contain the ‘burn’ root that appears in Greek αAθω, Latin aestus < *aidh-tus.
But the first element resists analysis.
The Roman Volcanus looks more perspicuous, to us if not to Cicero
(De nat. deorum 3. 62). The -no- suffix is the typical appendage to a word
indicating the god’s domain. Volca- evidently represents an old word to do
with fire, related to Vedic ulka ̄ ́‘darting flame’ (RV 4. 4. 2 of Agni’sflames; 10.
- and/or várcas-‘brilliance, glare’. Wolfgang Meid found a matching
theonym in the Ossetic legendary smith Kurd-Alä-Wärgon, ‘the Alan smith
Wärgon’, and postulated an original *wl
̊
- and/or várcas-‘brilliance, glare’. Wolfgang Meid found a matching
ka ̄-.^98 In literature Volcanus is
assimilated to Hephaestus and portrayed as a smith, but in essence he was the
god of volcanic and other fire. A connection with the hearth fire is pre-
supposed in the legends of Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste, and Servius
Tullius: each of them was conceived as a result of his mother’s contact with
the hearth fire, and was said to be a son of Volcanus.^99
The Germans, according to Caesar (Bell. Gall. 6. 21. 2), recognized as gods
only those whom they could see and from whom they received manifest
benefits, Sun, Moon, and ‘Volcanus’. The reference is clearly not to a divine
smith but to fire considered as a (male) deity. In late pre-Conquest England
King Canute proscribed worship of ‘heathen gods, Sun or Moon, fire or flood,
water, wells or stones or trees of any kind’. It was mentioned above that a
Nordic genealogy named Sea, Fire, and Wind as the three sons of a primal
giant. ‘Fire’ is Logi, an ordinary word for a blaze, here personified. He makes
another appearance in Snorri’s story of Thor’s adventures in Giantland,
where –– seen as a person and not recognized for what he is –– he defeats his
near-namesake Loki in an eating contest.^100 He is Wagner’s Loge. But he
scarcely exists as a mythical figure, let alone as an object of cult. There is more
to be said for Loki as a god of the hearth fire and fire more generally, though
this is not at all reflected in his mythology, only in certain popular sayings
recorded from Scandinavia and Iceland.^101 German folklore provides a
(^98) Kretschmer (1896), 133; Müller (1897), 799 f.; von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 534 n. 1; Meid
(1957), 95–7; id., IF 66 (1961), 125–31; Puhvel (1987), 150. Agni is suvárcas-, pa ̄vakávarcas-,
s ́ukrávarcas-, ‘of good/shining/bright brilliance’.
(^99) Cato, Origines fr. 59 Peter; Serv. Aen. 7. 679; Dion. Hal. Ant. 4. 2. 1–3, cf. Ov. Fast. 6. 627;
von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 539.
(^100) Gylf. 46 f. Agni too is a great eater, RV 4. 2. 7; 10. 79. 1–2; MBh. 1. 215. 5; TS 1. 1. 7. 1; he
devours food, however much, in an instant, RV 7. 4. 2; he is omnivorous, 8. 44. 26; he has teeth
and jaws, 1. 58. 5, 143. 5; 5. 2. 3; 8. 60. 13 f.; 10. 87. 2. Greek poets too speak of fire eating (Il. 23.
182), having jaws ([Aesch.] Prom. 368), being omnivorous (πα ́ μφαγον, Eur. Med. 1187). The
eating metaphor is paralleled in Germanic literature: Beowulf 1122, 3014 f., 3114; Helgakviða
Hio ̨rvarðzsonar 10. 5, Alvíssmál 26. 4; Grimm (1883–8), 601. Cf. Durante (1976), 142. It is also at
home in Akkadian and Hebrew: West (1997), 254.
(^101) von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 549, 554; de Vries (1956), ii. 264.
268 6. Storm and Stream