specialist storm-gods have a distinctive character of their own; they are
more like each other than they are like the god of the sky, where he can still be
made out. So it seems altogether more likely that Zeus and Jupiter have
appropriated the functions of a separate storm-god who has faded from sight
than that they alone preserve the integrity of *Dyeus’ personality, the other
traditions having conspired to create a separate thunderer.^1
The storm-gods have diverse names. But there is one name whose cognates
and variants appear over a wide area.^2 The Baltic Perkunas may be taken as its
prime exponent. We will begin with him, trace the connections of the name
in various directions, and then go on to gods unrelated in name but akin in
character.
PerkunasPerku ̄ ́nas is the Lithuanian form of the name; the Latvian is Pe ̄rkons, and an
Old Prussian percunis, meaning thunder, is recorded in the Elbing glossary,
which dates from around 1300. From the thirteenth century onwards there
are many records of Prussians, Lithuanians, or Letts worshipping a god of
thunder and storm whose name is given as Percunus, Percunos, Pirchunos,
Perkuns, Parcuns, or Pargnus (for -uns).^3 There is mention of sacrificing to
him for rain, and of a perpetual sacred fire maintained for him in the forests
or on hilltops. He appears as a mythical figure in the Lithuanian and Latvian
folk songs and in popular imprecations such as ‘God grant that Perkunas
strike you’, ‘God grant that Perkunas lift you up and dash you ten fathoms
deep in the earth’.^4 Countrymen prayed to him to pass by without harming
their house and crops, or on the other hand to bring rain in time of drought.^5
In modern Lithuanian perku ̄ ́nas and in Latvian pe ̄rkons are the ordinary
words for ‘thunder’.
(^1) Cf. von Schroeder (1914–16), i. 455 f.
(^2) Cf. Grimm (1883–8), 171 f., 1340; H. Hirt, IF 1 (1892), 480 f.; Kretschmer (1896), 81 f.;
T. R. von Grienberger, Archiv für slavische Philologie 18 (1896), 9–15; R. Koegel, GGA 159
(1897), 653 f.; C. Watkins in Mayrhofer et al. (1974), 107; G. Nagy, ibid. 113–31≈ id. (1990),
182–201; Puhvel (1987), 226; Gamkrelidze–Ivanov (1995), 526–8; P. Friedrich in EIEC 407 f.;
D. Q. Adams–J. P. Mallory, ibid. 582 f.
(^3) T. R. von Grienberger (as n. 2), 9 f.; Mannhardt (1936), 58/60, 71, 139, 143, 192–8, 200, 207,
233–5, 246 f., 249, 280, 295 f., 356, 362 f., 402, 435 f., 438, 458, 513, 534–40, 627; the testimonies
are summarized in Usener (1896), 97. On the god cf. also Grimm (1883–8), 171, 1340; von
Schroeder (1914–16), i. 531–4, ii. 603–7; Gimbutas (1963), 202 f. and JIES 1 (1973), 466–78;
Biezais–Balys (1973), 430–4; Nagy (1974), 113–15≈ (1990), 183–5.
(^4) Schleicher (1857), 189; cf. M. Gimbutas, JIES 1 (1973), 474.
(^5) Usener (1896), 97; T. R. von Grienberger (as n. 2), 10; von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 603 f.;
Mannhardt (1936), 197, 356, 382, 458; LD 33710 f. = Jonval nos. 446 f.
- Storm and Stream 239