TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

168 THUNAR.
there scolding ; in Bavaria : der himmeltatl (-daddy) greint (Schm.
1, 462). In Eckstrom s poem in honour of the county of Honstein
1592, ciib ,
it is said:
Gott der herr muss warlich from sein (must be really kind),
dass er nicht mit donner schlegt drein. 1
The same sentiment appears among the Letton and Finn nations.
Lettic : wezzajs kahjas, wezzajs tehws barrahs (the old father has
started to his feet, he chides), Stender lett. gramm. 150. With
dievas (god) and dievaitis (godkin, dear god) the Lithuanians
associate chiefly the idea of the thunderer: dievaitis grauja !
dievaitis ji numusse. Esthonian : wanna issa hiiab, wanna essa
waljan, murrisep (the old father growls), Eosenplanters beitr. 8,
116. The Lord scolds, heaven wages war, Joh. Christ. Petris
Ehstland 2, 108 (see Suppl.).
Now with this Donar of the Germani fits in significantly the
Gallic Taranis whose name is handed down to us in Lucan 1, 440 ;
all the Celtic tongues retain the word taran for thunder, Irish toran,
with which one may directly connect the ON. form Thorr, if one
thinks an assimilation from rn the more likely But an old
inscription gives us also Tanarus (Forcellini sub v.) = Taranis.
The Irish name for Thursday, dia Tordain (dia ordain, diardaoin)
was perhaps borrowed from a Teutonic one (see Suppl.).
So in the Latin Jupiter (literally, God father, Diespiter) there
predominates the idea of the thunderer ; in the poets
Tonans is
equivalent to Jupiter (e.g., Martial vi. 10, 9. 13, 7. Ovid Heroid.
9, 7. Fasti 2, 69. Metam. 1, 170. Claudian s Stilicho 2, 439) ;
and Latin poets of the Mid. Ages are not at all unwilling to apply
the name to the Christian God (e.#.,Dracontius de deo 1, 1. satisfact.
149. Yen. Fortunat. p. 212-9. 258). And expressions in the
lingua vulgaris coincide with this: celui qui fait toner, qui fait
courre la nue (p. 23-4). An inscription, Jovi tonanti, in Gruter 21,
6. The Greek Zeus who sends thunder and lightning (/cepatwo?) is
styled Ktpavveios. Zevs eVri/Tre, II. 8, 75. 170. 17, 595. J*o?
, II. 15, 379. 2 And because he sends them down from the
1 In a poem made up of the first lines of hymns and songs : Acli gott vom
liimmel sieh darein, und werfe einen donnerstein, es 1st gewislich an der zeit,
dass scliwelgerei und iippigkeit zerschmettert werden mausetodt ! sonst schrein
\vir bald aus tiefer noth.
2 One might be tempted to connect the Etruscan Tina = Jupiter with
Tonans and Donar ; it belongs more immediately to Z^i/ (v. infra, Zio).