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Proto-Indo-European Deities


The Proto-Indo-European word for “deities” is "Déiwōs" (sing. Déiwos) "the shining ones," or "the celestial ones." This leaves no doubt both as to how the Proto-Indo-Europeans thought of them and where they believed they dwelt. There are also chthonic deities, those of the Underworld, but the celestial ones set the tone. The deities are also the *ǵhutom, "to whom libations are poured" (> "god"), telling us one way in which they are to be worshiped. They are *dotores weswām, "givers of goods," telling us what they do in return for this worship.

The Déiwōs are *ṇmrtōs, "undying." They may have had a beginning (perhaps as long ago as the beginning of the universe itself), but they will have no end. This is because they drink a beverage called *Nekter, the ambrosia or nektar of the Greeks, the soma of India, the haoma of Iran. A version of it may be drunk by us in ritual, giving us power and long life, but even that won't keep death from us forever. We are not gods.

We are not gods. This is one of the articles of the Indo-European faith. We are related to them, made from similar stuff, and even able to interbreed with them. But they are a different kind of being, as different from us as we are from the animals. We are ontologically different.

The gods are beings who are powerful, holy, and good. They are not archetypes, and in no way are mere projections of psychological reality. They certainly correspond to archetypes. This should be no surprise; one of the ways in which psychologists determined archetypes was by investigating myths.

More important, the gods we know are those who are relevant to us. This explains why so many of them are good to us: we wouldn’t tend to encounter deities who weren’t. Even those deities who aren’t good can be dealt with in such a way that they are as good to us as possible, because they fit into the Xártus, which is the ultimate good. There may well be other gods, but the ones we worship are the ones suitable for us. This is just another way of saying that each corresponds to an archetype – corresponds to it, but not identical with it.

The gods are not simply personifications of natural laws, either; the laws and the gods co-exist. The gods are both the servants and the guardians of natural law. They enforce it, but are not the same as it. The gods uphold the Xártus. In part this is simply by being who they are, in part it is by performing their functions. In part it is in a deliberate sense, by opposing the forces that would destroy the Cosmos – the Outsiders.

The gods are individual beings, separate from us and from each other. As individuals, each has their own interests and preferences. This is necessary if they are to take part in the Xártus, which is a relationship between separate elements. Knowing and acting by the Xártus perfectly, they are much wiser and more powerful than us. This means that their interests and preferences will sometimes seem mysterious to us, or even be unknown. Our ancestors, through thousands of years of experience, by thousands of different people, came to understand them pretty well, and we therefore should rely pretty heavily on the records our ancestors left us.

The deities are not omnipotent. They are constrained by both their nature and the Xártus. For instance, Dyḗus Ptḗr is a god of justice. It would be against his nature to act unjustly. The gods cannot act against their nature because it is their nature that defines their existence. This does not mean that Dyḗus Ptḗr will always act in a way that seems just to us. He has more concerns than each of us, and more wisdom to understand what is necessary. It also does not mean that he chooses between acting in accord with the Xártus and acting not in accord with it. The question simply doesn't occur to him; he is a being whose actions correspond to the Xártus.

Because they are constrained by the Xártus, the deities are similar to natural forces. Each is part of the working of the universe, and each fulfills their part to perfection. That is what makes them gods.

Neither of these two constraints – their nature and the Xártus – are external to the gods. They are both what the gods are. There is thus nothing above the gods (except for other gods). There is something within them and behind them. Notice also that one of these constraints – the Xártus – is within and behind everything. Notice also that it might be said that the nature of a deity is the same as the Xártus for them. Another way of putting this is that each "rides" a branch of the Xártus, the one that corresponds to their nature, expressing it, affecting it, governing it.

Judging from the descendant traditions, the Proto-Indo-Europeans must have worshiped a large number of deities, and honored a number of lesser divine beings as well. Unfortunately, only a few of these can be reconstructed by both name and function. Others are clear in their functions, but lack names.

The forms of names of many of these deities have been taken from Jackson, Peter, Light from Distant Asterisks: Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage, Numen 49 (2002), 61-101. Most Indo-European deity names are transparent in meaning, originating as descriptions, as titles. Woden is "the ecstatic one," Rudra is "the howler," Hermes "the god of the cairn." Certain of these titles became the main ones, promoted to the status of names, but the poets and priests still took delight in inventing titles. The Homeric Hymns praise the “Far-Shooter” (Apollo), the “Shooter of Stags” (Artemis), and the “Fulfiller” (Zeus).

For the deities who survive in function but not in name, I have therefore felt free to construct my own names, or rather titles by which they might be addressed. I will specify which names are my own creation. All others are reconstructions. It is possible that I have by luck or inspiration struck on an actual primary Proto-Indo-European title for a deity. It is even more possible that I have constructed a title which the Proto-Indo-Europeans would have recognized. What matters most, of course, is that the gods to whom they refer will recognize them. Given the Indo-European love for such titles, I feel sure the gods will know whom we are talking to.

