The religious conceptions of the Russian Slavs were but little developed. All other Aryan peoples, including the western Slavs, excel them in this respect. There was neither a distinct priestly class, nor were there images of the gods, nor were there distinct types of gods. The Arabian travellers almost unanimously ascribe sun worship to the eastern Slavs, and Byzantine writers before the ninth century tell of a belief in a supreme being who rules the universe. It is now generally accepted that this supreme god was called Svarog and was a personification of heaven and light, while sun and fire were regarded as his children. Perun, the thunder god, and Veles, god of herds, both mentioned by the oldest chronicler, must be brought in relation to the sun. But it is highly probable that these two gods were taken over by the Slavs from their Varangian rulers. Water also was regarded as sacred, and, like the forest, it was filled with animate beings which must be propitiated with sacrifices, since they had relations to human beings. Water, fire, and earth were related to death. The _russalki_, shades of the dead, swam about in the water, and the bodies of the dead were given up to the flames in order to make easier their passage to the realm of the dead (_rai_). The slaves, as well as the wife and the domestic animals were burned on the funeral pyre, and cremation was preceded by a feast and games in honour of the dead. But burial also was common.[g] [Sidenote: [862 A.D.]] We find the Russian Slavs about the middle of the ninth century split up into numerous tribes, settled on the soil and engaged chiefly in hunting and agriculture. A continental people, everywhere confining itself to the inland country, leaving the sea-borders to non-Slavonic tribes. Politically they were in the midst of the transition from the clan organisation to the village community, without any central authority, without any military organisation, and but little able to resist the inroads from north, south, and east, of populations who lived by plunder.[a] The primitive condition of their political organisation, their extreme subdivision into tribes and cantons, the endless warfare of canton with canton, delivered them up defenceless to every invader. While the Slavs of the south paid tribute to the Chazars, the Slavs of Ilmen, exhausted by internecine conflicts, decided to call in the Varangians. “Let us seek,” they said, “a prince who will govern us and reason with us justly. Then,” continues Nestor,[h] “the Tchud, the Slavs (of Novgorod), the Krivitchi, and other confederate tribes said to the Varangian princes: ‘Our land is great and has everything in abundance, but it lacks order and justice; come and take possession and rule over us.’” THE VARANGIAN PERIOD (862-1054 A.D.)