whether by diffusion from east Anatolia or by originally kindred tradition.^80
But these are not the features that it shares with the Indian myth, and it may
be that we have to do with an Anatolian compound of Indo-European and
non-Indo-European elements. We should not forget that an Indic dynasty
had ruled over Hurrian Mitanni in about the sixteenth century.
The possibility of an Indo-European ingredient is strengthened by a Nordic
parallel. The mightiest of the giants, Hrungnir, who had a head and heart of
stone and a massive stone shield, got into Ásgarð and threatened to destroy it,
carry off Freyja and Sif, and kill the rest of the gods. It was arranged that Thor
would fight him. Hrungnir stood waiting with a great whetstone on his
shoulder. As his second, the giants made a clay giant Mo ̨ kkurkálfi, ‘Fog-leg’,
who was nine rasts high and three wide. But he was a coward, and when he
saw Thor he wet himself (which presumably dissolved his legs). Hrungnir was
tricked into believing that Thor would attack him from below, and he put
his shield under his feet. Then Thor came with thunder and lightning, hurled
his hammer, and shattered Hrungnir’s stone head.^81
WIND GODSIn most branches of the tradition we find evidence for the personification of
the wind or winds, and in some cases for their receipt of religious honours.
The onomatopoeic PIE root h 2 weh 1 ‘blow’ was the basis for two words for
‘wind’, h 2 weh 1 -yú- and h 2 w(e)h 1 -nt- (MIE h 2 weh 1 nt-o-). Both were of
the animate gender, implying active forces, and after the differentiation of a
feminine gender both remained masculines. Hence Hittite huwant-, Vedic
va ̄yú- and va ̄ ́ta-, Avestan vayu- and va ̄ta-, Lithuanian ve ̇jas; Tocharian A want
(Byente), Latin uentus, Germanic *windaz, Welsh gwynt.
In the Hittite god-lists the Winds are often included among the cosmic
powers that conclude the catalogue: Mountains, Rivers, Springs, the Great
Sea, Heaven, Earth, Winds (IMMESˇ-usˇ= huwantus), Clouds.^82 However,
they are written without the divine determinative, the sign that normally
accompanies a god’s name.
(^80) K. Wais in Hermann Schneider (ed.), Edda, Skalden, Saga. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag
von Felix Genzmer (Heidelberg 1952), 229–34, 247–50; W. Burkert, Würzburger Jahrbücher für
die Altertumswissenschaft 5 (1979), 253–61=Kleine Schriften, ii (Göttingen 2003), 87–95.
(^81) Thiodolf, Haustlo ̨ng 14–20; Hárbarðzlióð 14 f. and other Eddic allusions; Skáldsk. 17; com-
pared with the Ullikummi narrative by K. Wais (as n. 80), 211–29.
(^82) Gurney (1977), 5; Beckman (1999), 47, 58, 63, 86, 92.
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