Scrabble?! DEITES

Definitions of DEITES in various dictionaries:

Deities of Slavic religion, arranged in cosmological and functional groups, are inherited through mythology and folklore. Both in the earliest Slavic religion and in modern Slavic Native Faith's theology and cosmology, gods are arranged as a hierarchy of powers begotten by the supreme God of the universe, Rod, known as Deivos in the earliest Slavic religion. According to Helmold's Chronica Slavorum (compiled 1168–1169), "obeying the duties assigned to them, [the deities] have sprung from his [the supreme God's] blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to their nearness to the god of the gods". The general Slavic term for "god" or "deity" is бог bog, whose original meaning is both "wealth" and its "giver". The term is related to Sanskrit bhaga and Avestan baga. Some Slavic gods are worshipped to this day in folk religion, especially in countrysides, despite longtime Christianisation of Slavic lands, apart from the relatively recent phenomenon of organised Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery). Slavic folk belief holds that the world organises itself according to an oppositional and yet complementary cosmic duality through which the supreme God expresses itself, represented by Belobog ("White God") and Chernobog ("Black God"), collectively representing heavenly-masculine and earthly-feminine deities, or waxing light and waning light gods, respectively. The two are also incarnated by Svarog–Perun and Veles, whom have been compared to the Indo-Iranian Mitra and Varuna, respectively. All bright male gods, especially those whose name has the attributive suffix -vit, "lord", are epithets, denoting aspects or phases in the year of the masculine radiating force, personified by Perun (the "Thunder" and "Oak"). Veles, as the etymology of his name highlights, is instead the god of poetic inspiration and sight. The underpinning Mokosh ("Moist"), the great goddess of the earth related to the Indo-Iranian Anahita, has always been the focus of a strong popular devotion, and is still worshipped by many Slavs, chiefly Russians.