Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/488

322 that he who conducts the bride to the groom should appear armed and, as he rides forth, should strike at the door-post, the door, the roof, or even the air, probably to exorcize the demons.$27$ On the other hand, it is possible that his association with dawn or sunset is secondary and due to the likeness of evening and morning glow to the lightning's fire;$28$ and it is equally possible that his splitting of the tree, of which we shall soon hear more, represents the evening twilight, the oak's blood being the red rays of the setting sun.$29$

All our sources for Baltic religion agree in stating that Perkúnas, god of thunder and lightning, was the chief deity of these peoples. The thunder was his voice, and with it he revealed his will to men; it was he who sent the fertilizing rains; he was to the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Letts what Indra was to the Indians of Vedic days.$30$ Moreover he has still another resemblance to Indra which is equally striking. When he smites a devil with his bolt, he does not kill the fiend, but merely strikes him down to hell for seven years, after which the demon again appears on earth, just as Indra and his Iranian doublets (especially Thraētaona) do not slay their antagonist, the storm-dragon, but only wound him or imprison him so insecurely that he escapes, so that the unending battle must constantly be renewed.$31$ In the dáinos the rôle of Perkúnas is relatively a minor one, for sun-myths deal only incidentally with storms, whether in their beneficent, fertilizing aspects, or in their maleficent, destructive functions. Still, he is there, under a relatively tenuous disguise. For "God," "God's horses," "God's steers" (the darkening clouds of evening),$32$ and—above all—"God's sons" are frequently mentioned; and "God" (Old Prussian deiwas Lithuanian dė&#x303;as, Lettish deews) can have meant in Baltic none other than Perkúnas, who was the deity par excellence, just as in Greece "from Homer to the dramatic poets the unqualified use of Θεός, 'god,' invariably refers to Zeus."$33$ His sons are nine in number: three shatter in pieces, three