Chapter 8

A high mountain, along which, from the earliest times, the main road to Italy has lain, in the chain between the Graian and Pennine Alps, what we now call the St. Bernard, was in the early Mid. Ages named mons Jovis. This name occurs frequently in the Frankish annals (Pertz 1, 150. 295. 453. 498. 512. 570. 606. 2, 82), in Otto fris. de gest. Frid. 2, 24, in Radevicus 1, 25, who designates it via Julii Caesaris, modo mons Jovis; in AS. writers munt Jofes (Lye sub. v.), in Ælfr. Boët. p. 150 muntgiow; in our Kaiserchronik 88 monte job.---The name and the worship carry us back to the time of the Romans; the inhabitants of the Alps worshipped a Peninus deus, or a Penina dea: Neque montibus his ab transitu Poenorum ullo Veragri, incolae jugi ejus norunt nomen inditum, sed ab eo (al. deo) quem in summo sacratum vertice peninum montani adpellant; Livy 31, 38. Quamvis legatur a poenina dea quae ibi colitur Alpes ipsas vocari; Servius on Virg. Aen. 10, 13. An inscription found on the St Bernard (Jac. Spon miscellanea antiq. Lugd. 1685, p. 85) says expressly: Lucius Lucilius deo Penino opt. max. donum dedit; from which it follows, that this god was understood to be no other than Jupiter. Conf. Jupiter apenninus, Micali storia 131-5. Zeuj kapaioj occurs in Hesych. [kara means head, and so does the Celtic pen, ben]. The classic writers never use mons Jovis, and the tabula Antonini names only the summus Penninus and the Penni lucus; but between the 4th and 7th centuries Jovis mons seems to have taken the place of these, perhaps with reference [not so much to the old Roman, as] to the Gallic or even German sense which had then come to be attached to the god's name. Remember that German îsarnodori on the Jura mountains not far off (p. 80). (8)

Such names of mountains in Germany itself we may with perfect safety ascribe to the worship of the native deity. Every one knows the Donnersberg (mont Tonnerre) in the Rhine palatinate on the borders of the old country of Falkenstein, between Worms, Kaiserslautern and Kreuznach; it stands as Thoneresberg in a doc. of 869, Schannat hist. wormat. probat. p. 9. Another Thuneresberg situate on the Diemel, in Westphalia, not far from Warburg, and surrounded by the villages of Wormeln, Germete and Welda, is first mentioned in a doc. of 1100, Schaten mon. paderb. 1, 649; in the Mid. Ages it was still the seat of a great popular assize, originally due, no doubt, to the sacredness of the spot: 'comes ad Thuneresberhc' (anno 1123), Wigands feme 222. comitia de Dunrisberg (1105), Wigands arch. I. 1, 56. a judicio nostro Thonresberch (1239), ib. 58. Precisely in the vicinity of this mountain stands the holy oak mentioned on p. 72-4, just as the robur Jovis by Geismar in Hesse is near a Wuotansberg, p. 152. To all appearance the two deities could be worshipped close to one another. The Knüllgebirge in Hesse includes a Donnerkaute. In the Bernerland is a Donnerbühel (doc. of 1303, Joh. Müller 1, 619), called Tonrbül in Justingers Berner chron. p. 50. Probably more Donnersbergs are to be found in other parts of Germany. One in the Regensburg country is given in a doc. of 882 under the name of Tuniesberg, Ried, cod. dipl. num. 60. A sifridus marschalcus de Donnersperch is named in a doc. of 1300, MB. 33, pars 1, p. 289; an Otto de Donersperg, MB. 4, 94 (in 1194), but Duonesberc, 4, 528 (in 1153), and Tunniesberg 11, 432. In the Thüringer wald, between Steinbach and Oberhof, at the 'rennsteig' is a Donershauk (see Suppl.).----A Donares eih, a robur Jovis, was a tree specially sacred to the god of lightning, and of these there grew an endless abundance in the German forests.

Neither does Scandinavia lack mountains and rocks bearing the name of Thôrr: Thors klint in East Gothland (conf. Wildegren's Östergötland 1, 17); Thorsborg in Gothland, Molbech tidskr. 4, 189. From Norway, where this god was pre-eminently honoured, I have nevertheless heard of none. The peasant in Vermland calls the south-west corner of the sky, whence the summer tempests mostly rise, Thorshåla (-hole, cave, Geijer's Svearikes häfder 1, 268).

And the Thunder-mountains of the Slavs are not to be overlooked. Near Milleschau in Bohemia stands a Hromolan, from hrom, thunder, in other dialects grom. One of the steepest mountains in the Styrian Alps (see Suppl.) is Grimming, i.e., Sl. germnik, OSl. gr''mnik, thunder-hill (Sloven. gr'mi, it thunders. Serv. grmi, Russ. grom gremit, quasi bromoj bremei); and not far from it is a rivulet named Donnersbach. (9) The Slavs then have two different words to express the phenomenon and the god: the latter is in OSl. Perûn, Pol. Piorun, Boh. Peraun; (10) among the Southern Slavs it seems to have died out at an earlier time, though it is still found in derivatives and names of places. Dobrowsky (inst. 289) traces the word to the verb peru, ferio, quatio [general meaning rather pello, to push], and this tolerably apt signification may have contributed to twist the word out of its genuine form. (11) I think it has dropt a k: the Lithuanian, Lettish and OPrussian thundergod is Perkunas, Pehrkons, Perkunos, and a great many names of places are compounded with it. Lith., Perkunas grauja (P. thunders), Perkunas musza (P. strikes, ferit); Lett., Pehrkons sperr (the lightning strikes, see Suppl.). The Slav. perun is now seldom applied personally, it is used chiefly of the lightning's flash. Procopius (de Bello Goth. 3, 14) says of the Sclaveni and Antes: qeon men gar ena ton thj a s t p r a o h j dhmiourgon apantwn kurion monon auton nomizousin einai, kai quousin autw boaj te kai iereia opanta. Again, the oak was consecrated to Perun, and old documents define boundaries by it (do perunova duba, as far as P.'s oak); and the Romans called the acorn juglans, i.e., joviglans, Jovis glans, the fruit of the fatherly god. Lightning is supposed to strike oaks by preference (see Suppl.).

