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The story goes that, being flung from a bridge into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water, threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice, "Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me."
Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them all, was treated with the greatest indignity.
Having now become a Christian, the Grand Prince determined that his Russians should do the same. He publicly stripped the god Perune of his gorgeous golden whiskers, and of his rich vestments, showing the people that Perune was only a log of wood. Then he had the deposed god whipped in public, and thrown into the river, with all the other gods.
To the treaty made the Varangian warriors swore by their gods Perune and Voloss, by their rings, and by their swords, gold and steel, the things they honored most and most desired. Then back in triumph they sailed to Kief, rich with booty, and ever after hailing their leader as the Wise Man, or Magician.
Vladimir did so, sending Rogneda with her son to rule over her father's realm, where he built a new city which he named after the boy. Vladimir had been born a pagan, and a pagan he was still, worshipping the Varangian deities, in particular the god Perune, of whom he had a statue erected on a hill near his palace, adorned with a silver head.
He ordered splendid memorials to various deities to be erected throughout the country, and he specially honored Perune, the father of the gods, for whom he provided a new pair of golden whiskers golden whiskers being the special glory of Perune. Not content with this, Vladimir ordered a human sacrifice to be made, and selected for the victim a Christian youth of the capital.
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