Gothic religion (Was Re: new and in search of help Go.thunrs and thrums)

[ualarauans]

Hails Kunjareth!

I had posted my last message before reading yours, so I reply 
twice :)

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson" <konrad_oddsson@>  
wrote:

> ON vetr is from masc. u-stem *wintrus. ON vintr is also attested in
> West Norse from about 1000 (Norðmøri, Norvegr on the Kule Stone). 
ON
> sumar is a neut. a-stem from PN *sumara. The Gothic equivalent,
> following masc. wintrus, u-stem, assuming 'summer' would likewise 
be
> parallel, would be *sumar, neut. a-stem. But this word is usually
> considered problematic (see etymological dictionaries/works). East
> Norse preserved the form vintr much longer than West Norse, which
> universalized vetr over the against older parallel vintr.

Some ON dictionaries say vetr is masculine consonant stem. It fits 
pretty well in with the pattern: ON cons. stem fótr - Go. u-stem 
fotus, gás - gansus, hönd - handus, tönn - tunthus. Which one was PG 
I wonder?

> > Whether it be, it's Gothic
> > *milluneis M.-ja.
> 
> Yes, I think so. The baltic thunder-god is called perkunas in
> lithuanian, perkons in latvian and *perkuns in prussian. In gothic
> we have faírguni, neut., 'mountiain'. In ON fjorgynn is a also a
> god. fjorgyn, fem., is a goddess. þórr is called fjorgynjar burr,
> the 'son of fjorgyn', who is the earth (also called iorð). In Go.
> one of the various names for Þórr's mother would have been erþa.

airþa?

> Now, baltic perkuns is the god of rain, thunder, lightening and, of
> course, mountains. This ties into the gothic word faírguni.

Couldn't it have developed in a manner like this: PG *Thunraz 
Fergunijaz (epithet meaning smth like "Thor the Mountainous", i.e. 
ruling over mountain peaks)? Which epithet was later understood as a 
separate name of Thor's parent, feminine *Fergunijo (> ON Fjörgyn). 
Or it was inherited from the same IE source as the Baltic forms (add 
to them Thracian PERKWN, OSl. PerunÚ and Hett. Pirwa with dropped -k-
 and, perhaps, OInd. Parjanya, lit. "rain cloud"). Lithuanian has 
perkunija "thunder-storm", a precise equivalent of PG. *fergunijo > 
ON Fjörgyn. It could be Gothic *Thunrs Fairguneis "Iuppiter 
Montanus" resp. *Fairguni F.-jo (gen. *Fairgunjos), goddess of 
earth's bones (= mouintains, fairgunja), closely associated with the 
thunder-god.

> The idea
> seems to be that the thunder-god was connected to mountains, being
> the offspring of earth and *wôdans, as the gothic version would 
have
> had it. Perhaps he was born there, where heaven and earth meet, or
> just worshipped there.

It may be doubted that the cult of *Wodanaz did already exist (see 
my previous post), and so PG *Teiwaz > *Ti:waz (Go. *Teiws) was most 
likely the principal god of heaven in the PG epoch, judging by his 
IE parallels, you know, OInd. Dyaus, deva; Avest. daeva; Greek ZEUS; 
Lat. Iouis, deus; OIr. dia; OPr. deiws; Lith. dievas and so forth... 
Maybe it was *Teiwaz (ON Tyr) who was the original "all-father", 
remember the known IE poetic formula *Dyew pater "oh heaven-father", 
attested in OInd. Dyaus pita, Greek ZEU PATER, Lat. Iuppiter, 
Illyrian DEIPATYROS etc. It could be PG *Teiwi faðer (voc.) > Go. 
*Teiw fadar...

> Perkunas's sacred tree is the oak, and he is
> worshipped especially at oak trees.

If Lat. quercus "oak tree" is from *perkwos, then maybe it's the 
very name of the thunder-god itself which points to the oak-worship.

> In the West Gautish laws, which
> are the oldest surviving scandinavian laws, hewing nether oak-trees
> is strongly forbidden. There is no explanation given, but the 
reason
> should be obvious enough. It was taboo. Perkunas has an axe/hammer
> called milna, I think, but check the lithuanian for the correct
> spelling of the word. In russian lightning is called molnija. So,
> whatever the etymology might be, it seems certain here that we are
> dealing with a very ancient and fundamental IE god, as shown here 
by
> the amazing parallels from the Baltic. See the wikipedia article on
> perkunas as a reference. So, it is impossible to imagine that the
> goths did not have a major god called *þunrs, who killed the 
*itunôs
> without mercy in defence of his beloved inhabitants of middle-earth
> (mankind).

I'd prefer to use *thauris M.-a rather than *ituns, as the former is 
at least attested in East-Germanic personal names. OE has eoten, 
which could suggest Go. *itans as well...

> Go. midjungards is attested, which implies *ansugards as
> the one above the 'middle'.

And, I think, it could no less imply *utagards, in the horizontal 
projection, right? But what I don't understand is why it's 
midjungards, not simply *midjagards?

> This is where *þunrs lives. Goths would
> likewise have attributed pest, famine, crop-failure, and disease to
> the *itunôs (everything threatening mankind), like the norse did. A
> norse prayer/incantation was (two version are extant):
> 
> þórr vígi þik
> þursa dróttin
> far þú nú
> fundinn est
> 
> It's ancient and alliterates. Asking *þunrs to kill the giants that
> cause disease is an ancient medical practice, actually, which 
simply
> ties into religion as it is usually understood today (compare also
> the ancient hindu medical scripture ayurveda, which is a huge mass
> of prayers/incantations/spells to the Gods to cure disease, etc.).
> 
> > So, the whole phrase would now look as:
> > Thunrs weihai thana gardan (tho targa)!
> > Lit. "May Thor hallow this enclosure!"
> 
> Yes, something like that ;) If *þunrs weihái is correct, then we 
can
> no doubt nail the ancient Norse prayer to þórr (above) in Gothic.

Isn't it the case where "may he hallow" and "may he kill" look the 
same both in Gothic and in ON? Or, maybe, it's vegi, 3rd pers. sing. 
opt., from ON vega st. v. 5 "to kill"? Which could be reconstructed 
Gothic *wigan (wag, wegum wigans) or *waihan (wah, wehum, waihans). 
I'd try to translate it as follows:

þórr vígi þik
þursa dróttin
far þú nú
fundinn est

Thunrs waihai thuk, 
thaurize drauhtin (voc., right?).
Far thu nu
funthans is (I'm not sure I understood it correctly)

> 
> > And the Eddic fragment (for now):
> >
> > Thanuh qath thata Thrums,
> > thaurize drauhtins:
> > "Bairith inn hamar (?)
> > bruth du <ga>weihan,
> > lagjith Milluni
> > in maujos kniwa,
> > weihith ugkis samana
> > Weros handau."
> 
> Gothic seems to form the infinitive in more than one way, which
> causes problems for me when it comes to the question of what the
> correct Gothic equivalent of the Norse would be in any given
> passage. He you have 'du (ga)weihan'. So I ask members for insights
> and suggestions here. Also, would not to 'lay something on/in
> something' be accusative plus accustive? It suggests movement, 
which
> triggers this in ON, anyway. *lagjiþ milluni ana máujôs kniw?

in maujos kniwa I meant kniwa acc. pl. "upon both knees", ON kné 
being plural here, not?

Ualarauans





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