Perkwunos

(Proto-Indo-European: ', 'the Striker' or 'the Lord of Oaks') is the reconstructed name of the weather god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. The deity was connected with fructifying rains, and his name probably invoked in times of drought. In a widespread Indo-European myth, the thunder-deity fights a multi-headed water-serpent during an epic battle, in order to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up. The name of his weapon, ', which denoted both 'lightning' and 'hammer', can be reconstructed from the attested traditions.

Perk^wunos was often associated with oaks, probably because such tall trees are frequently struck by lightning, and his realm located in the wooded mountains, '. A term for the sky, ', apparently denoted a 'heavenly vault of stone', but also 'thunderbolt' or 'stone-made weapon', in which case it was sometimes also used to refer to the thunder-god's weapon.

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'). Various cognates can be found in the Latin oak-nymphs ''Querquetulanae'' (from 'oak-tree'), the Germanic ('oak'), the Gaulish ('oak') and (a tribal name), the Punjabi ('sacred oak'), and perhaps in the Greek spring-nymph .

In Albanian, ''Perëndí'' (definite: ''Perëndía'') is the name of God, the sky and heaven, and is used capitalized to refer to the Supreme Being. The plural indefinite form is ''perëndí'' while the plural definite form is ''perëndítë'', used uncapitalized to refer to the deities. Some dialectal alternative forms include: ''Perendí'', ''Perenní'', ''Perundí'', ''Perudí'', ''Perndí'' and ''Parandí''. ''Perëndí'' is generally considered a compound of the roots ''per-en-'' ("to strike') and ''-dí'' ("sky, god"),; ; ; . related to the verb Përkund meaning 'to swing, to sway, to rock (cradle)'.

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 found in South Slavic , Old Norse , and Lithuanian .

The noun ' also gave birth to a group of cognates for the ordinary word 'thunder', including Old Prussian , Russian (), Latvian ('thunderbolt'), or Lithuanian ('thunder') and ('thunderstorm').

Epithets

Other Indo-European theonyms related to 'thunder', through another root , are found in the Germanic (Thor), the Celtic (from an earlier ), and the Latin epithet (attached to Jupiter). According to scholar 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').

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 the lightnings 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 time 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 ''Dodona''.

Perëndi is especially invoked by Albanians in incantations and 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 purpose, 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 Apollo and Python, or the Norse Thor and .

Striker and god of oaks

The association of with the oak is attested in various formulaic expressions from the Balto-Slavic languages: Lithuanian (Perkūnas's oak), Latvian ('Pērkōn's oak'), or Old Russian ('Perun's oak'). In the Albanian language, a word to refer to the lightning—considered in folk beliefs as the "fire of the sky"—is ''shkreptimë'', a formation of '' shkrep'' meaning "to flash, tone, to strike (till sparks fly off)". An association between strike, stones and fire, can be related to the observation that one can kindle fire by striking stones against each other. The act of producing fire through a strike—reflected also in the belief that fire is residual within the oak trees after the thunder-god strikes them—indicates the potential of lightning in the myth of creation.
The Slavic thunder-god Perūn is said to frequently strike oaks to put fire within them, and the Norse thunder-god Thor to strike his foes the giants when they hide under an oak. According to the Belarusian folklore, Piarun made the first fire ever by striking a tree in which the Demon was hiding.

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.

Wooded mountains

is often portrayed in connection with stone and (wooded) mountains; mountainous forests were considered to be his realm. A cognate relationship has been noted between the Germanic (' ountainousforest') and the Gaulish (' aksforests'). The Old Russian chronicles describe wooden idols of Perūn on hills overlooking Kyiv and Novgorod, and both the Belarusian Piarun and the Lithuanian Perkūnas were said to dwell on lofty mountaintops. Such places are called in Lithuanian, meaning the "summit of Perkūnas", while the Slavic word designated the hill over Novgorod where the sanctuary of was located. Prince Vladimir the Great had an idol of cast down into the Dnepr river during the Christianization of Kievan Rus'.

