TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

176 THUNAR.
17th century : Dear Thunder (woda Picker), we offer to thee an
ox that hath two horns and four cloven hoofs, we would pray thee
for our ploughing and sowing, that our straw be copper-red, our
grain be golden -yellow. Push elsewhither all the thick black clouds,
over great fens, high forests, and wildernesses. But unto us
ploughers and sowers give a fruitful season and sweet rain. Holy
Thunder (poha Picken), guard our seedfield, that it bear good straw
below, good ears above, and good grain within/ Picker or Picken
would in modern Esthonian be called Pitkne, which comes near
the Finnic pitkdinen = thunder, perhaps even Thunder ; Hiipel s
Esth. Diet, however gives both pikkenne and pikne simply as
thunder (impersonal). The Finns usually give their thundergod
the name Ukko only, the Esthonians that of Turris as well,
evidently from the Norse Thorr (see Suppl.). 1
As the fertility of the land depends on thunderstorms and
rains, Pitkdinen and Zeus appear as the oldest divinity of
agri
cultural nations, to whose bounty they look for the thriving of
their cornfields and fruits . (see Suppl.) Adam of Bremen too attri
butes thunder and lightning to Thor expressly in connexion with
dominion over weather and fruits : Thor, inquiunt, praesidet in aere,
qui tonitrua et fulmina, ventos imbresque, serena et fruges giibcrnat.
Here then the worship of Thor coincides with that of Wuotan, to
whom likewise the reapers paid homage (pp. 154 7), as on the other
hand Thor as well as Oftinn guides the events of war, and receives
his share of the spoils (p. 133). To the Norse mind indeed, Thor s
victories and his battles with the giants have thrown his peaceful
office quite into the shade. Nevertheless to Wuotan s mightiest
son, whose mother is Earth herself, and who is also named Per-
kunos, we must, if only for his lineage sake, allow a direct relation
to Agriculture. 2 He clears up the atmosphere, he sends fertilizing
nandten bache in Liefland Wohhanda. Dorpt. 1644, pp.
time the language of the prayer was hard to understand ;
362-4. Even in his
it is given, corrected,
in Peterson s Finn, mythol. p. 17, and Rosenplanter s beitr., heft 5, p. 157.
1 Ukko is, next to Yumala (whom I connect with Wuotan }, the Finnish god. Pitkainen literally means the long, tall, high one.
highest
2 Uhland in his essay on Thorr, has penetrated to the heart of the ON.
conflict of the
myths, and ingeniously worked out the thought, that the very
summer-god with the winter-giants, itself signifies the business of bringing land
under cultivation, that the crushing rock-splitting force of the thunderbolt
prepares the hard stony soil. This is most happily expounded of the Hrungnir
and Orvandill sagas in some of the others it seems not to answer so well.
;