Like their descendants the Romans, the Proto-Indo-Europeans had deities of abstractions. They believed that the existence of an idea assumed the existence of a deity to rule over it. This comes from the belief in the Xártus; the reality we perceive reflects the structure of the universe. If we perceive an idea, there must be a something in the structure of the universe that corresponds to it. That something is personal. That something is a deity. So rather than turning an abstraction into a deity, the Proto-Indo-Europeans were noticing the preexistence of a deity of that abstraction. This means that if you have something you want to pray for and there is no reconstructed Proto-Indo-European deity that seems appropriate, ask yourself what abstraction best expresses your desire. You can then use that as your deity name. (Translating it into Proto-Indo-European would be nice, but not necessary.)

There is a video with the pronuniciation of these deity names here.


The Gods

Many of the Proto-Indo-European male deities may be assigned to particular functions. There are very few male deities who cross the line between the three functions, and these probably originated as gods of one of the functions who acquired the other functions in a secondary sense. In this way the gods can slop over a bit into other functions. For instance, Thor is a second function deity. However, through his connection with thunderstorms he was prayed to by farmers for rain. He becomes thereby a god of fertility. Sometimes this slopping over comes as a result of patronage. Because someone might have developed a particularly close relationship with Xáryom̄en, Xáryomēn would be expected to have a particularly close interest in them. Although he is a god of social unity, then, they might pray to him for fertility or protection. Warriors who pray to a second function figure for courage and protection might end up praying to him for prosperity as well. This sort of thing creates a little wiggle room in the system.

The third function is connected religiously with fertility cults. It is difficult to find evidence for Proto-Indo-European religion of this type for two reasons. First, most of what we can reconstruct of Proto-Indo-European religion is from the works of first function writers, composed either for their own function or for the second function warrior aristocracy. The members of these two functions did not care about the third function’s cults as much as their own, and may even have viewed them with suspicion as possible sources of subversion against the established order.

The other reason is less sinister. As the Indo-Europeans migrated, they would naturally absorb local agricultural religion, leaving their previous agricultural cults behind. This is because the fertility of the land is connected with the spiritual inhabitants of the land. It behooves us to make friends with the local fertility deities. Trying to impose our own on the land may offend both sets of beings. Under this interpretation, the lack of knowledge about Proto-Indo-European cults shows a great respect for the deities of fertility, not a lack of it.


Dyḗus Ptḗr
"The Shining Sky Father" is the most important deity of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. His very name is related to *déiwos – he is the god. It is recognizable in the Roman Jupiter, Oscan Dípatír, Umbrian Iupater (Weiss, 2010, 211), Sabellian Dipoteres, Marrucinian Ioues patres, Greek Zeus Pater, Illyrian Dei-paturos (or Dei patyro: Winn, 1995, 22), Vedic Dyaus Pitar, Baltic Dievas, Luvian Tatis Tiwaiz, Palaic Tiyaz Pāpaz, and Germanic *Tiwaz (later Týr). (Some of these are from West, 2007, 166-7.) Among the Scyths he was just Papaeus, "Father" (Herodotus, 4.59). The Russian Svarog may be a calque, since it seems to derive from Iranian origins with a meaning of “Shining One” (Zaroff, 1999, 51); regardless of the Iranian form of the name, the deity is clearly Slavic. In other words, memories and versions of him survived in almost all the IE cultures, which shows how important he was.

Dyḗus Ptḗr’s name has “father" in it. This is the most common title of Dyaus pitar in the Rig Veda. Dyḗus Ptḗr is not, of course, the biological father of humans. After all, Zeus is called “our common ancestor” (Pindar, Pythian 3, p. 60) as well as “father of heaven’s inhabitants” (Pindar, Pythian 3, p. 61), combined in the expression “the fathers of gods and men” (Lonsdale, 1993,48), and although Zeus was certainly the biological father of plenty of heroes he was certainly not the biological father of everyone, human or deity. No, he rather performs the role of father. He is not, in fact, the only deity who can fulfill this role. Apollo Patroōs (“of ancestry”) is invoked in the oath-taking of Athenian archons (Aristotle, in Rice and Stambaugh, 1979, 140; Howie, 1989, 67), Poseidon Father was worshiped at Eleusis (Pausanias 1.38.6), and Dionysos was at least once called πάτερ. That this was also the case in Rome is shown by other deities such as Mars and Janus also being called pater (Cato, De Agricultura 134.2 f., 141.2-4; Macrobius, 1.8.15, 1.12.8, 1.19.3 (Marspiter); Varro, De Lingua Latina 8.33, 8.49, 9.75), as are Liber (Macrobius, 1.18.1, 1.19.3), Silvanus (Horace, Epodes, 2.2.21-2), Neptune, Saturn, Dis, and even the Tiber. The Oscan Euclus, equated by Hesychius with Mercury, was sometimes called pater as well (Salmon, 1967, 159). In Iran, any of the male deities could be called “Father” (and any of the female ones “Mother,” for that matter) (West, 2007, 140). Agni, Bṛhaspati, Tvaṣṭṛ, and Varuṇa are also called “father” (West, 2007, 131), as is Parjanya (Macdonell, 1999, 104). It is significant, however, that in RV 1.164.33 “Dyaus,” “father,” and “genitor/begetter” are equated. He is often found in this role in the RV. In three-fourths of such cases, he is referred to as the father of Uṣas (Macdonell, 1897, 21); he is also called the father of the Aśvins, Agni, Parjanya, Sūrya, the Ādityas, Indra, the Maruts, and the Añgarases. The Hittite Sun God is called “Father” (attaš; Watkins, 1975,5) (As we will see, Dyḗus Ptḗr is closely connected with the Sun). Each of them could perform the divine paternal role. Nonetheless, the title “father” belongs supremely to Dyḗus Ptḗr; the other gods may each be a father, but he is the father. With all the Roman gods who may bear the title, it is still only Jupiter who has it as part of his name.

