Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/448

294 into the fire. The statue of Perun, however, was tied to a horse's tail and was dragged down to a brook where twelve men were ordered to beat it with rods, not because the wood was believed to feel any pain, but because the demon which had deceived men must be disgraced. As the idol was taken to the Dnieper, the pagans wept, for they had not yet been baptized; but when it was finally thrown into the river, Vladimir gave the command: "If it stops, thrust it from the banks until it has passed the rapids; then let it alone." This order was carried out, and no sooner had the idol passed through the rapids than it was cast upon the sands which after that time were called "Perun's Sands" (Perunya Rěn). Where the image once stood Vladimir built a church in honour of St. Basil;  $5$ but it was not until the end of the eleventh century that Perun's worship finally disappeared from the land.

Similarly the pagan idols of Novgorod were destroyed by Archbishop Akim Korsunyanin in 989, and the command went forth that Perun should be cast into the Volkhov. Binding the image with ropes, they dragged it through the mire to the river, beating it with rods and causing the demon to cry out with pain. In the morning a man dwelling on the banks of the Pidba (a small stream flowing into the Volkhov) saw the idol floating toward the shore, but he thrust it away with a pole, saying, "Now, Perunišče ['Little Perun,' a contemptuous diminutive], you have had enough to eat and to drink; be off with you!" $6$

The word "Perun" is derived from the root per- ("to strike") with the ending -un, denoting the agent of an action; and the name is very appropriate for one who was considered the maker of thunder and lightning, so that Perun was, in the first place, the god of thunder, "the Thunderer," like the Zeus of the Greeks. $7$ The old Bulgarian version of the Alexander-romance actually renders the Greek Ζεύς by Perun; and in the apocryphal Dialogue of the Three Saints Vasiliy, when asked, "By whom was thunder created?" replies, "There