Agaliha
November 24th, 2005, 05:01 PM
Here is another Slavic Diety. :).
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Perun
In Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were the mountain, oak, firmament (in Indo-European languages this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (the hammer, axe and arrow), war, and fire. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.
Myth
The fight of Perun against demonic opponents (main opponents - Żmij, Veles, aerial dragons and crowd of smaller ghosts: biesy (sing. bies), czarty (czart), latawce (latawiec), porońce (poroniec) etc. Polish spelling.) stealing waters, cattle, divine partner of god (Perperuna), hiding before anger of Thunderlord under/in a man, horse, cow, tree, stone, at last in to water (a fish with red eyes).
Perun is helped by the płanetnicy (sing. płanetnik), chmurni-cy(-k), obłoczni-cy(-k) (Pl.), stuh(-y), zduh(-y), stuhac(-e), zduhac(-e), vjetrogonj-e(-a), jedogonj-e(-a) (Serb.) and, after to carriage names from demoniac enemy to the helper, zmaj(-e), zmej(-e) (Bulg.) and żmij(-e) (Pl.) (spirits, living peoples and even animals with spirit or with body being raised to sky during storm) fighting with smok(-i) ("a dragon") (Pl.) zmej(-e) (Russ.), (ch)al-a(-y) (SouthSlav.).
In Russia, Perun was represented with silver hair and golden moustaches. His bolts of lightning were said to be stones and stone arrows. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites and belemnites and sometimes even archaic tools are these stone weapons' remains. Various Slavic countries also call these deposits "Perun's stones", "thunderbolt stones", "thunderbolt wedges" and "Perun's arrow"; other unrelated names for these include "devil's finger", "God's finger", and "Mother of God finger", and in Lithuania, "Berkun's finger". These thunderbolt stones were sometimes said to be transferred back to the sky by the wind or pł anetnik. The weapons of Perun protected against bad luck, evil magic, disease, and - naturally enough - lightning itself.
In the classification scheme of Georges Dumézil he was the god of the second function (physical and military power). Members of Slavonic squads swore on his name.
Like Thor, Perun's vegetable hypostasis was the oak, especially a particularly distinctive or prominent one. Underneath this oak would be a general place of worship and folding of sacrifices (with a bull, an ox, a ram, and eggs). In Southern Slavic tradition, marked oaks stood on country borders; communities at these positions were visited during village holidays in the late spring and during the summer. Perun is also connected with the plants perunika and perin in Serbian and Russian tradition.
Strong correlation with the near-identical Perkunas from Lithuanian mythology and Perkons from Latvian mythology suggests the close affiliation between, and common origin of, the Balto-Slavic tribes. In the
Vedic religion this god is called Varuna. The similarities between Perun and the god Thor in Norse mythology caused an amalgamation of the two gods in Kievan Rus. Perun may also be compared to Iupiter Quernus.
In wendish mythology Perun was known as Percunust, an evil thundergod.
Christianity replaced Perun with Saint Elijah the Thunderer.
Etymology
Old Slavic per-unъ Slav. god Perun, thunderbolt < *per-oun-os (Gr. keraunós "t.s."), "telling" name (making core of mythological group of ideas formed round conception of Lord of Thunder), describing distinctive act for this god: "to fling a rock" (per-perun-a); OldSlav. *pr-a-ti < *per-a-ti "to strike, to beat"; OldSlav. *pr-e-ti < *per-ti "to push, to press strongly"; Lith. per-ti "to hit, to beat, to strike, to whip"; Trac. per(u) "rock"; Hett. peruna "t. s., goddess of Peruna?".
FROM: Wikipedia "Perun" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perun)
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Perun - Piórun in Polish (PYOO-run)
God of thunder from "per, perk or perg" - to strike. He is described as a rugged man with a copper beard. He rides in a chariot pulled by a he-goat and carries a mighty axe, or strely, sometimes a hammer. This axe is hurled at evil people and spirits and will always return to his hand., and of oak. The word strela can mean either axe or arrow, i.e. bolt and strela are hung on hourses to protect them from storms, restore milk to cows, ease labor and grant good luck to newborns and newlyweds.