“Týr” is the form of the Germanic god as we have it from the Norse sources, but the source of his name in *dyḗus is more obvious in the original proto-Germanic *Tiwaz. This is more specifically from *deiwos, “god;” in fact, “týr” is used in Old Norse to simply mean “god” (Simek, 1993, 337). Týr was therefore the archetypal god, and thus originally the chief one, just like Dyḗus Ptḗr;.

As we have record of him, Týr was identified with Mars rather than with Jupiter, as is seen by “Tuesday,” the Germanic version of the Roman “Mar’s day.” Because of this, many have seen Týr as primarily a god of war. However, Mars was himself not solely a god of war. Further, Týr was the god of the Thing, the law assembly, as is seen in the German and Dutch words for “Tuesday,” Dienstag and dinsdag, respectively, which include the word thingsus, “protector of the thing or assembly” (Lindow, 2001, 203). Further, we have an altar from Hadrian’s Wall to Mars Thingsus (Turville-Petrre, 1964, 181). So however the Germanic peoples saw Mars, it was not necessarily as a god of war, but as a god of law; perhaps as the god of law he was the defender of society, and therefore identifiable with Mars. And Jupiter could himself be seen as a god of war, as “Jupiter Victor” (Dumézil, 1966, 45).

From the beginning Dyḗus Ptḗr was the highest deity. His importance is emphasized by his name being the only one of the major Indo-European gods that survived in Greece (Burkert, 1985, 17). The best example in the descendant traditions of his magnificence is the Roman Jupiter, the most supreme form of whom was Jupiter the Best and Greatest (Jupiter Optimus Maximus). Jupiter was known in Italy as rector, “ruler” (Dumézil, 1970, 108) and as rex, “king” (Livy 3.39.4). Zeus is to be revered above all other gods, Pindar says (Pythian 6, p. 70). In Greece, a land made up of many city-states, each with their own versions of the gods, there was a shared Zeus, Zeus Hellanios, ”god of the Greeks,” with a temple on Mt. Oros (Howie, 1989, 68). The 12th century Helmold of Bassau, although he does not name the deity, says that there was one “in the heavens ruling over the others” (in Zaroff, 1999, 51). This well describes the Zeus found in the Iliad 1.526-7, where he says that “no word of mine may be recalled, nor is false, nor unfulfilled, / once I bow my head to it” (tr. A. T. Murray, in Khalaf, 2011, 63).

Dyḗus Ptḗr is the transcendent lord. He is the protector of the Xártus, the enforcer of natural law. At Sparta there was a temple to Zeus Cosmetas, “Zeus the Orderer” (Pausanias 3.17.4). Dyḗus Ptḗr may therefore be called Xártupotis, "Lord of the Xártus." (The vocative form, that used to address him, is Xartupotei; the vocative of Dyḗus Ptḗr is Dyeu Pter.) Horace says that Jupiter is the one who “directs the destinies of men and gods, who rules the sea and lands and the sky with its shifting seasons” (Odes 1.12.13-6). He is not, however, the one who forms the Xártus, and is as constrained by it as anyone is. Zeus is still bound by fate (Aeschylus, Prometheus; although Pausanias (1.40.4) says that he "is the only god obeyed by Destiny” (Moira); according to Khalaf (2011, 66), it is Zeus who gives the Fates their power), and all of the Vedic gods are constrained by ṛta. Odin’s sacrifice of an eye is not made to gain the power to control ørlog, but to know it. Armstrong (1989, 82), discussing an incident in the Iliad (22.208-13), expresses it thus: “Zeus balances the scales and sets the weights in them. But he does not choose the weights, or make the scales tip.” Al-Maini (2009, 96) points out that in deciding the fate of Persephone, “at no place within the Hymn [to Demeter] is Zeus able to unilaterally impose his will on any of the other gods.” Zeus, and by extension Dyḗus Ptḗr, is not a tyrant, but his rule is constrained both by the Xártus and by the necessity to interact with the other deities; he must keep the parts of the cosmos they represent and control in proper relationship with each other. According to Al-Maini (2009, 98), “More than any of the other gods, Zeus’ interests coincide with the interests of the whole;” compare this with Týr’s willingness to betray his status as god of the oath in order to save the cosmos from the ravages of the Wolf, Fenrir (Lokasenna, 38-9 (Hollander, 1962, 98); Snorri, Gylfaginning, 25, 34).

