Zaria (goddess)

Zaria or Zoria is the goddess of beauty in Slavic mythology. A once-popular goddess also associated with the morning, Zaria was known to her worshippers as "the heavenly bride." She was greeted at dawn as "the brightest maiden, pure, sublime, honorable." She was also known as a water priestess that protected warriors.


She is depicted as a warrior goddess, fully armed and courageous, and was invoked to protect against death in battle with the prayer

"Defend me, O maiden, with your veil from the enemy, from the arquebus and arrow..."

She is a patroness of protection, exorcism, and Slavs would pray to her each morning as the sun rose. In some tales, she sits under the World Tree on the fiery-stone Alatuir, from which run the four rivers of the Otherworld, and under her seat flows the river of healing.