His lighting bolts were believed to pass through the earth to a certain depth and return gradually to the surface in a specific period of time - usually 7 yrs 40days. People, rocks and trees struck by lightening are considered to be sacred for the heavenly fire remains inside them. In 1652 a Lithuanian man was recorded to have eaten the ashes of a leather saddle burned by lightening. He believed his action would save him from illness and give him oracular powers and the ability to conjur fire.
All big trees were sacred to Perun, but he especially loved the oak. There are records of oaks being fenced in as sacred to him. Sacrifices to him usually consisted of a rooster, but on special occasions, bear, bull or he-goat might be killed. The sacrificed animal was then communally eaten as they were seen to be imbued with the power of their patron God. Eating the god's animal to absorb the god's essence is similar to and predates the ritual of Holy Communion.
Perun's arch enemy was the zaltys, a great serpent curled at the base of the world tree. Somehow, this also put him on Weles' (http://hometown.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html#weles)blacklist and worship of these two gods had to be kept separate.
Temples to Perun tended to be octagonal and on high ground. An idol of him set outside the castle of Vladmir was said to have a silver head and gold moustache - in some accounts, gold mouth. When Vladmir tore down the idol, it was tied to a horses tail and dragged to the Dnieper. Amid much weeping it was then tossed in as men with poles made sure that he was not washed ashore or pulled out. It eventually floated down river and was blown onto a sandbank still known as Perun's bank. Perun's holy day is Thursday, his feast day is the 20th of July.
FROM: Slavic Gods and Goddesses (http://hometown.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html#Major)
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Perun
Storm god in the pre-Christian Slavic pantheon. Venerated particularly by the Eastern Slavs, especially the Russians. A clear counterpart to the Latvian Perkons (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perkons.html) and Lithuanian Perkunas (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perkunas.html), Perun ("striker," from the Indo-European root perk-/perg-) was also identified with Thor (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/thor.html) by the Scandinavian Varangians who settled in Russia, and with Zeus (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html) by Russian scribes familiar with Greek mythology. Ultimately, Perun's identity can perhaps be traced back to the Vedic thunder god Parjánya. Some scholars maintain that Perun gradually displaced the more ancient Rod (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/rod.html) as the high god of the East Slavic pantheon.
According to the Kievan Primary Chronicle, Perun was the chief deity of the pagan gods worshipped by the Russians until their Christianization in 988 by St. Vladimir I, Grand Prince of Kiev. Idols of Perun depicted him as a large man with a silver head and golden mustaches. A warlike deity, Perun was typically represented as carrying a club (sometimes a hammer), a battle-axe, and a bow, from which he loosed arrows of thunder and lightning. Sacrifices of cockerels and goats were often made to him; bulls and bears were offered up during major rituals. The oak tree was considered sacred to Perun, and he was sometimes worshipped in oak groves. After Russia's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, Perun's identity was absorbed syncretically into that of the prophet Elijah (Il'ia), whose chariot of fire racing across the sky recalled the lightning bolts associated with the old god.
BY: John McCannon
FROM: Pantheon.org "Perun" (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perun.html)
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Perun is the god of thunder and lightning, very similar to Thor. His name comes from the root "to strike." He carries an ax or mace, his sacred animal is the bull, his sacred tree is the oak. He has dark hair with a long, golden beard, and is sometimes portrayed with three heads with fiery-red faces surrounded by flames. A perpetual fire was maintained in his honor; if it went out, it was rekindled by the use of a stone. Worshippers laid arms at his idol's feet, and stuck arrows around oak trees in his honor. His idol was thrown into the Volkhv River when Christianity came to Russia. A six-petalled rose within a circle was carved on roofs to protect houses from thunder and lightning, and the symbol may have been associated with Perun. Perun became Ilya of Murom in epic tales, and St. Elijah in the church, because the saint's chariot rolled like thunder and his arrow was lightning. Perun was also associated with St. George, since he slays a dragon (Volos). St. George is the patron of wild and domestic animals.