It is likely because of his connection with both natural and social law that oaths are sworn by Dyḗus Ptḗr. Jupiter is a god of oaths (Dumézil, 1970a, 285), and the punisher of their violation (Dumézil, 1966, 180). Roman oaths may also be sworn to Dius Fidius, likely a form of Jupiter (Dumézil, 1970, 180), while out of doors (Poultney, 1959, 195). Jupiter (along with Earth) is called as witness of the devotion of an enemy army to destruction in Macrobius (3.9.9-13). Oaths, particularly peace treaties, were sworn by Jupiter Feretrius (Palmer; 1974; 141, 146), and a dedication on the Tiber Island mentions a Iovi Iurario, “God of Oaths” (Palmer, 1974, 146). In the vow devoting Carthage to the gods of destruction, the witnesses called on at the end were Jupiter and Tellus (the Earth) (Macrobius 3.9.11). It is interesting that the Roman Flamen Dialis was forbidden to make an oath (Plutarch, Roman Questions, 44). It makes sense that the priest of the god of oaths couldn’t take an oath himself, since that would imply that he might not keep it. Zeus is called to be a witness to an oath in Pindar, Pythian 4, p. 60, Hippolytus swears by Zeus, “god of oaths,” in Euripides, Hippolytus, and the ancient Olympic athletes and athletic judges swore an oath by Zeus that they had followed and would follow the rules (Pausanias 5.24.9-11). In the Iliad 3.276-80, Agamemnon calls upon Zeus and Helios (and the rivers, the earth, and “those who punish the dead who have sworn a false oath” (presumably the Erinyes)) to witness his oath (in Sick, 2004, 434).

The best-known story of Týr, the binding of Fenris wolf, tells how he lost his hand through swearing a false oath (Snorri, “Gylfaginning,” 34). The gods knew that the wolf needed to be bound because otherwise he would destroy the world. They made a game with him of tying the wolf up, with him breaking the bonds each time. Finally, they brought a slight cord, which had been given the magic power of being unbreakable. After having been bound with stronger ropes, Fenris was suspicious. Týr swore that that if the wolf couldn’t break this tie he would be released, and as a pledge placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth. Of course, the bond could not be broken, the world was saved (until Ragnarøk, when the wolf will break free and play a major part in the destruction of the cosmos), and Týr lost his hand. He, the god of oaths, ironically swore a false oath to save the world, knowing that he would be punished by losing his hand. Even gods must suffer from false oaths, no matter how nobly made.

This is not to say that ancient oaths were only sworn by reflexes of Dyḗus Ptḗr. The Greek oaths by the river Styx are well-known. Horace, Odes 2.8.9-12, mentions oaths by “the buried ashes of thy mother, the silent sentinels of night, with the holy heaven, and by the gods.” And the oath of the ephebes in Athens was sworn by the impressive list of “Aglaurus, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalius, Ares and Athena Areia, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Heracles, the territory of the fatherland, the wheat, barley, vines, olive-trees, and fig-trees” (M. N. Tod; in Mikalson, 2005, 155).)

Dyḗus Ptḗr is a god of justice. He does what is right, ensures that others do likewise, and punishes those who do not. Laws had their origins in Zeus, as did kingship (Burkert, 1985, 130). This is implied in Hesiod’s prayer that Zeus “make judgments straight with righteousness” (Works and Days 10). Hesiod also tells us (Works and Days, 256-64) that Justice is Zeus’ daughter, and makes sure that he knows the sins of men so he can judge and punish rightly. Zeus’s close connection with justice is shown by his first wife being Themis, “Good Order," on whom he sires both Justice and Order (Hesiod, Theogony 901-2). Themis is from *dhétis; not only is Zeus the guardian of natural law, but the giver and enforcer of societal law; the dhétis literally lives in him.

The famous oracle at Delphi proclaimed the words of Apollo. It is significant that Apollo is Zeus’s son; he proclaims the order of things (Armstrong, 1986, 84). The Sibylline Books, the closest thing the Romans had to the Delphic oracle, were kept in the Capitoline temple (Dumézil, 1970, 285), which was dedicated primarily to Zeus.

A transcendental lord with the erotic stories told about Zeus doesn’t make much sense. It’s possible that the many loves/lusts of his were goddesses of their areas, and his uniting with them both validated his rule over all places, and connected them with the head god. Win/win; one became the local head god, and the other was tied with a god with great prestige throughout all of Greece. Many of the objects of his sexual interest are identified as human in the myths, however. They may be local goddesses who were demoted because they didn’t have the prestige of the Olympians. The stories may also have originally been told to validate a dynasty by linking the local ruling family with the king of the gods. Whatever the reason, this is a Greek phenomenon, not an pan-Indo-European one. We learn very little of a mythology of Dyaus Pitar, and the pre-Greek influenced Jupiter is, as Georges Dumézil (1979, 56) puts it, “a serious and completely respectable gentleman.”

As god of the bright sky, Dyḗus Ptḗr was probably connected with the sun, although not in the sense of being the sun. Rather, the sun was his symbol. The sun sees all, is lord of the bright sky, and performs functions according to the unfailing law of the universe, the Xártus – just like Dyḗus Ptḗr. The Vedic sun god Sūrya is the son of Dyaus Pitar. We will later see how Dyḗus Ptḗr’s daughter was called “the Daughter of the Sun.”

