Stryboh

Stryboh. The pagan god of the wind, one of the chief gods worshiped by early Ukrainians and other Eastern Slavs. He was the counterpart of the Greek god Aeolus. Stryboh is mentioned in early monuments of Ukrainian literature, including the Primary Chronicle and Slovo o polku Ihorevi (The Tale of Ihor's Campaign). The cult of Stryboh left many traces in Ukrainian toponymy—the village of Strybizh, in the Zhytomyr region, for example, and the Strybizka River, in the Kyiv region. There are different theories concerning the etymology of the name Stryboh. It may have come from strybaty ‘to leap’ or from sterty ‘to erase.’ Some scholars contend that the first syllable (stry-) shares a common root with the universal Slavic word strila or strika ‘arrow’, which relationship suggests that an ancient poetic trope comparing the wind to an arrow may be reflected here.