Quaternaries

So, what path have we already taken?

We have understood that the unity in pagan myth is, as it were, kept outside perception. While acknowledging the One as the origin of all being, polytheistic myth nonetheless begins with the Dyad, recognizing that any work can begin only in the presence of a difference of potentials, i.e., polarity. Since pagans are not concerned with the existence of the Absolute as such, what matters is precisely the stage in which the One enters creation, and that process begins with the emergence of the Dyad: the Great Father and the Great Mother, Heaven and Earth, the Active and Passive principles.

However, at the same time as this division, a Third Principle arises — the relationship of Father and Mother, their joint offspring, which in turn becomes the third mover of being, the Third Sphere; and, in reality, it is this Third Sphere that has actual existence, while the two extremes remain Potential Being.

This actual being, in turn, polarizes: within it, bearing images of the First Dyad, Active and Passive components are distinguished, the permitting and forbidding aspects. Thus the first quaternary of gods is born. Among the Slavs, it is the pairs Svarog and Lada (Father and Mother) and Veles and Semargl; among the Scandinavians — Odin and Freyja, Loki and Heimdall; among the Celts — Nudd and Danu, Dagda and Bres.