The Land of the Ancient Vyrajian Gods. Book 1. The Girl and the Hunter

Excerpts from the book:
The attention of the girl was attracted by the hunter. He courted a young widow. Throwing an excellent fox hide over her shoulders, the hunter said:
“Buy, beauty, you will not regret it! I shot a fox myself, I hit it right in her eye, so as not to damage the skin. Watch how it suits you.”
The widow peered into a small mirror made of silver amalgam, specially seized for a similar occasion at the fair.
“Oh! After all, I myself have red hair! And if I sew a fox collar on winter clothes, I will look like a fox. Ah, will you shoot me by mistake then, Lesyar?!” the young widow flirted with the hunter.
At this time, the mother of Ladomira, Miloslava, was distracted to try on a necklace, and Ladomira decided to approach the hunter. The widow was just paying for the purchase and exchanged a meaningful look with the hunter. Suddenly, the girl felt annoyed …
Lesyar was unusually stately, handsome, strong.
“What do you want, Beauty?” he asked Ladomira.
She lowered her eyes: the hunter's voice excited her.
“Squirrel skins for decoration,” she answered in a strange voice.
Lesyar took a bag from under a wooden counter and laid out its contents in front of the gaze of a surprised girl.
“Choose! All is yours! We’ll agree on a price!”
Ladomira ran her palm across the shiny reddish-brown skin with black markings.
“I take everything.”
Lesyar grinned.
“Then I will discount some copper merculs,” he promised.
Ladomira unbuttoned a purse on her belt, filled with copper and silver coins, named in these places merculs. Because, as on one side of the coins, the face of a god unknown to the Slavs, Mercury, was depicted. Once the Slavs paid for their purchases with river pearls, but four hundred years ago merchants from distant countries appeared, their purses were full of merculs. Slavic knyazs liked the appearance of a foreign god of trade. Soon, mints appeared, which began to regularly replenish knyazs chests with copper, silver and gold merculs.
“Tell me your price,” said Ladomira, lowering her hand into her purse.
“Two silver and three copper merculs.”
The girl counted the amount and gave the coins to the hunter. He deftly grabbed her wrist.
“I heard — you are a novice at the Temple of Damp Mother Earth. Are you going to become a priestess?” Lesyar said.
Ladomira released her hand and threw coins next to the skins.
“Pack the goods in a bag!” she answered sharply.
***
...Over the sacred city of Radogosh, located on Mount Alatyr, which stood in a thicket of forest, clouds were gathering. The atmosphere among its inhabitants was heating up. Tension has been in the air for a long time, but lately it has only intensified. The inhabitants of the sacred city, the Vyrajians, those whom the Slavs revered as their ‘gods’, were going through hard times. For the cult of Logos was gaining strength in the western lands that were located beyond the Alba River.
The Logos cult was considered young because it appeared only about seven centuries ago. But, despite this, the newly emerged cult pushed the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian gods, they sunk into oblivion, and reached its zenith. And even Rod, the creator of all life and existence on the lands of the Slavs (Vyrajians by birth), who was the first to descend to Earth in a Golden Egg more than five millennia ago. Which was worshiped by the Western Slavs and considered him their ancestor. And his grandson Dazhbog were forgotten, giving way to younger gods.
The followers of Logos united in sacred orders — the Golden Cross on the land of the Franks, and then in Saxony, Bavaria, Thuringia. And in the northwest — in Denmark, the lands of the Norwegians and Swedes — the order of the White cloaks, which was the younger brother of the Frankish Order of the Golden Cross...