Specifically, the sun can be the eye of Dyḗus Ptḗr, with which he looks down from the sky. (This sort of belief is not unique to the Indo-Europeans; Sick (2004, 434) lists several other cultures, as far apart as the Fuegians and the Samoyeds, in which the sun is the eye of the head god.) In some Indo-European languages, the word for “sun” has become that for “eye;” the sun is the eye of the sky (e.g., Irish súil (Matasovic, 1996, 45, n. 28)). (Macrobius (1.21.12) says that ancient people called the sun the “eye of Jupiter,” although he may be attributing this belief to the Egyptians). It is a common comment in Greek literature that the sun god Helios “sees all that goes on on earth.” In Hesiod (Works and Days, 267-9), it is the “eye of Zeus” who sees all and punishes injustice, but Helios is sometimes called the “eye of Zeus” (Sick, 2004, 434), so that amounts to the same thing. In Romania the sun was traditionally called “God’s eye” (Ionescu and Dumitrache, 2012, 161). The sun in Zoroastrianism is called the eye of Ahura Mazda, who, as the supreme god there, would be the equivalent of Dyḗus Ptḗr (Sick, 2004, 449). Throughout Vedic ritual the sun is constantly referred to as an eye (Gonda, 1980, 309). Like Helios, Surya, as the “lord of eyes” (AV 5.24.9; Macdonell, 1897, 30), sees all things, including the good and bad actions of mankind. He conveys this information to the gods and is called the eye of Mitra (Sick, 2004, 436) and Varuṇa (Macdonell, 1897, 30), both gods of the law, social and cosmic respectively. Now Mitra is a god more connected with the function of Xáryomēn (whom I will discuss next), but as both Xáryomēn and Dyḗus Ptḗr are gods of the oath, as is Mitra, it is likely the all-seeing nature that is being invoked here. There is also Uṣas bringing the eye of the gods (RV 7.77.3). The sun is, therefore, not often found to be a god in the descendant cultures. There have been attempts to find solar deities in those that are depicted with wheels, which as we will see are associated with the sun, but this sometimes relies too heavily on this equation, with deities of thunder, such as Taranis (whose name means “thunder”), i.e., of the dark and stormy sky, being somehow solar because they carry wheels (e.g., Green, 1990, 20-1). The Umbrian version of Dyḗus Ptḗr, who has acquired the lightning aspects, was sacrificed to while the priest held some sort of disk-shaped object in his hands (Poultney, 1959, 198-9).

Dyḗus Ptḗr dwells in great splendor, and is almost unapproachably sacred. For instance, the Ossetes considered their highest god, Khutsau, too remote for human interaction (Minns, n.d., 573). And the Greek playwrights might include Apollo, or Herakles, or Mercury as characters in their plays, but not Zeus (Burkert, 1985, 131). This is why Aristotle (Magna Moralia 1208 b 30, in Burkert, 1985, 274; Dowden, 2010, 54) says that it would be absurd (or bizarre) for anyone to say he loves Zeus. He was simply too magnificent to be relevant to most people’s ordinary lives (Armstrong, 1989, 82). (Fronto says the same about Mars Gradivus and Dis Pater (Birley, 1987, 81).) Burkert, is right when he says of Zeus that “to be man-loving in general would be beneath the dignity of Zeus” (Burkert, 1985, 274); Dyḗus Ptḗr is concerned not with the individual but with the Xártus. He’s concerned about all, not necessarily with the each. This is common among the highest of gods in polytheistic traditions.

The remoteness of high gods may explain why in several traditions his worship has been so attenuated. The Greek high (and sky) god Ouranos gets replaced by Zeus. Even though the god Varuṇa, who has replaced Dyḗus Ptḗr in the sense lord of the ṛta (< *Xártus), has numerous verses to him in the Rig Veda, he has temples to him only in Bali (Bailey, 1975, 1, n . 1). By the time our records appear, Týr has become a lesser god, although still keeping some of his attributes, as a result of the rise of the cult of Odin, which was a later development (Dubois, 1999, 57). We can’t say that there was a reflex of Dyḗus Ptḗr among the Celts; even when we find statues of Jupiter combined with a Celtic god in Gaul, it is with Taranis, the thunder god, rather than with any god of the bright sky. Dyaus Pitar has become an attenuated deity; he is most often found in a dvandva with Pṛthivī, and has no hymn dedicated solely to him (Macdonell, 1897, 21-2). Macdonell (1897, 22) even considers him to have been originally not actually a god at all, but just the sky itself, only later having acquired a personality. Since his name is related to the very Proto-Indo-European word for “god,” however, this is unlikely.

This replacement is an example of what has been called a deus otiosus, a “retired god,” something found in many non-Indo-European traditions as well. The worship of the highest of the gods becomes replaced by ones who are closer to the concerns of humanity. We can even see this in Christianity, where Christians spend far more time relating with Jesus, who, having been incarnated, can be assumed to understand us, than with God the Father, who has always been transcendent.

We may say, then, that paradoxically, the small role of the reflexes of Dyḗus Ptḗr is evidence of his original importance. We are merely looking at the worn-down survivals in the descendant traditions.

It may also have been explained by the fact that in all the traditions in which it survives, the reflex of *Dyḗus, in the form *déiwos, becomes the name for simply “god.” This is seen already in Proto-Indo-European; Dyḗus Ptḗr has become almost the generic deity.