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'). Additionally, the Baltic tradition mentions a perpetual sacred fire dedicated to and fuelled by oakwood in the forests or on hilltops. Pagans believed that Perkūnas would freeze if Christians extinguished those fires.

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 (german: Himmel, en, heaven) 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.

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 hung a thunder-stone pendant on the body of the cattle or on the pregnant woman for good luck and to contrast 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: ''*per-'', 'to strike' (or ''*pérkʷus'', the 'oak'),
**PIE: ''*per-k^wun-os'', the weather god,
***Baltic:
****Old Prussian: Perkunis,
****Yotvingian: Parkuns (or ''Parcuns''),
**** Latgalian: ''Pārkiuņs'' ( ltg);
**** Lithuanian: Perkūnas'','' the god of rain and thunder, depicted as an angry-looking man with a tawny beard,
**** Latvian: Pērkōns, whose functions are occasionally merged with those of Dievs (the sky-god) in the Latvian ''dainas'' (folk songs),
****Percunatele or Perkunatele, a female deity associated with Perkunas, as mother or wife;
** PIE: ''*per-uh₁n-os'', the 'one with the thunder stone',
*** Slavic: *''perunъ''
****Old Church Slavonic: Perūn (Перýн), the 'maker of the lightning',
****Old Russian: Perunŭ, Belarusian: Piarun (Пярун), Czech: Peraun,
**** Slovak: Parom;
****Bulgarian: Perun ();Jakobson, Roman (1955). "While Reading Vasmer's Dictionary" In: ''WORD'', 11:4: p. 616. OI: 10.1080/00437956.1955.11659581/ref>
****Polish: Piorun ("lightning");
****Russian: Peryn, a peninsula in Novgorod, Russia, connected to a historical worship of Slavic Perun.
**** South Slavic: Perun and Perperuna, a reduplicated feminine derivative from Perun's name which parallels the Old Norse couple Fjörgyn–Fjörgynn and the Lithuanian Perkūnas–Perkūnija'',''
**PIE: ''*per-k^wun-iyo'' (feminine ''*per-k^wun-iyā'', the 'realm of Perk^wunos', i.e. the oodedmountains),
***Celtic: ,
****Gaulish: the Hercynian (''Hercynia'') forest or mountains, ancient name of the Ardennes and the Black Forest, which was also known as ''Arkunia'' by the time of Aristotle; ''Hercuniates'' (’Ερκουνιατες; attached to the suffix -''atis'' 'belonging to'), the name of a Celtic tribe from Pannonia, as described by Pliny and Ptolemy.
*** Germanic: ''*fergunja'', meaning 'mountain', perhaps 'mountainous forest' (or the feminine equivalent of ''*ferga'', 'god'),'
****Old Norse: Fjörgyn, the mother of the thunder-god Thor, the goddess of the wooded landscape and a poetic synonym for 'land' or 'the earth',
****Gothic: (𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌲𐌿𐌽𐌹), '(wooded) mountain', and , 'world', Old English: , 'mountain', 'wooded hill',
****Old High German: ''Firgunnea'', the Ore Mountains, and ''Virgundia Waldus'', ''Virgunnia'', 'oaks forest',
*** Slavic: , 'wooded hills' (perhaps an early borrowing from Germanic),
****Old Church Slavonic: , Old Russian: ''peregynja'', 'wooded hills'; Polish: (toponym),

Thunder-god's weapon

The name of Perk^wunos' weapon ''*meld-n-'' is attested by a group of cognates alternatively denoting 'hammer' or 'lightning' in the following traditions:

