stage. In the ‘Hercynian’ mountains or forest in central Europe mentioned by
classical writers we see the Celtic reflex of perkwun(i)yo- or perkwun(i)ya ̄-.^10
Such a formation would be appropriate for ‘the realm of Perku ̄ nos’, i.e. the
wooded mountains. Whether or not this is the correct analysis, we find a
parallel Germanic form in the Gothic neuter fairguni (< perkwunyom)
‘mountain (range)’, Old English fi(e)rgen- ‘mountain’ (only in compounds),
and Färge- and the like in south Swedish place-names; also Latinized forms
such as Fergunna, Virgunnia, of metalliferous mountains.^11 There is a similar
Slavonic word for ‘wooded hill’, Old Church Slavonic pre ̆g y n j a, Old Russian
peregynja.^12 But here the [g] is not (as in Germanic) the regular outcome
of [k] or [k], and we must either take it as an early borrowing from
Germanic (with reversion of [f] to [p]) or assume a divergent form of the
underlying word, with voiced instead of unvoiced labiovelar. This possibility
will be relevant presently when we contemplate the Indian Parjanya.
Fio ̨ rgynnThe Norse pantheon includes a god Fio ̨ rgynn and a goddess Fio ̨ rgyn. These
go back to Perkwún(i)yos, Perkwunı ̄. Apart from having a stem in -yo-
instead of -o-, the masculine name corresponds exactly to that of the Baltic
thunder-god.^13 Fio ̨ rgynn is an obsolescent figure, mentioned only as the
father of Frigg (Lokasenna 26. 1, Gylf. 9, Skáldsk. 19), and we cannot tell from
the Nordic evidence what he originally stood for.
The position is a little better with his female counterpart Fio ̨ rgyn. She is the
mother of Thor, the thunder-god (Vo ̨luspá 56. 10, Hárbarðzlióð 56. 7). Her
name was used as a poetic synonym for ‘land’ or ‘the earth’ (Oddrúnargrátr
- 6, Skáldsk. 57, 75). It is an easy hypothesis that she was properly the
(^10) Arist. Meteor. 350 b 5 τ;ν %ρ;ν τ;ν Lρκυνων; Caes. Bell. Gall. 6. 24. 2 Hercyniam siluam,
quam Eratostheni et quibusdam Graecis fama notam esse uideo, quam illi Orcyniam appellant;
Strabo 4. 6. 9, 7. 1. 3/5 UΕρκ3νιο δρυμο ́ , cf. Dion. Per. 286; Plin. HN 3. 148 Hercuniates, Ptol. 2.
- 2 UΕρκουνια ́ τε. The quantity of the second syllable varies in Greek and Latin poets. Cf. H.
Krahe, Sprache und Vorzeit (Heidelberg 1954), 42 f., 68 f.; R. Much, Ta c i t u s.Germania (3rd edn.,
Heidelberg 1967), 351 f.; Jane Lightfoot, Parthenius of Nicaea (Oxford 1999), 193 f. We might
have expected kwerk(w)unyo-, since Celtic shared the Italic change of p––kw– to *kw–– kw–. But
the /kwu/ may have become /ku/ before that could take effect (H. Hirt, IF 1 (1892), 480).
Kretschmer (1896), 81 n. 1, infers that the word was not original in Celtic.
(^11) Feist (1939), 137–9.
(^12) Jakobson (1962–88), ii. 637; vii. 6, 21.
(^13) There is actually a -yo- variant in Latvian: Nagy (1990), 188 n. 54. Meid (1957), 126,
considers that Fio ̨ rgynn ‘wohl nach dem ı ̄-movierten Fem.... erst sekundär aus einem
ursprünglichen *Fergunaz umgestaltet worden ist’.
- Storm and Stream 241