Certain aspects of the Indo-European storm-god that might have seemed
beneath Zeus’ dignity appear to have been transferred to his son Heracles.
Heracles, of course, made his reputation as a mortal hero, performing
mighty deeds on earth (though partly in mythical regions of the earth,
beyond ordinary people’s ken). Whatever the first part of his name signifies,
the second part, ‘glory’, marks it as a compound of a heroic, not a divine type
(cf. pp. 400 f.). The story of his posthumous deification is late and
inorganic. He is not a déclassé storm-god. But as a beefy, brawny, swaggering
figure, always quick to resort to violence, a match for any monster, he had
features in common with the storm-god and was able to attract other
features. Like Indra, he is a prodigious eater; for example, in an eating contest
with Lepreus he consumed a whole ox, and gluttony is one of his standing
characteristics on the comic stage from Epicharmus on (fr. 18 K.–A.). Among
his legendary feats there is one that deserves particular notice in regard to the
mythology of the storm-god: his capture of Geryon’s cattle. We shall give
attention to this presently.^38
Taranis, ThorIn Celtic Gaul and Britain the god of thunder was worshipped under the
name of Taranis, Taranus, or Tanarus; compare Old Irish torann, Welsh taran,
‘thunder’. The corresponding Germanic theonym, Old High German Donar
or Thunar, Old Norse Þórr, goes back to *Þunaraz, from which also English
‘thunder’. These all seem to be cognate variants, related to Latin tonare,
tonitrus, Vedic (s)tan-, ‘thunder’. It may originally have been an onomato-
poeic word for thunder that could be used also for the god.^39 But a connection
has also been suggested with the Anatolian Tarh
̆
unna-, and so with the verbal
root tarh
̆
, by way of a metathesis, *tr
̊h 2 Vno- > *tn
̊h 2 Vro -.^40
Thanks to the preservation of Old Norse literature Thor appears to us with
a much clearer profile than Donar or Taranis.^41 He developed into something
(^38) Comparisons have been drawn especially between Heracles and Indra: L. von Schroeder,
Herakles und Indra (Denkschr. Wien. Ak. 58(3); 1914); Durante (1976), 58 f.; Watkins (1995),
375 f., cf. 507 f. The German thunder-god was rendered by the Romans as ‘Hercules’ (Tac.
Germ. 9. 1, inscriptions); see de Vries (1956), ii. 107–9.
(^39) Similarly Perkunas’ name was often avoided in favour of Dundulis or other names mean-
ing ‘rumble’: Gimbutas, JIES 1 (1973), 469 f.; Biezais–Balys (1973), 433; Jakobson (1962–88), vii.
7, 23. For the Celtic god cf. de Vries (1956), ii. 111 f.; M. Green (1986), 66 f.; Puhvel (1987), 169.
(^40) Watkins (1995), 343 n. 1; cf. F. Bader (1989), 93 f.; ead. BSL 85 (1990), 12.
(^41) On him cf. Grimm (1883–8), 166–92; von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 609–15; de Vries
(1956), ii. 113–53.
- Storm and Stream 249