*PIE: , 'to grind',
**Northern PIE: ''*mel-d-(n)-'', 'thunder-god's hammer > lightning',
*** Germanic: ''*melðunijaz'',
****Old Norse: '' mjǫllnir'', the hammer of Thor; cf. also ''myln'', 'fire',
***Balto-Slavic: ''*mild-n-'',
**** Slavic: *''mlъldni'',
*****Old Church Slavonic: ''mlъni'' or ''mlъnii'', Serbo-Croatian: ''múnja'' (муња), Slovene ''mółnja'', Bulgarian: ',Rhys, John. ''Lectures on the origin and growth of religion as illustrated by Celtic heathendom''. London, Edinburgh tc. Williams and Norgate. 1892. p. 59. Macedonian: ''молња'', 'lightning',
*****Russian: ''mólnija'' (молния), 'lightning', Ukrainian ''maladnjá'' ( dial.) 'lightning without thunder', Belarusian: ''маланка'', 'lightning',
*****Czech: (arch.), Polish (dial.), Lusatian: ''milina'' (arch.) 'lightning' (modern 'electricity'),
****Baltic: ''*mildnā'',
*****Old Prussian: , 'lightning bolt',
***** Latvian: ''milna'', the 'hammer of the Thunderer', Pērkōns,
***Celtic: *''meldo''-,
****Gaulish: ''Meldos'', an epithet of thunder divinity Loucetios; as well as ''Meldi'' (*''Meldoi''), a tribal name, and ''Meldio'', a personal name.
****Welsh: , 'lightning, thunderbolts' ( sing. , 'bolt of lightning'), and ''Mabon am Melld'' or ''Mabon fab Mellt'' ('Mabon son of Mellt'),
****Breton: ''mell'', 'hammer',
****Middle Irish: ''mell'', 'rounded summit, small hill', possibly via semantic contamination from , '(wooded) mountains'.

Another PIE term derived from the verbal root ('to grind'), ('grinding device'), also served as a common word for 'hammer', as in Old Church Slavonic ''mlatъ'', Latin ''malleus'', and Hittite ''malatt'' ('sledgehammer, bludgeon').

19th-century scholar Francis Hindes Groome cited the existence of the "Gypsy" (Romani) word ''malúna'' as a loanword from Slavic ''molnija''. The Komi word ''molńi'' or ''molńij'' ('lightning') has also been borrowed from Slavic.

Heavenly vault of stone

* PIE: ''*h₂eḱ-'', 'sharp',
**PIE: *''h₂éḱmōn'' ( gen. *''h₂ḱmnós''; loc. *''h₂ḱméni''), 'stone, stone-made weapon' > 'heavenly vault of stone',
*** Indo-Aryan: *''Haćman'',
**** Vedic: ''áśman'', 'stone, sling-stone, thunderbolt',
**** Avestan: '' asman'', 'stone, sling-stone, heaven',
*** Greek: '' ákmōn'' (ἄκμων), 'anvil, meteoric stone, thunderbolt, heaven',
***Balto-Slavic: *''akmen''-,
**** Lithuanian: ''akmuõ'', 'stone',
**** Latvian: ''akmens'', 'stone',
*** Germanic: ''*hemō'' (gen.''*hemnaz'', dat. *''hemeni''), 'heaven',
****Gothic: ''himins'', 'heaven',
****Old English: ''heofon'', Old Frisian: ''himel'', Old Saxon: ''heƀan'', Old Dutch: ''himil'', Old High German: ''himil'', 'heaven',
****Old Norse: ''himinn'', 'heaven','

A Metathesis (linguistics), metathesized stem *''ḱ(e)h₂-m-(r)-'' can also be reconstructed from Proto-Slavic language, Slavic ''*kamy'' ('stone'), Germanic ''*hamaraz'' ('hammer'), and Greek ''kamára'' ('vault')''.''

