According to Russian tales from the end of 11th century, god washed himself in a bath, got sweaty, dried it with a bundle of straw and threw it from heaven to earth. Then satan argued with god, who should create a human from the bundle of straw. The devil created the human and god gave him a soul, so when the human dies the body goes into the ground and the soul to god.

Paganism was strong in Russia during the whole Middle Ages and its leaders – witches (volchvi, kudesniki) – were for a long time an important part of the society, which the church was trying to eliminate. Therefore, we see again this duality of the devil and god. But both of them create the man. Distinctively pagan is the anthropomorphic image of god who washes himself in a bath. It matches the pagan idea of god with human personality traits and needs. Interesting is also the material from which the human is created – a bundle of straw depicting the ephemerality of life. The straw comes from god who threw it from heaven to earth, but satan gives it physical form and with it all weaknesses, illnesses and death. But he has no power over the soul, which has divine origin and returns to god. This contradicts the teaching of the church that takes into account the possibility that the soul could fall prey to satan.

The dual myths express the simple human experience that evil has its place in the creation and that nature and humans themselves are a combination of opposing forces of good and evil. They constantly fight and with this eternal battle determine existence itself and the evolution of the world and humans.

Other variations of the creation myth from east Slavic countries are dual in nature. In one of them, god created a human but satan spit on them and his saliva caused all evil and suffering that humans have to endure. Slovenian tale reminds of the Russian story, in this one a human was created from the sweat on god’s forehead. A drop of it fell to earth. And that’s why men have to work hard (break a sweat) to survive. Because man came from god’s forehead, he is called ”čelo-věk” (čelo-forehead). This version of the story was probably inspired by the play on words.

East Slavs in the Middle Ages also had different versions of the creation myth that had nothing to do with Christianity and reveal old pagan origin. They talk about the Rod, probably a god or perhaps spirit of fertility. It’s name can be found in words like příroda (nature), úroda (harvest), porod (birth), rodina (family), národ (nation), … Rod creates humans in a way, when he throws handfuls of soil on the ground, from which children are born. We see similar ideas in Greek mythology, but in this case it’s not only about creation of first humans. It still continues and expresses the belief that human beings come to earth from heaven, but the essence of their physicality is soil from the earth.

VÁŇA, Zdeněk. Svět slovanských bohů a démonů. Praha: Panorama, 1990. Stopy, fakta, svědectví (Panorama). ISBN 80-7038-187-6.