Indo-European Poetry and Myth

considered as an active principle. This suggests, at least as a potentiality, the treatment of fire as a divinity. In India he d ...

and faced with this prospect Azˇi prudently withdraws. The story is set in a framework of Zoroastrian theology, but it is eviden ...

contain the ‘burn’ root that appears in Greek αAθω, Latin aestus < *aidh-tus. But the first element resists analysis. The Rom ...

quantity of evidence for prayers being addressed to the stove, and for the solemn provision of food offerings to the fire with t ...

The god of the hearth fire is fitly called ‘master of the house’. Agni has this title (dám ̇ pati-, RV 5. 22. 4; 8. 84. 7; gr ̇ ...

There are a few possible traces of these motifs in Greece. The fiery god nurtured in the waters by their female embodiments reca ...

Finally, the ninth-century Norwegian poet Thiodolf uses the phrase sæ ́var niþr‘grandson/descendant of the sea’ as a kenning for ...

time forth, Agni is considered to be within the interiors of s ́amı ̄ trees, and men use it as a means of producing fire.’^122 T ...

that the gods sent Agni down (RV 1. 36. 10, cf. 10. 63. 7). The bringing of fire is thus connected with the beginnings of sacrif ...

In the lists of divine witnesses to Hittite treaties the Rivers and Springs, like the Winds, appear repeatedly. In Suppiluliuma’ ...

Individual rivers are personified in Greek myth and honoured in cult.^134 Poets and artists represent them with the head or at l ...

Dumézil argues dashingly that the well, as it was so injurious to eye- sight, must have contained something fiery, analogous to ...

Homer. In one of the Eddic poems Gunnar says that the Rhine ‘will rule over’ the Niflungs’ treasure, and he appears to call the ...

these male gods give way to Mothers: a Mother of Water, U ̄ ̄dens ma ̄te; a Mother of the River, Upes ma ̄te.^148 Everywhere the ...

7 Nymphs and Gnomes The last chapter has brought us down to earth. Now we shall round off our theological tour by surveying a mi ...

Though basically similar to us in form, they are often differentiated from the human race by their larger or smaller size, or by ...

however, he may have been an old survival. The familiar form of his name is contracted from earlier Παων, genitive Παονο, which ...

property. Pu ̄s ̇ an for his part is the patron of professional trackers, and can bring lost, hidden, or stolen goods to light.^ ...

NYMPHS Over almost all the Indo-European area we find the belief in a breed of supernatural females who haunt the lonelier parts ...

he was eventually induced to break. Puru ̄ ravas was not to let his wife see him naked, but the jealous Gandharvas tricked him i ...