Other possible cognates

*Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian:
**Historical Vedic religion, Vedic: Parjanya, the god of rain, thunder and lightning (although Sanskrit Sound change, sound laws rather predict a form; an intermediate form ''*pergénio'' has therefore been postulated, possibly descending from ''*per-k^wun-iyā'').
**Nuristani languages, Nuristani: Pärun (or ''Pērūneî''), a war god worshipped in Kafiristan (present-day Nuristan Province, Afghanistan),
**Persian language, Persian: Piran Viseh, Piran (Viseh), a heroic figure present in the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran; it has been suggested his name might be related to the Slavic religion, Slavic deity Perun,
**Scythian religion, Scythian: in the 19th century, Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev and French philologist Frédéric-Guillaume Bergmann (:fr:Frédéric-Guillaume Bergmann, fr) mentioned the existence of a Scythian deity named ''Pirkunas'' or ''Pirchunas'', an epithet attached to the "Scythian Divus" and meaning 'rainy'.
*Celtic ('oak'),
**Hispano-Celtic: ''Erguena'' (''ERGVENA''), a personal name thought to mean 'oak-born' (''*pérkʷu-genā'') or to derive from ''*pérkʷu-niya'' 'wooded mountain'.
**Celtiberian language, Celtiberian: ''berkunetakam'' ('Perkunetaka'), a word attested in the Botorrita plaque, Botorrita Plate I and interpreted as a sacred oak grove,
**Pyrenees: the theonym ''Expercennius'', attested in an inscription found in Cathervielle and possibly referring to an oak god. His name might mean 'six oaks'.
**Gaulish: ''ercos'' ('oak'),
***Gallo-Roman culture, Gallo-Roman: references to 'Deus Ercus' (in Gallia Aquitania, Aquitania), 'Nymphae Percernae' (Gallia Narbonensis, Narbonensis), and a deity named 'Hercura' (or ''Erecura'') which appears throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire. Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel argues that ''Aerecura''/''Hercura'' derives from a Celtic ''*perk^(w)ura''.
**Irish mythology, Irish: Erc mac Cairpri, Erc (mac Cairpri), mentioned at the end of ''Táin Bó Cúailnge'', and placed on the Kingship of Tara, throne of Tara by Conchobar mac Nessa in ''Cath Ruis na Ríg for Bóinn''; although an alternative etymology from PIE ''*perk-'' ('color') > ''*perk-no'' ('[spotted] fish') has been proposed by Eric P. Hamp, Hamp and Ranko Matasović, Matasović.
*Greek mythology, Greek: (κεραυνός), the name of Zeus’s thunderbolt, which was sometimes also deified (by Metathesis (linguistics), metathesis of *; although the root *''ḱerh₂-'', 'shatter, smash' has also been proposed), and the ''Herkyna'' spring-nymph, associated with a river of the same name and identified with Demeter (the name could be a borrowing as it rather follows Celtic sound laws),
* Hittite: the words and are attested in a Hittite text of ''The Song of Ullikummi'', and refer to a female being made of 'Rock' or 'Stone' who gives birth to a rocky creature.
*Italica, Italic:
**Italian language, Italian: ''porca'', a word meaning 'fir tree' in the Trentino dialect. Mallory and Adams suppose it is a loanword from Raetic.
*Slavic languages, Slavic
**Pomeranian language, Pomeranian: ''Porenut'', latinized as ''Porenutius'' in the work of Saxo Grammaticus. The name is believed to refer to a deity worshipped in the port city of Rügen in ancient times as a possible son of Perun.
*Romano-Germanic culture, Romano-Germanic: inscriptions to the Matres and Matronae, Matronae 'Ala-ferhuiae' found in Bonn, Altorf, Altdorf, or Dormagen.
*Paleo-Balkan languages, Paleo-Balkanic:
**Illyrian mythology, Illyrian: Perëndi, a sky and thunder god (from ''per-en-'', an extension of PIE ''*per'', 'to strike', attached to ''-di'', the sky-god Dyeus, Dyēus, thus related to ''*per-uhₓn-os'' (see above); although the Albanian ''perëndoj'', 'to set (of the sun)', from Latin ''parentare'', 'a sacrifice (to the dead), to satisfy', has also been proposed as the origin of the deity,
**Thracian religion, Thracian: Perkos/Perkon (Περκος/Περκων), a horseman hero depicted as facing a tree surrounded by a snake. His name is also attested as Ήρω Περκω and Περκώνει "in Odessos and the vicinities".
*Caucasus Mountains, Caucasus: it has been suggested that the characters Пиръон (''Piryon'') and Пиръа (''Pirya'') may attest the presence of the thunder god's name in the Caucasus.

Legacy

Louis Léger stated that the Polabians adopted Perun as their name for Thursday (''Perendan'' or ''Peräunedån''), which is likely a calque of German ''Donnersdag''.

