TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

CHAPTEE VIII.
DONAE, THUNAE, (THOEE).
The god who rules over clouds and rain, who makes himself
known in the lightning s flash and the rolling thunder, whose bolt
cleaves the sky and alights on the earth with deadly aim, was
designated in our ancient speech by the word Donar itself, OS.
Thunar, AS. Thunor, ON. Thorr. 1 The natural phenomenon is
called in ON. >ruma, or duna, both fern, like the Gothic J?eihvo,
which was perhaps adopted from a Finnic language. To the god
the Goths would, I suppose, give the name Thunrs. The Swed.
tordon, Dan. torden (tonitru), which in still Harpestreng keeps the
form thordyn, thordun, is compounded of the god s name and that
same duna, ON. Thordunaf (see Suppl). In exactly the same
way the Swed. term aska (tonitru, fulmen), in the Westgothl. Laws
asikkia, 2 has arisen out of asaka, the god s waggon or driving, from
as, deus, divus, and aka, vehere, vehi, Swed. aka. In Gothland they
say for thunder Thorsakan, Thor s driving ; and the ON. reiff
signifies not only vehiculum, but tonitru, and reiSarslag, rei(5ar-
J?ruma, are thunderclap and lightning. For, a waggon rumbling
over a vaulted space cpmes as near as possible to the rattling and
crashing of thunder. The comparison is so natural, that we find
it spread among many nations : 8o/cet OX^/ACL rov Jto? rj fipovrrj
elvai, Hesychius sub. v. ^aci^povra. In Carniola the rolling of
thunder is to this day gotten fahren. [To the Eussian it is
peasant
the prophet Ilia driving his chariot, or else grinding his corn.]
Thorr in the Eclda, beside his appellation of Asa]?6rr, is more
minutely described by Oku>6rr, i.e. Waggon-thorr (Sn. 25) ; his
waggon is drawn by two he-goats (Sn. 26). Other gods have their
i So even in High German dialects, durstag for donrstag, Engl. Thursday,
and Bav. doren, daren for donnern (Schm. 1, 390). In TMrr it is not RR, but
only the first R (the second being flectional), that is an abbrev. of NH, j i.e.
N suffers syncope before R, much as in the M. Dut. ere, mire, for enre minre.
a Conf. Onsike (Odin s drive ?) supra, p. 159.