FROM: Moist Mother Earth: Slavic Myth and Religion (http://www.winterscapes.com/slavic.htm#gods)
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I'm going to look for some more information...must look though my long list of unorganized bookmarks. :)
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Perun
In Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were the mountain, oak, firmament (in Indo-European languages this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (the hammer, axe and arrow), war, and fire. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.
Myth
The fight of Perun against demonic opponents (main opponents - Żmij, Veles, aerial dragons and crowd of smaller ghosts: biesy (sing. bies), czarty (czart), latawce (latawiec), porońce (poroniec) etc. Polish spelling.) stealing waters, cattle, divine partner of god (Perperuna), hiding before anger of Thunderlord under/in a man, horse, cow, tree, stone, at last in to water (a fish with red eyes).
Perun is helped by the płanetnicy (sing. płanetnik), chmurni-cy(-k), obłoczni-cy(-k) (Pl.), stuh(-y), zduh(-y), stuhac(-e), zduhac(-e), vjetrogonj-e(-a), jedogonj-e(-a) (Serb.) and, after to carriage names from demoniac enemy to the helper, zmaj(-e), zmej(-e) (Bulg.) and żmij(-e) (Pl.) (spirits, living peoples and even animals with spirit or with body being raised to sky during storm) fighting with smok(-i) ("a dragon") (Pl.) zmej(-e) (Russ.), (ch)al-a(-y) (SouthSlav.).
In Russia, Perun was represented with silver hair and golden moustaches. His bolts of lightning were said to be stones and stone arrows. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites and belemnites and sometimes even archaic tools are these stone weapons' remains. Various Slavic countries also call these deposits "Perun's stones", "thunderbolt stones", "thunderbolt wedges" and "Perun's arrow"; other unrelated names for these include "devil's finger", "God's finger", and "Mother of God finger", and in Lithuania, "Berkun's finger". These thunderbolt stones were sometimes said to be transferred back to the sky by the wind or pł anetnik. The weapons of Perun protected against bad luck, evil magic, disease, and - naturally enough - lightning itself.
In the classification scheme of Georges Dumézil he was the god of the second function (physical and military power). Members of Slavonic squads swore on his name.
Like Thor, Perun's vegetable hypostasis was the oak, especially a particularly distinctive or prominent one. Underneath this oak would be a general place of worship and folding of sacrifices (with a bull, an ox, a ram, and eggs). In Southern Slavic tradition, marked oaks stood on country borders; communities at these positions were visited during village holidays in the late spring and during the summer. Perun is also connected with the plants perunika and perin in Serbian and Russian tradition.
Strong correlation with the near-identical Perkunas from Lithuanian mythology and Perkons from Latvian mythology suggests the close affiliation between, and common origin of, the Balto-Slavic tribes. In the
Vedic religion this god is called Varuna. The similarities between Perun and the god Thor in Norse mythology caused an amalgamation of the two gods in Kievan Rus. Perun may also be compared to Iupiter Quernus.
In wendish mythology Perun was known as Percunust, an evil thundergod.
Christianity replaced Perun with Saint Elijah the Thunderer.
Etymology
Old Slavic per-unъ Slav. god Perun, thunderbolt < *per-oun-os (Gr. keraunós "t.s."), "telling" name (making core of mythological group of ideas formed round conception of Lord of Thunder), describing distinctive act for this god: "to fling a rock" (per-perun-a); OldSlav. *pr-a-ti < *per-a-ti "to strike, to beat"; OldSlav. *pr-e-ti < *per-ti "to push, to press strongly"; Lith. per-ti "to hit, to beat, to strike, to whip"; Trac. per(u) "rock"; Hett. peruna "t. s., goddess of Peruna?".
FROM: Wikipedia "Perun" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perun)
____
Perun - Piórun in Polish (PYOO-run)
God of thunder from "per, perk or perg" - to strike. He is described as a rugged man with a copper beard. He rides in a chariot pulled by a he-goat and carries a mighty axe, or strely, sometimes a hammer. This axe is hurled at evil people and spirits and will always return to his hand., and of oak. The word strela can mean either axe or arrow, i.e. bolt and strela are hung on hourses to protect them from storms, restore milk to cows, ease labor and grant good luck to newborns and newlyweds.
