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AIR. FIKE. WATER. EARTH. 883
light (p. 632). Of goddesses, we have to reckon whoever may
stand for the wind s bride and whirlwind, Holda who accom
panies the ( furious host/ and Herodias (p. 632); and bear in
mind that to the same Holda and to Mary is given power over
snow and rain (pp. 267. 641. 174-5). It is in Wikram 251 a that
a (
frau luft }
first occurs, as H. Sachs makes aer, ignis, aqua all
fraulein. 3
Whenever dwarfs, giants and giantesses raise wind,
weather and storm (pp. 631-6-7), they act as servants of the
highest god. Kari also represented air.
LoJci and Logi (p. 241) are gods of fire, and so was probably
auhns, ovan, which to us denotes the mere element itself
(p.
629). The dea Hludana (p. 257) might stand beside him.
Donar, like the Slavic Perun, hurls the lightning flash, yet the
Slavs make Grom, thunder, a youth, and Munya, lightning, a
maiden (p. 178 n.). Fire, the godlike, is spoken to, and called
bani vrSar/ wood-killer. Balder, Phol, is perhaps to be under
stood as a divinity of light (pp. 227. 612-4), and from another
point of view Ostara (p. 291). Mist was taken for a valkyr (p.
421).
Hler (p. 240) and Oegir (pp. 137. 311) are gods of the wave,
and Ban a goddess (p. 311) ; Geban, Gefjon (pp. 239. 311) is
divided between both sexes. The fern, ahva (p. 583 n.) and the
female names of our rivers (p. 600) lead us to expect watergoddesses,
with which agrees the preponderance of nixies and
mermaids (p. 487), also the softness of the element, though
OSinn too is found under the name of Hnikar (ibid.) Snow and
Hoarfrost are thought of as male (p. 761), but the Norse Drifa
(loose drifting snow) is a daughter of Snior (Yogi, saga 16).
The Earth, like Terra and Tellus, could not be imagined other
than female, so that the masc. Heaven might embrace her as
bride ; Binda is a goddess too, and Nerthus (p. 251), though she
and the masc. Niorflr play into one another. Out of the Goth,
fairguni s neutrality unfolded themselves both a male Fiorgynn
(p. 172) and a female Fiorgyn (p. 256) ; the former answers to
Perkunas (Fairguneis) and to other cases of gods being named
after mountains, conf. ans, as (p. 25) and Etzel (p. 169). And
Hamar the rock-stone (p. 181) is another instance of the same
thing. The forest-worship dwelt upon in ch. IV could not fail
to introduce directly a deification of sacred trees, and most trees