A Proto-Indo-European thunder god, reconstructed as *Perkʷūnos (Proto-Indo-European: 'the Striker' or 'the Lord of Oaks'), was the weather god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. The deity is thought to be associated with fructifying rains, and his name was probably invoked in times of drought. In a widely attested Indo-European mythic pattern, the thunder-deity engages in combat with a multi-headed water-serpent in order to release the life-giving waters that had been confined or obstructed.
The Proto-Indo-European thunder god was often associated with the oak tree, probably because such tall trees are frequently struck by lightning. His domain may have been conceived as the forested mountains, designated as . A term for the sky, , appears to have signified a "heavenly vault of stone" (comparable to the notion of firmament), but it could also denote a "stone-made weapon" (akin to a thunderstone). In this latter sense, the word was at times employed to refer specifically to the thunder-god's weapon. Another designation for his weapon, , can be reconstructed from the comparative traditions. The term originally denoted the "thunder-god's hammer" and, likely by semantic extension, has come to signify "lightning".
Contrary to other deities of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon, such as (the sky-god), or (the dawn-goddess), widely accepted cognates stemming from the theonym are only attested in Western Indo-European traditions. The linguistic evidence for the worship of a thunder god under the name as far back as Proto-Indo-European times (4500–2500 BC) is therefore less secured.
Name Etymology The name is generally regarded as stemming from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verbal root ('to strike'). An alternative etymology is the PIE noun ('the oak'), attached to the divine nomenclature ('master of').
The theonym thus either meant "the Striker" or "the Lord of Oaks". A theory uniting those two etymologies has been proposed in the mythological association of oaks with thunder, suggested by the frequency with which such tall trees are struck by lightning.
The existence of a female consort is suggested by gendered doublet-forms such as those found in Old Norse and Lithuanian .
The noun also gave birth to a group of cognates for the ordinary word "thunder", including Old Prussian , Polish ("thunderbolt"), Latvian ("thunder"), or Lithuanian ("thunder") and ("thunderstorm").
Epithets Other Indo-European theonyms related to 'thunder', through another root , are thought to be found in the Germanic (Thor), the Celtic (from an earlier ), and the Latin epithet (attached to Jupiter). According to Peter Jackson, "they may have arisen as the result of fossilization of an original epithet or epiclesis" of , since the Vedic weather-god Parjanya is also called ("Thunderer").
Another possible epithet was "conquering", from "to overcome", with its descendants being Hittite god Tarḫunna, Luwian Tarḫunz, and Sanskrit (tūrvat), epithet of a storm-god Indra. George E. Dunkel regarded as an original epithet of , the Sky-God. It has also been postulated that was referred to as ('son of Dyēus'), although this is based on the Vedic poetic tradition alone.
Depiction
Weapon is usually depicted as holding a weapon, named in the Baltic and Old Norse traditions, which personifies lightning and is generally conceived as a club, mace, or hammer made of stone or metal. In the Latvian poetic expression ("Pērkōn throws his mace"), the mace () is cognate with the Old Norse , the hammer thrown by the thunder god Thor, and also with the word for 'lightning' in the Old Prussian , the Old Church Slavonic , or the Welsh .
Fructifying rains While his thunder and lightning had a destructive connotation, they could also be seen as a regenerative force since they were often accompanied by fructifying rains. Parjanya is depicted as a rain god in the Vedas, and Latvian prayers included a call for to bring rain in times of drought. The Balkan Slavs worshipped Perun along with his female counterpart , the name of a ritual prayer calling for fructifying rains and centred on the dance of a naked virgin who had not yet had her first monthly period. The earth is likewise referred to as "menstruating" in a Vedic hymn to Parjanya, a possible cognate of . The alternative name of , , also recalls ' pseudonym , and Zeus' oak oracle located at .Zolotnikova, Olga. A. "The sanctuary of Zeus in Dodona: Evolution of the religious concept". In: Journal Of Hellenic Religion, 2019, Vol. 12. pp. 85–132.
– a name that is used in Albanian for "god, sky", but considered by some scholars to be an Albanian thunder-god, cognate to Proto-Indo-European – is especially invoked by Albanians in incantations and ritual songs praying for rain. Rituals were performed in times of summer drought to make it rain, usually in June and July, but sometimes also in the spring months when there was severe drought. In different Albanian regions, for rainmaking purposes, people threw water upwards to make it subsequently fall to the ground in the form of rain. This was an imitative type of magic practice with ritual songs.
A mythical multi-headed water-serpent is connected with the thunder-deity in an epic battle. The monstrous foe is a "blocker of waters", and his heads are eventually smashed by the thunder-deity to release the pent-up torrents of rain. The myth has numerous reflexes in mythical stories of battles between a serpent and a god or mythical hero, who is not necessarily etymologically related to , but always associated with thunder. For example, the Vedic and (the personification of drought), the Iranian /Sirius and (a demon of drought), the Albanian and (an amphibious serpent who causes streams to dry up), the Armenian and , the Greek Zeus and Typhoeus as well as Heracles and the Hydra, Heracles and Ladon and Apollo and Python, or the Norse Thor and .
