Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/280

266 'Ad penetrale Numæ, Capitolinumque Tonantem.'

Thus, also, it was in accurate language that the old Slavonic nations were described as adoring Jupiter Tonans as their highest god. He was the cloud-dwelling Heaven-god, his weapon the thunder-bolt, the lightning-flash, his name Perun the Smiter (Perkun, Perkunas). In the Lithuanian district, the thunder itself is Perkun; in past times the peasant would cry when he heard the thunder peal 'Dewe Perkune apsaugog mus! — God Perkun spare us!' and to this day he says, 'Perkunas gravja! — Perkun is thundering!' or 'Wezzajs barrahs! — the Old One growls!' The old German and Scandinavian theology made Thunder, Donar, Thor, a special deity to rule the clouds and rain, and hurl his crushing hammer through the air. He reigned high in the Saxon heaven, till the days came when the Christian convert had to renounce him in solemn form, 'ec forsacho Thunare! — I forsake Thunder!' Now, his survival is for the most part in mere verbal form, in the etymology of such names as Donnersberg, Thorwaldsen, Thursday.

In the polytheism of the lower as of the higher races, the Wind-gods are no unknown figures. The Winds themselves, and especially the Four Winds in their four regions, take name and shape as personal divinities, while some deity of wider range, a Wind-god, Storm-god, Air-god, or the mighty Heaven-god himself, may stand as compeller or controller of breeze and gale and tempest. We have already taken as examples from the Algonquin mythology of North America the four winds whose native legends have been versified in 'Hiawatha;' Mudjekeewis the West Wind, Father of the Winds of Heaven, and his children, Wabun the East Wind, the morning-bringer, the lazy Shawondasse the South Wind, the wild and cruel North

1 Homer. Il. viii. 170, xvii. 595. Ovid. Fast. ii. 69. See Welcker, 'Griech. Götterl.' vol. ii. p. 194.