First (I will invoke) the ones who delimit all the fruits of agriculture with sky and
earth, Jupiter and Tellus –– and so, as they are said to be the great parents, Jupiter is
called Father and Tellus Mother.
It is doubtful whether this coupling has genuine ancient roots in Roman
religion.^63
Snorri, in the passage cited earlier where he calls Odin ‘father of all gods
and men’, states that Io ̨rð, Earth, was his daughter and his wife. As we have
said, Odin cannot be directly identified as a sky-god: rather he has stepped
into an older scheme in which the Sky became father of gods and men in
marriage to the Earth.
Another Germanic echo of the myth is to be seen in that Old English
ploughing prayer, also cited earlier, where Earth, addressed as mother of men,
is exhorted to become fertile –– that is, pregnant ––on Godes fæþme, in God’s
embrace. The Christian God here takes the place of the old Sky-god. The
prayer may have an Indo-European pedigree, as the association of ploughing
with magical-religious ritual must go back to its very beginnings.^64 As the
farmer ploughed his first furrow he would utter the simple prayer that
Mother Earth with the aid of Father Sky might bring forth a heavy crop. The
Greek version is recorded by Hesiod (Op. 465–9):
Pray to Zeus of the Earth and pure Demeter
for Demeter’s holy grain to ripen heavy,
at the beginning of ploughing when you take the stilt
in your hand and come down with a stick on the oxen’s back
as they pull the yoke-peg by the strapping.Here again the earth-goddess is coupled with the sky-god, even if he is now
understood as a Zeus of the Earth (Chthonios), that is, Zeus operating in the
earth.^65
(^63) Cf. S. Weinstock, RE vA. 800.
(^64) I note in passing that nakedness once had a ritual potency in connection with ploughing
and sowing. According to Hesiod (Op. 388–93), ‘this is the rule of the land.. .: naked sow and
naked drive the oxen, and naked reap, if you want to bring in Demeter’s works all in due season,
so that you have each crop grow in season’. Pliny (HN 18. 131) reports a belief that one should
sow turnips naked, with a ritual prayer. ‘Aus Deutschland ist an mehreren Stellen die Sitte
bezeugt, daß der Bauer nackt die Saat bestellen muß. Um das Ackerfeld gegen die Vögel zu
schützen, begab sich in Siebenbürgen der Bauer vor Sonnenaufgang aufs Feld, und schritt,
nachdem er sich nackt ausgezogen hatte, das Vaterunser betend, dreimal um das Feld herum;
dasselbe tat auch der dänische Bauer auf der Insel Fünen’ (de Vries (1956), i. 290). In times of
drought Hindu women still perform a naked ploughing: Frazer (1911–36), i. 282–4; reported
from Uttar Pradesh, the Guardian, 27 August 1979; from Nepal, Daily Telegraph, 12 August 2002
(the husbands were shut indoors with the windows closed).
(^65) For Indic ploughing prayers, which are not so similar, cf. AV 3. 17, 24; 6. 142; TS 4. 2. 5. 5 f.;
- 1–4; Oldenberg (1917), 258; Hillebrandt (1927–9), ii. 199–202.
- Sky and Earth 183