade to Christianize Baltic Slavs. Being successful in achieving their goal, and having subdued the Slavs, they witness the strange and unusual temples, statues, customs, and divination rituals of the Wendish Slavs, artefacts and practices that are scarcely, if at all, documented in other sources, and appear or deduced from archeological finds. Among the literary sources on the pre-Christian re...