We see him maintaining his prominence in the Greek and Roman traditions. In Rome he retained (or possibly regained) his lofty position under the influence of the Greeks. The Greeks in turn were influenced by the Near Eastern chief gods who were thunder gods; Zeus acquired the thunder function from them, and by it retained his relevance.

Dyḗus Ptḗr is the god of priests, the embodiment of the way rituals are to be performed. In Dumézilian terms, he is the magico-ritual half of the first function.

Another connection of his might be with purity. In Rome, purification rituals were performed outside, that is, under the sky (Plutarch, Roman Questions 5).

The sacred animal of Dyḗus Ptḗr, that which is sacrificed to him, is the ox. The Umbrians sacrificed an ox to Jupiter Grabovius (“The Bronze Tablets of Iguvium” Ia 2, Poultney, 1959, 157). An offering for the sake of oxen before ploughing described by Cato (On Agriculture 132) is directed to Jupiter Dipalis. An ox was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus (Kearns, 2011, 93). The ox is power under control.

It is appropriate to worship Dyḗus Ptḗr on mountain tops. In Attica there were at least eleven temples to Zeus the Rain Bringer on mountains and hills (Mikalson, 2005, 164). Epicharmus (in Macrobius 5.20.20.5) has Zeus dwelling on top of Mt. Gargara, and Olympos, although the home of all the gods, belongs to Zeus above all. This is especially true if “Olympos” did indeed mean “mountain” (Langdon, 2000, 466), since the most magnificent temple to Zeus was at Olympos. In Iliad 8.48, he has a temenos and an altar on Mount Ida. According to Herodotus (1.131), the Persians sacrificed to “Zeus,” who they considered the entire sky, on mountain tops. The temples to Jupiter in the city of Rome were located on the hills, as unimpressive as they were (Dumézil, 1966, 178).

The reflexes of Dyḗus Ptḗr were not worshiped only on high places, or even solely under the open sky. Zeus was worshiped in a cave on Mount Ida (Burkert, 1985, 26); while this is a high place, it is also, as a hole, a low place, and certainly not one under an open sky. In this case Zeus has perhaps taken over a site sacred to an earlier non-Indo-European deity with a similar function or status.

Dyḗus Ptḗr doesn’t have a wife whom we can identify, although he must have had at least a mate in order to be the father of the Diwós Sūnú and Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr (see below). Because he is a sky father, it may be tempting to link him with an earth mother, and indeed his Vedic version, Dyaus Pitar, is so linked. In fact, the name of Dyaus is almost always found in a dvandva with that of Pṛthivī, the earth. The cognate Plataía from Greek Boeotia is a substitute made from a log by Zeus, who claims he’s going to marry her in order to make Hera jealous (Burkert, 1979, 133). However, the Earth Mother fits more easily with another deity, Perkʷū́nos (even the Vedic Parjanya is identified as the husband of the Earth), so Dyḗus Ptḗr’s wife is unfortunately unknown. Jackson (2002, 73), wants to identify her as Diwōnā (*diuōneh2). (Olsen, 2020, 390, suggests *diṵló-h3on(h2)-ah2). There is a Diwija in Mycenean, but there is also a Posidaeja to match with Poseidon (Trzaskoma, 2004, 446), so this may just be like providing Indra with an Indraṇī; i.e., a deity specifically created as a match, rather than one that was inherited. That both of these goddesses had their own temples supports a belief that they were seen as definite personalities, but not that they are descended from Proto-Indo-European times. Aphrodite is called the “daughter of Zeus,” with Dione given as her mother (Iliad 3.70), and, as we will see, Aphrodite is sometimes confused with Eos, the dawn goddess who is the daughter of Zeus. Forms of Diwōnā are also found in Indo-Iranian (*divānī-), Celtic (Gaulish Deuona, Diuona) and Anatolian (Olsen; 2020; 389, 394). Diwōnā is just a female form of *diḗus, thus meaning simply “goddess,” and therefore useless for our purpose here.

Or maybe not; it may be the solution. As chief of the gods, Dyḗus Ptḗr was the counterpart of the chief of the Indo-European tribes. And just as the incoming tribes would intermarry with the local people, with the men of the patriarchal Indo-Europeans taking command over the women of the locals, so Dyḗus Ptḗr would “marry” the chief local goddess, the Diwōnā. Perhaps, then there never was a Proto-Indo-European consort of the chief god, but instead she was always the local goddess.

It there was a Proto-Indo-European Diwōnā, it’s possible that she was a goddess of water, such as rivers. The Gaulish versions are mostly part of river names, and Dione was an Oceanid. The Anatolian equivalent is a goddess of river sources (Olsen, 2020, 395).

Perhaps, as West (2007, 192) points out, since we are dealing with mythology we shouldn’t look too hard for biological niceties. Still, although virgin mothers abound in world mythologies, virgin fathers are considerably rarer. Perhaps the “Sons of Dyḗus Ptḗr” we’ll be encountering were “sons” in the same way that Dyḗus Ptḗr was a father; that is, as an office, an existential relationship rather than a biological one. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Lord of the wide and shining sky,
Guardian of the well-laid law,
Dyeu Pter, preserve my people,
may their way conform to Right.

