Many gods’ names contain the suffix -nos or (feminine) -neh 2 > -na ̄.
They include deities attested in the second millennium , the Hittite
storm-god Tarh
̆
unna (from tarh
̆- ‘overcome, vanquish’) and the Indic Varuna
(from var(-u-) ‘cover, protect’). In the European languages the suffix was
added to existing nouns to signify ‘controller of ’, ‘lord of ’. It made not only
divine names but also human titles like Greek κορανο‘army leader’ (see
p. 449), Latin domi-nus,tribu ̄-nus, Gothic þiudans‘king’ (< teuto-nos: teuta ̄
‘people’), Old English dryhten, Old Norse drottinn‘lord’ (< drukti-nos:
drukti-‘armed retinue’).^61 As for deities, we may refer to the Greek Ouranos
< Worsanos, ‘lord of rain’, and Helena < Swelena ̄, ‘mistress of sunlight’
(p. 231); the Illyrian Menzanas, ‘lord of horses’; the Roman Neptu ̄ nus,
‘lord of waters’ (p. 276), Volca ̄nus, ‘lord of fire-glare’ (p. 268),
Silva ̄nus, ‘lord of woods’, Portu ̄ nus, ‘lord of ports’, Tiberı ̄nus, ‘lord of the
Tiber’, and goddesses such as Fortu ̄ na, Bello ̄na, Po ̄mo ̄na; the Germanic
Woden/Odin < Wo ̄ðanaz, ‘lord of frenzy’; the Gallic Epona, goddess of
horses, Nemetona, goddess of groves, Ritona Pritona, goddess of buying and
selling, and many others;^62 the Lithuanian thunder-god Perkunas, ‘lord of
oaks’, Ve ̃linas, ‘lord of the dead’ (modern Vélnias, the Devil), and Zˇemýna,
Zˇemy ̃ne ̇, ‘mistress of the Earth’. Perkunas, as we shall see in Chapter 6, has
some claim to Indo-European antiquity, but for the rest, as in the case of
the agent-noun formations, it is the type that is inherited rather than the
individual representatives of it.
In the more easterly parts of the Indo-European area the idea ‘lord/lady
of ’ could be expressed more explicitly through the use of the word potis,
feminine *potnih 2. This too was applicable in either the human or the divine
sphere. The master of the house (Latin domi-nus) was in Vedic dám
̇
patih
̇, in
Avestan də ̄ n
̇
g paitisˇ, in Greek δεσπο ́ τη; the master of the clan or settlement
(*woios) was in Vedic vis ́pátih
̇
, in Lithuanian vie ̃sˇpat(i)s.
As for gods, we meet in the Rigveda a deity Br
̇has-pati or Brahman
̇as-pati,
‘Lord of Prayer’, to whom eleven hymns are addressed. Both parts of the
name are accented, showing that they were still felt as independent elements.
In Praja ̄pati, on the other hand, the ‘Lord of Generation’, they are integrated
into one word with a single accent. The common noun páti- is frequently
coupled with a genitive to make an attributive phrase describing a god’s
province. It can also have the sense of ‘husband’, like its Greek equivalent
(^61) Cf. Meid (1957); Benveniste (1973), 89–94, 245–8; B. Schlerath in Sprache und Kultur der
Indogermanen (Akten der X. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft (1996); Innsbruck
1998), 91.
(^62) Cf. Duval (1957), 56 f.; Olmsted (1994), 356 f., 360, 374 f., 409 f.; Lambert (2003), 29. Note
that in Gaulish -ona, unlike Latin -o ̄na, the [o] is short.
- Gods and Goddesses 137