Chapter 8

As the fertility of the land depends on thunderstorms and rains, Pitkäinen and Zeus appear as the oldest divinity of agricultural nations, to whose bounty they look for the thriving of their cornfields and fruits (see Suppl.). Adam of Bremen too attributes thunder and lightning to Thor expressly in connexion with dominion over weather and fruits: Thor, inquiunt, praesidet in aëre, qui tonitrua et fulmina, ventos imbresque, serena et fruges gubernat. Here then the worship of Thor coincides with that of Wuotan, to whom likewise the reapers paid homage (pp. 154-7), as on the other hand Thor as well as Oðinn guides the events of war, and receives his share of the spoils (p. 133). To the Norse mind indeed, Thor's victories and his battle with the giants have thrown his peaceful office quite into the shade. Nevertheless to Wuotan's mightiest son, whose mother is Earth herself, and who is also named Perkunos, we must, if only for his lineage sake, allow a direct relation to Agriculture. (24) He clears up the atmosphere, he sends fertilizing showers, and his sacred tree supplies the nutritious acorn. Thôr's minni was drunk to the prosperity of cornfields.

The German thundergod was no doubt represented, like Zeus and Jupiter, with a long beard. A Dnish rhyme still calls him 'Thor med sit lange skiäg' (F. Magnusen's lex. 957). But the ON. sagas everywhere define him more narrowly as red-bearded, of course in allusion to the fiery phenomenon of lightning: when the god is angry, he blows in his red beard, and thunder peals through the clouds. In the Fornm. sög. 2, 182 and 10, 329 he is a tall handsome, red-bearded youth: Mikill vexti (in growth), ok ûngligr, friðr sýnum (fair to see), ok rauðskeggjaðr; in 5, 249 maðr rauðskeggjaðr. Men in distress invoked his red beard: Landsmenn tôko þat râð (adopted the plan) at heita þetta hit rauða skegg, 2, 183. When in wrath, he shakes his beard: Reiðr var þâ, scegg nam at hrîsta, scör nam at dýja (wroth was he then, beard he took to bristling, hair to tossing), Sæ. 70. More general is the phrase: lêt sîga brýnnar ofan fyrir augun (let sink the brows over his eyes), Sn. 50. His divine rage (âsmôðr) is often mentioned: Thôrr varð reiðr, Sn. 52. Especially interesting is the story of Thôr's meeting with King Olaf 1, 303; his power seems half broken by this time, giving way to the new doctrine; when the christians approach, a follow of Thôrr exhorts him to a brave resistance: þeyt þû î mot þeim skeggrödd þîna (raise thou against them thy beard's voice). þâ gengu þeir ût, ok blês Thôrr fast î kampana, ok þeytti skeggraustina (then went they out, and Th. blew hard into his beard, and raised his beard's voice). kom þâ þegar andviðri môti konûngi svâ styrkt, at ekki mâtti við halda (immediately there came ill-weather against the king so strong, that he might not hold out, i.e. at sea).---This red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion with Norse ideas: 'diis raudhiiret donner regiir!' (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians. (25) And when the Icelanders call a fox holta þôrr, Thôrr of the holt, (26) it is probably in allusion to his red fur (see Suppl.).

The ancient languages distinguish three acts in the natural phenomenon: the flash, fulgur, astraph, the sound, tonitrus, bronth, and the stroke, fulmen, keraunoj (see Suppl.).