His lighting bolts were believed to pass through the earth to a certain depth and return gradually to the surface in a specific period of time - usually 7 yrs 40days. People, rocks and trees struck by lightening are considered to be sacred for the heavenly fire remains inside them. In 1652 a Lithuanian man was recorded to have eaten the ashes of a leather saddle burned by lightening. He believed his action would save him from illness and give him oracular powers and the ability to conjur fire.
All big trees were sacred to Perun, but he especially loved the oak. There are records of oaks being fenced in as sacred to him. Sacrifices to him usually consisted of a rooster, but on special occasions, bear, bull or he-goat might be killed. The sacrificed animal was then communally eaten as they were seen to be imbued with the power of their patron God. Eating the god's animal to absorb the god's essence is similar to and predates the ritual of Holy Communion.
Perun's arch enemy was the zaltys, a great serpent curled at the base of the world tree. Somehow, this also put him on Weles' (http://hometown.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html#weles)blacklist and worship of these two gods had to be kept separate.
Temples to Perun tended to be octagonal and on high ground. An idol of him set outside the castle of Vladmir was said to have a silver head and gold moustache - in some accounts, gold mouth. When Vladmir tore down the idol, it was tied to a horses tail and dragged to the Dnieper. Amid much weeping it was then tossed in as men with poles made sure that he was not washed ashore or pulled out. It eventually floated down river and was blown onto a sandbank still known as Perun's bank. Perun's holy day is Thursday, his feast day is the 20th of July.
FROM: Slavic Gods and Goddesses (http://hometown.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html#Major)
___
Perun
Storm god in the pre-Christian Slavic pantheon. Venerated particularly by the Eastern Slavs, especially the Russians. A clear counterpart to the Latvian Perkons (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perkons.html) and Lithuanian Perkunas (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perkunas.html), Perun ("striker," from the Indo-European root perk-/perg-) was also identified with Thor (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/thor.html) by the Scandinavian Varangians who settled in Russia, and with Zeus (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html) by Russian scribes familiar with Greek mythology. Ultimately, Perun's identity can perhaps be traced back to the Vedic thunder god Parjánya. Some scholars maintain that Perun gradually displaced the more ancient Rod (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/rod.html) as the high god of the East Slavic pantheon.
According to the Kievan Primary Chronicle, Perun was the chief deity of the pagan gods worshipped by the Russians until their Christianization in 988 by St. Vladimir I, Grand Prince of Kiev. Idols of Perun depicted him as a large man with a silver head and golden mustaches. A warlike deity, Perun was typically represented as carrying a club (sometimes a hammer), a battle-axe, and a bow, from which he loosed arrows of thunder and lightning. Sacrifices of cockerels and goats were often made to him; bulls and bears were offered up during major rituals. The oak tree was considered sacred to Perun, and he was sometimes worshipped in oak groves. After Russia's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, Perun's identity was absorbed syncretically into that of the prophet Elijah (Il'ia), whose chariot of fire racing across the sky recalled the lightning bolts associated with the old god.
BY: John McCannon
FROM: Pantheon.org "Perun" (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/perun.html)
___
Perun is the god of thunder and lightning, very similar to Thor. His name comes from the root "to strike." He carries an ax or mace, his sacred animal is the bull, his sacred tree is the oak. He has dark hair with a long, golden beard, and is sometimes portrayed with three heads with fiery-red faces surrounded by flames. A perpetual fire was maintained in his honor; if it went out, it was rekindled by the use of a stone. Worshippers laid arms at his idol's feet, and stuck arrows around oak trees in his honor. His idol was thrown into the Volkhv River when Christianity came to Russia. A six-petalled rose within a circle was carved on roofs to protect houses from thunder and lightning, and the symbol may have been associated with Perun. Perun became Ilya of Murom in epic tales, and St. Elijah in the church, because the saint's chariot rolled like thunder and his arrow was lightning. Perun was also associated with St. George, since he slays a dragon (Volos). St. George is the patron of wild and domestic animals.
FROM: Moist Mother Earth: Slavic Myth and Religion (http://www.winterscapes.com/slavic.htm#gods)
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I'm going to look for some more information...must look though my long list of unorganized bookmarks. :)