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Xáryomēn
"Xáryomēn" is one of the personalized abstractions I mentioned earlier. He is not one whose name I made up, though, being found in Ireland (Éremón (Puhvel, 1978a, 337)), Gaul (Ariomanus (Puhvel, 1978a, 337)), Anglo-Saxon England (Irmin erhabene, "exalted, sublime" (Neff, 1982, 164)), Zoroastrianism (Airyaman) (but not the arch-demon Ahriman) and the Vedas (Aryaman). The Saxon Irminsul, the name of the sacred pillar likely representing the world tree, possibly comes from his name, (although Simek (1993, 175-6), has great doubts as to the existence of a god Irmin, preferring to translate “Irminsul” as simply “great pillar,” comparing it to OHG irmindeot in the lay of Hildebrand, which he translates as simply “great god”), as well might that of the German Irmingott (West, 2007, 143), and he may have been the originating god of the Germanic Erminiones (Turville-Petre, 1964, 62). It has been suggested that iormunr, a title for Odin, comes from it as well (Turvile-Petre, 1964, 62; West, 2007, 143). His name is formed by adding *-men, a suffix similar to the English "-hood," to a root that may mean "Indo-European" (Puhvel, 1987, 182). (West (2007, 142) gives Aryo-men-, nominative "Aryomēn, masculine of neuter *aryo-men, nominative *-mṇ.) This is the root that was made famous when it was distorted by the Nazis - *H2erya-. Its descendants include Old Irish aire, "free, noble" (Puhvel, 1978, 337), and Hittite ara, "member of one's own group, peer, friend" (Puhvel, 1978, 336-337). The Hittite meaning seems closest to its original one, with "Xáryomēn" therefore meaning "The God in Charge of Our Group," specifically of doing things the way our group does them. In the Zoroastrian Gāthās, airyamen is also used to designate a social group higher than the clan or social community (West, 2007, 142). A deity with an unrelated name, Sabazios (< *swo- "one's own, ") from Thrace is a possible reflex (the name is from Polomé, 1980, 154). *Xáryomēn is therefore the deity of "Indo-Europeanness."

Xáryomēn is the partner of Dyḗus Ptḗr in the first function, the legal figure according to Dumézil's classification. He could be considered an early king, who established the laws of society. This last is his defining characteristic; just as Dyḗus Ptḗr rules (and is ruled by) natural law, Xáryomēn rules (and is ruled) by social law, the dhétis. In RV 7.93.7, Aryaman is invoked, together with his mother Aditi, to loosen the bonds of sin (Macdonell, 1897, 121), sins being violations of law. Together with Dyḗus Ptḗr he enforces justice, and oaths are sworn by him as well. He enforces contracts. Through him, the wealth of society is circulated properly among us. The Vedic Aryaman protected travelers (Dumézil, 1976, 30), an important requirement for trade. Aryoman/Airyaman was connected with roads (Puhvel, 1978, 338); i.e., with the infrastructure of a culture, particularly the means of merchants' travel, and thus of the reciprocal practice of commerce. He is therefore a god of peace and plenty, of the successful and orderly continuance of society.

Xáryomēn is a god of marriage and of healing. Aryaman plays an important point in the Vedic wedding ritual (Gonda, 1980, 113), where he is in charge of the bride’s circumambulation of the fire (Dumézil, 1976, 30). He finds marriage partners (Dumézil, 1976, 30). Éremón gave wives to the Picts (Puhvel, 1978, 338; West, 2007, 143), and cured poison from arrows in a ritual that involved pouring milk into furrows (Puhvel, 1978, 338). In Zoroastrianism, it is Airyaman who was asked by Ahura Mazda to cure the diseases that Aŋra Mainyu had brought into the world (Duschesne-Guillemin, 1969, 340-1); he can cure all 99,999 of them (Boyce, 1975, 56). He invented a healing ritual involving pouring bovine urine into furrows (Puhvel, 1978, 338-9). This at first peculiar combination of traits makes perfect sense in a Proto-Indo-European context. Marriage is a contract which ensures the continuation of the tribe in an orderly manner. It joins members of a tribe or closely related tribes into a society ruled by the dhétis. Healing is a return to the way things should be; *med-, the root of "medical," means just that, "returning to the way things should be" (Benveniste, 1973, 399). As part of the rituals surrounding the production of healing dreams from Asklepios, a sacrifice was made to Themis (Burkert, 1985, 268), < *dhétis). Xáryomēn is a god of good social order, of the right way for things to be.

I had a strong personal experience with Xáryomēn in a hotel in New York City. I was thinking of all the infrastructure it takes to support such a city – physical (roads, sewers, water pipes, electrical cables, telephone wires, etc.), abstract (laws, ordinances), and human (EMTs, police officers, fire fighters, road workers, bus drivers, etc.) I kept including more and more, and then suddenly, boom, Xáryomēn was there, as the being incorporating all of that infrastructure, and not only that, but the society that the infrastructure supports.

For all our sons, good wives.
For all our daughters, good husbands.
For all our people, happiness and health
in a land ruled by just law:
Xáryomēn, we pray to you.

And since Dyḗus Ptḗr and Xáryom̄en are often linked together, here is a prayer for them both:

Dyeu Pterkʷē Xáryomenkʷē
May what we do be according to the Dhétis.
May what we accomplish conform to the Xártus.

