Zaria (goddess)

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Zosia or Zoria is the goddess of beauty in Polish mythology.[1] A once-popular goddess also associated with the morning, Zosia 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. [2]

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..."

Being a patroness of protection and exorcism, Poles 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 the '4 rivers of the Otherworld' run, and under her seat flows the 'river of healing'.

See also[edit]

  • Zorya, the three Slavic guardians of the night.


  1. ^ Husain, Shahrukh (2003). The Goddess: Power, Sexuality, and the Feminine Divine. University of Michigan Press. p. 170. ISBN 0-472-08934-X. 
  2. ^ Wallace, Carol McD. (2004). The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever Rev Ed. HarperCollins. p. 711. ISBN 0-06-056649-3.