Some scholars argue that the functions of the Luwians, Luwian and Hittite mythology, Hittite weather gods Tarḫunz and Tarḫunna ultimately stem from those of Perk^wunos. Anatolians may have dropped the old name in order to adopt the epithet *''Tṛḫu-ent-'' ('conquering', from PIE ''*terh₂-'', 'to cross over, pass through, overcome'), which sounded closer to the name of the Hattians, Hattian Storm-god ''Taru (god), Taru''. According to scholarship, the name ''Tarhunt-'' is also cognate to the Vedic present participle ''tū́rvant-'' ('vanquishing, conquering'), an epithet of the weather-god Indra.

Toponyms

Scholarship indicates the existence of a holdover of the theonym in European toponymy, specially in Eastern European and Slavic languages, Slavic-speaking regions.

In the territory that encompasses the modern day city of Kaštela existed the ancient Dalmatian city of Salona. Near Salona, in Late Antiquity, there was a hill named ''Perun''. Likewise, the ancient oronym ''Borun'' (''monte Borun'') has been interpreted as a deformation of the theonym ''Perun''. Their possible connection is further reinforced by the proximity of a mountain named ''Dobrava (toponym), Dobrava'', a widespread word in Slavic-speaking regions that means 'oak grove'.

Places in South-Slavic-speaking lands are considered to be reflexes of Slavic god Perun, such as ''Perunac'', ''Perunovac'', ''Perunika'', ''Perunićka Glava'', ''Peruni Vrh'', ''Perunja Ves'', ''Peruna Dubrava'', ''Perunuša'', ''Perušice'', ''Perudina'', and ''Perutovac''. Scholar Marija Gimbutas cited the existence of the place names ''Perunowa gora'' (Poland), ''Perun Gora'' (Serbia), ''Gora Perun'' (Romania), and ''Porun'' hill (Istria). Patrice Lajoye associates place names in the Balkans with the Slavic god Perun: the city of ''Pernik'' and the mountain range ''Pirin'' (in Bulgaria), as well as a location named ''Përrenjas'' in South Albania. He also proposes that the German city of ''Pronstorf'' is also related to Perun, since it is located near Segeberg, whose former name was ''Perone'' in 1199.

The name of the Baltic deity Perkunas is also attested in Baltic toponyms and hydronyms: a village called ''Perkūniškės'' in Žemaitija, north-west of Kaunas, and the place name ''Perkunlauken'' ('Perkuns Fields') near modern Gusev.Balode-Anelauskaitė, Laimutė. "Baltic names of deities in the hydronyms of Latvia and Lithuania". In: ''Perspectives of Baltic philology''. 1 / ed. by Jowita Niewulis-Grablunas, Justyna Prusinowska, Ewa Stryczyńska-Hodyl. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Rys, 2008. pp. 21-40. .

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

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*Zaroff, Roman. "Organized pagan cult in Kievan Rus: The invention of foreign elite or evolution of local tradition? [Organizirani poganski kult v kijevski drzavi: Iznajdba tuje elite ali razvoj krajevnega izrocila?]". In: ''Studia mythologica Slavica''. 2 (1999): 56-60. 10.3986/sms.v2i0.1844.

Further reading

;General studies:
*Blinkenberg, Christian. ''The Thunderweapon In Religion And Folklore: a Study In Comparative Archaeology''. Cambridge [Eng.]: The University press, 1911.
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* Laurinkiene, Nijole. ''Senovés Lietuviu Dievas Perkunas''. Vilnius, Lithuania: Lietuvu Literaturos Tautosakos Institutas. 1996.

;For the etymology of the Indo-European weather-god, see:
*

;For the association with "stones", "mountains" and "heaven", see:
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* {{Cite journal, last=Mitchell, first=Stephen A., date=1985, title=The Whetstone as Symbol of Authority in Old English and Old Norse, journal=Scandinavian Studies, volume=57, issue=1, pages=1–31, issn=0036-5637, jstor=40918675

Proto-Indo-European deities
Sky and weather gods
Thunder gods
Etymologies
Nature gods
Reconstructed words
Proto-Indo-European mythology