Now Perkun suggests that thundergod of the Morduins, Porguini (p. 27), and, what is more worthy of note, a Gothic word also, which (I grant), as used by Ulphilas, was already stript of all personification. The neut. noun faírguni (Gramm. 2, 175. 453) means oroj, mountain. (12) What if it were once especially the Thunder-mountain, and a lost Faírguns the name of the god (see Suppl.)? Or, starting with faírguni with its simple meaning of mons unaltered, may we not put into that masc. Faírguns or Faírguneis, and consequently into Perkunas, the sense of the above mentioned akrioj, he of the mountain top? a fitting surname for the thundergod. Fergunna, ending like Patunna, p. 71, signifies in the Chron. moissiac. anno 805 (Pertz 1, 308) not any particular spot, but the metal-mountains (erzgebirge); and Virgunnia (Virgundia, Virgunda, conf. Zeuss p. 10) the tract of wooded mountains between Ansbach and Ellwangen. Wolfram, Wh. 390, 2, says of his walt-swenden (wood-wasting?): der Swarzwalt und Virgunt müesen dâ von œde ligen, Black Forest and V. must lie waste thereby. In the compounds, without which it would have perished altogether, the OHG. virgun, AS firgen may either bear the simple sense of mountainous, woody, or conceal the name of a god.---Be that as it may, we find faírguni, virgun, firgen connected with divinely-honoured beings, as appears plainly from the ON. Fiörgyn, gen. Fiörgynjar, which in the Edda means Thôr's mother, the goddess Earth: Thôrr Jarðar burr, Sæm. 70 68. Oðins son, Sæm. 73 74. And beside her, a male Fiörgynn, gen. Fiörgyns, Fiörgvins, appears as the father of Oðin's wife Frigg, Sn. 10, 118. Sæm. 63. In all these words we must take faírg, firg, fiörg as the root, and not divide them as faír-guni, fir-gun, fiör-gyn. Now it is true that all the Anzeis, all the Aesir are enthroned on mountains (p. 25), and Firgun might have been used of more than one of them; but that we have a right to claim it specially for Donar and his mother, is shewn by Perun, Perkun, and will be confirmed presently by the meaning of mount and rock which lies in the word hamar. As Zeus is called enakrioj, so is his daughter Pallas akria, and his mother Ga, mater autou Dioj (Sophocl. Philoct. 389); the myth transfers from him to his mother and daughter. Of Donar's mother our very märchen have things to tell (Pentam. 5, 4); and beyond a doubt, the stories of the devil and his bath and his grandmother are but a vulgarization of heathen notions about the thundergod. Lasicz 47 tells us: Percuna tete mater est fulminis atque tonitrui quae solem fessum ac pulverolentum balneo excipit, deinde lotum et mitidum postera die emittit. It is just matertera, and not the mater, that is meant by teta elsewhere.  
 



ENDNOTES:

8. This mons Jovis must be distinguished from mons gaudii, by which the Mid. Ages meant a height near Rome: Otto frising 1. c. 2, 22; the Kaiserchr. 88 translates it verbally mendelberc. In Romance poems of the 12-13th centuries, monjoie is the French battle-cry, generally with the addition of St Denis, e.g. monjoya, monjoya sant Denis! Ferabas 365. monjoie enseigne S. Denis! Garin 108. Ducange in his 11th dissertation on Joinville declares monjoie inadmissible as a mere diminutive of mont, since in other passages (Roquefort 2, 207) it denotes any place of joy and bliss, a paradise, so that we can fairly keep to the literal sense; and there must have been mountains of this name in more than one region. It is quite possible that monjoie itself came from an earlier monjove (mons Jovis), that with the god's hill there associated itself the idea of a mansion of bliss (see Suppl.).  (back)

9. Kindermann, abriss von Steiermark pp. 66, 67, 70, 81.  (back)

10. The Slovaks say Parom, and paromova strela (P.'s bolt) for perunova; phrases about Parom, from Kollar, in Hanusch 259, 260.  (back)

11. Might perun be connected with keraunoj = peraunoj ? Still nearer to Perun would seem to be the Sansk. Parjanyas, a name borne by ndra as Jupiter pluvius, literally, fertilizing rain, thunder-cloud, thunder. A hymn to this rain-god in Rosen's Vedae specimen p. 23. Conf. Hitzig Philist. 296, and Holtzmann 1, 112, 118.  (back)

12. Matt. 8, 1. Mk 5, 5. 11. 9, 2. 11, 1. Lu. 3, 5. 4, 29. 9, 37. 19, 29. 37. I Cor. 13, 2. Baírgahei (h oreinh) in Lu. 1, 39, 65; never the simple baírgs.  (back)