The lightning's flash, which we name blitz, was expressed in our older speech both by the simple plih, Graff 3, 244, MHG. blic, Iw. 649. Wigal. 7284, and by plechazunga (coruscatio), derived from plechazan, (27) a frequentative of plechên (fulgere), Diut. 1, 222-4; they also used plechunga, Diut. 1, 222. Pleccateshêm, Pertz 2, 383, the name of a place, now Blexen; the MHG. has blikze (fulgur) die blikzen und die donerslege sint mit gewalte in sîner pflege, MS 2, 166.----Again lôhazan (micare, coruscare), Goth. láuhatjan, presupposes a lôhên, Goth. láuhan. From the same root the Goth. forms his láuhmuni (astraph), while the Saxon from blic made a blicsmo (fulgur). AS. leoma (jubar, fulgur), ON. liomi [[ljómi - flash of light, radiance]], Swed. ljungeld, Dan. lyn.----A Prussian folk-tale has an expressive phrase for the lightning: 'He with the blue whip chases the devil,' i.e. the giants; for a blue flame was held specially sacred, and people swear by it, North Fris. 'donners blöskên (blue sheen) help!' in Hansent geizhals p. 123; and Schärtlin's curse was blau feuer! (see Suppl).

Beside donar, the OHG. would have at its command caprëh (fragor) from prëhhan (frangere), Gl. hrab. 963, for which the MHG. often has klac, Troj. 12231. 14693, and krach from krachen, (crepare): mit krache gap der doner duz, Parz. 104, 5; and as krachen is synonymous with rîzen (strictly to burst with a crash) we also find wolkenrîz fem. for thunder, Parz. 378, 11. Wh. 389, 18; gegenrîz, Wartb. kr. jen..57; reht als der wilde dunrslac von himel kam gerizzen, Ecke 105. der chlafondo doner, N. Cap. 114; der chlafleih heizet toner; der doner stet gespannen, Apollon. 879. I connect the Gothic þeihvô fem. with the Finnic teuhaan (strepo), teuhaus (strepitus, tumultus), so that it would mean the noisy, uproarious. Som L. Germ. dialects call thunder grummel, Strodtm. Osnabr. 77, agreeing with the Slav. grom, hrom (see Suppl.).

For the notion of fulmen we possess only compounds, except when the simple donner is used in that sense: sluoc alse ein doner, Roth. 1747. hiure hât der schâr (shower, storm) erslagen, MS. 3, 233; commonly donnerschlag, blitzschlag. OHG. blit-scuz (-shot, fulgurum jactus), N. cap. 13; MHG. blickeschoz, Barl. 2, 26. 253, 27, and blicshoz, Martina 205; fiurin donerstrâle, Parz. 104, 1; donreslac, Iw. 651; ter scuz tero fiurentûn donerstrâlo (ardentis fulminis), erscozen mit tien donerstrâlon, N. Bth. 18. 175; MHG. wetterstrahl, blitzstrahl, donnerstrahl. MHG. wilder donerslac, Geo. 751, as lightning is called wild fire, Rab. 412, Schm. 1, 553, and so in ON. villi-eldr [[wild-fire]], Sn. 60 (see Suppl.).  
 



ENDNOTES:

24. Uhland in his essay on Thôrr, has penetrated to the heart of the ON. myths, and ingeniously worked out the thought, that the very conflict of the summer-god with the winter-giants, itself signifies the business of bringing, land under cultivation, that the crushing rock-splitting force of the thunderbolt prepares the hard stony soil. This is most happily expounded of the Hrûngnir and Örvandill sagas; in some of the others it seems not to answer so well.  (back)

25. Der geizhalz auf Silt, Flensburg 1809, p. 123; 2nd. ed. Sonderburg 1833, p. 113.  (back)

26. Nucleus lat. in usum scholae schalholtinae. Hafniae 1738, p. 2088.  (back)

27. While writing plechazan, I remember pleckan, plahta (paters, nudari; bleak), MHG. blecken, blacte, Wigal. 4890; which, when used of the sky, means: the clouds open, heaven opens, as we still say of forked and sheet lightning; conf. Lohengr. p. 125: reht alsam des himmels bliz von doner sich erblecket. If this plechan is akin to plih (fulgur), we must suppose two verbs plîhhan pleih, and plëhhan plah, the second derived from the first. Slav. blesk, blisk, but Boh. bozhi posel, god's messenger, lightning-flash. Russ. molniya, Serv. munya, fem. (see Supple.).  (back)