Striker and god of oaks The association of with the oak is attested in a range of formulaic expressions from the Balto-Slavic languages, such as Lithuanian (Perkūnas's oak), Latvian ('Pērkōn's oak'), and Old Russian ('Perun's oak'). Slavic tradition records that the thunder-god Perūn frequently strikes oaks in order to kindle fire within them, while in Norse mythology the thunder-god Thor is said to smite giants when they seek refuge beneath an oak. Thor himself is also associated with at least one sacred oak dedicated to his cult. According to Belarusian folklore, Piarun created the first fire by striking a tree in which the Demon had concealed himself. The nexus between striking, stone, and fire may reflect the empirical observation that fire can be produced by striking stones together. The act of producing fire through a strike—paralleled in the belief that oak trees retain latent fire after being struck by the thunder-god—may underscore the symbolic role of lightning in the myth of creation.
The striking of devils, demons, or evildoers by is another motif in the myths surrounding the Baltic Perkūnas and the Vedic Parjanya. In Lithuanian and Latvian folkloric material, / is invoked to protect against snakes and illness.Vaitkevičienė, Daiva. "Baltic and East Slavic Charms". In: The Power of Words: Studies on Charms and Charming in Europe. Edited by Kapaló James, Pócs Éva, and Ryan William. Central European University Press, 2013. pp. 227–228. Accessed April 27, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt2tt29w.12.
Wooded mountains Perkʷunos appears to have been closely associated with wooded mountains, which may have been perceived as his natural realm. This connection is supported by reflexes of *perkʷun(i)yo- / *perkʷun(i)yā- in the name of the Hercynian Forest (Gaulish '[oaks] forests') and in the Germanic ('[mountainous] forest'). In Germanic mythology, Fjörgynn was used as a poetic synonym for 'the land, the earth', and she could have originally been the mistress of the wooded mountains, the personification of what appears in Gothic as ('wooded mountain').
A comparable development is found in Old Church Slavonic prěgynja and Old Russian peregynja, both meaning 'wooded hill', although these forms may reflect early borrowings from Germanic. The Old Russian chronicles record the presence of wooden idols of Perūn on hills overlooking Kiev and Novgorod, while both the Belarusian Piarun and the Lithuanian Perkūnas were traditionally said to inhabit lofty mountaintops. In Lithuanian, such places are called , literally the 'summit of Perkūnas', and in the Slavic sphere the term referred to the hill over Novgorod where 's sanctuary was located. According to the chronicles, Prince Vladimir the Great ordered the idol of to be cast into the Dnieper during the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. Baltic sources further mention a perpetual sacred fire dedicated to , fuelled by oakwood in the forests or on hilltops. Pagans believed that Perkūnas would freeze if Christians extinguished those fires. Collectively, these parallels suggest a long-standing Indo-European tradition that linked the thunder-god with forested highlands and mountain sanctuaries.
Words from a stem are also attested in the Hittite ('rock, cliff, boulder'), the Avestan ('mountains'), as well as in the Sanskrit goddess and the epithet ('lord of mountains'), attached to her father .Lubotsky, Alexander. "Indo-Aryan Inherited Lexicon". Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Project. Leiden University. s.v. asman- and párvata-.
Stony skies A term for the sky, , denoted both 'stone' and 'heaven', possibly a 'heavenly vault of stone' akin to the biblical firmament. The motif of the stony skies can be found in the story of the Greek Akmon ('anvil'), the father of Ouranos and the personified Heaven. The term was also used with the meaning 'thunderbolt' in Homeric and Hesiodic diction. Other cognates appear in the Vedic ('stone'), the Iranian deity ('stone, heaven'), the Lithuanian god (mentioned alongside himself), and also in the Germanic (, ) and (cf. Old Norse: , which could mean 'rock, boulder, cliff' or 'hammer'). is described in a 16th-century treatise as a , 'a sizeable stone', which was still worshipped in Samogitia.Dowden, Ken. European paganism: the realities of cult from antiquity to the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge. 2000. pp. 64 and 222. Nagy, Gregory. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 1992 (2nd printing). p. 192.
Albanians believed in the supreme powers of thunder-stones (kokrra e rrufesë or guri i rejës), which were believed to be formed during lightning strikes and to be fallen from the sky. Thunder-stones were preserved in family life as important cult objects. It was believed that bringing them inside the house could bring good fortune, prosperity and progress in people, in livestock and in agriculture, or that rifle bullets would not hit the owners of the thunder-stones. A common practice was to hang a thunder-stone pendant on the body of the cattle or on the pregnant woman for good luck and to counteract the evil eye.
The mythological association can be explained by the observation (e.g., meteorites) or the belief that thunderstones (polished ones for axes in particular) had fallen from the sky. Indeed, the Vedic word is the name of the weapon thrown by Indra, Thor's weapon is also called , and the thunder-stone can be named ('Perkuna's stone') in the Lithuanian tradition. Scholars have also noted that and are said to strike rocks instead of oaks in some themes of the Lithuanian and Belarusian folklores, and that the Slavic sends his axe or arrow from a mountain or the sky. The original meaning of could thus have been 'stone-made weapon', then 'sky' or 'lightning'.
Evidence
Theonyms
The following deities are cognates stemming from or related names in Western Indo-European mythologies:
PIE: , 'to strike' (or , the 'oak'), PIE: , the weather god, Baltic: