User:Dhira Simha/sandbox

In Slavonic mythology, Hors (Scholar transliteration Xors, Cyrillic: Хорс, Old Church Slavonic: Хърсъ / Xŭrsŭ or Xъrsъ) was one of the principal Eastern-Slavonic pre-Christian deities. In Russian ancient chronicles and religious texts Xors was the second most often mentioned deity after Perun, but little is known about his religious function.

Name origin
The origin of the name ‘Hors’ is also not clear. According to the common theory, initially proposed by P.G. Butkov, it comes from the Iranian languages. In his comments on  Slovo o polku Igoreve (The Tale of Igor's Campaign) Butkov named Xors “the Slavonic Phoebus” pointing out that it was similar with Iranian words: “ [...] Persian xuršit, in Ossetic xur, xor; in Ossetic xorošŭ, хоrsŭ, xorsu also means dobro, xorošo [kindness, good]”. Compare Avestan: hvarə хšаētəm ‘radiant sun’ and its later contracted forms Middle Persian: xvaršêt and Persian: xoršid‎ (خورشید or خرشید) ‘Sun’. This was later supported by V.I. Prejs who added that “Xors is not just the sun but a mythological personality”, Osip Bodyansky who considered Xors as “an alien word: namely Zendish” and Izmail Sreznevsky: “[o]ur scholar Prejs rightly compared Xorsŭ = Хоrŭsŭ with the New Persian Xor or Xur and with the name of the Persian King Koreš = Xoreš also meaning the sun” This etymology remains generally accepted today. Roman Jakobson expressed its essence as: “Xŭrsŭ is an obvious borrowing from the Iranian expression for the radiant sun (Xuršid in Persian)”