Benveniste, Emile. Indo-European Language and Society. tr. Elizabeth Palmer. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1973 (1969).

Boyce, Mary. A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Dumézil, Georges. The Vedic Mitra: a résumé of theses and references. Journal of Mithraic Studies 1:1 (1976), 26-35.

Gonda, J. Vedic Ritual: The Non-Solemn Rites. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. Vedic Mythology. New York: Gordon Press, 1897 (re-printed 1974).

Neff, Mary Susan. Germanic Sacrifice: An Analytical Study Using Linguistic, Archaeological, and Literary Data. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1980. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1982.

Polomé, Edgar C. The Gods of the Indo-Europeans. Mankind Quarterly 21:2 (Win-ter, 1980), 151-164.

Puhvel, Jaan. Mitra as an Indo-European Divinity. Etudes Mithraiques. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.

Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. tr. Angela Hall. Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 1993.

Turville-Petre, E. O. G. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1964.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Perkʷū́nos
Perkʷū́nos (either "Striker" or “Oak God”) is the god of thunder and lightning. His greatest myth is slaying the Great Serpent, manifestation of Chaos. As the mighty champion, he is a god of war, particularly against outside dangers and in defense of his people. As god of the thunderstorm, he is also a patron of farmers, and therefore connected with fertility, especially of crops. Other things connected with him, as will become clear, are gluttony, wheels, pillars, oaks, mountains, bulls, and goats. Above all, his reflexes are armed with a club, axe, and/or aerial weapon, which he throws.

Perkʷū́nos survived by name in Albania (Perëndi (“god,” “sky”) (Jakobson, 1972, 6)), Thrace (basically the area of modern Bulgaria) (Perkos), India (Vedic Parjanya and the Kush war god Pērūne (Jackson, 2002, 76, n. 25)), and Anatolia (Pirwa (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 694) and Peruna (Jakobson; 1969; 588, 593)). The name might also underlie Greek Keraunós “thunderbolt,” which appears as a title of Zeus, if that is a tabu-variant of *Peraunós (Jakobson, 1972, 6). His worship under a name descended from *Perkʷū́nos survived best among the Balts and Slavs; among the Lithuanians, he was called Perkunas (variably, Perū́nas (Jakobson, 1972, 5), and in early texts, Percunus, Percunos, Pirchunos, Perkuns, Parcuns, or Pargnus (West, 2007, 239)), among the Latvians Perkons, among the Old Prussians Percuno(s) (Turville-Petre, 1964, 97), and among the Slavs Perúnъ (Old Russian Perunu, Belorussion Piarun, Slovak Parom). These Balto-Slavic reflexes were extremely popular; hundreds of places are named after him among the Balts alone (Gimbutas, 1973, 466). These include villages (Lithuanian, e.g., Perkūnai, Perkūniškiai, Slavic Perun), hills (e.g., Lithuanian Perkūnkalnis, Slavic Perushtitsa), and rivers (Lithuanian e.g., Perkūnija) (Gimbutas, 1973, 467).

In some of the descendant traditions his name comes from one of his titles, the Thunderer. Thus we have the Armenian Tork’ (Russell, 1990, 2680), Anatolian Tarrḫunda/Tarhunt (Russell, 1990, 2689; Matasovič, 2009), Norse Thor and Saxon Thunor (<*Thunaraz) and Celtic Taranis (variant Tanarus), all from *TorH2nt- (Matasoviç, 2009), from *(s)tenH2- “thunder” (Jackson, 2002, 77), giving a possible Proto-Indo-European alternate name of Torxṇts. The Hittite storm god Tarḫunnaš (variants Tarhunna, Tarnunta, Tarawa), whose name has been assigned the meaning “vanquisher, smasher,” from *torh- “conquer, vanquish” (Anderson, 2008, 279; Jakobson, 1969, 588) or *terH2- “idem” (Jackson, 2002, 77) may belong to this group as well. Perun is sometimes called Gromovnik, “Thunder God” (Kropej, 2003, 121). Parjanya receives the title stanayitnú- “Thunderer”(Jackson, 2002, 77). There was a temple to Jupiter Tonans, “Thunderer,” on the Roman Capitol (Johnson, 1958, 65).

Reflexes with unrelated names include the Celtic deity known in Gaul, Ireland, and Wales Lugos, Lug, and Lleu (Old Welsh Lau (Koch and Fernández, 2017, 52)), respectively (etymology uncertain), the Greek/Roman Herakles/Hercules (“Glory of Hera” or possibly “Famed for Strength” (Mallory and Adams, 117, 1997)), and the Roman Mars (of unknown etymology). And of course there is the most famous Indo-European dragon-slayer of all, the Vedic Indra (possibly “one swollen with power“ (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 561)). The Irish god “the Dagda” (“The Good God”) also falls into this group; in Tochmarc Étaine he is said to control the weather (Sayers, 1982, 356). He further has by-names such as reo (“dense darkness; throw, cast”), oíbell (“spark of flame), and áith “sharp, keen” (Sayer, 1982, 345). Another, however, Cerrce, may come from *perkʷ- (Sayers, 1982, 345-6). In Armenian epic, Sanasar is the hero who uses his “lightning sword” to kill a dragon. His mother is named Covinar, which means “lightning,” who sometimes disguises herself as a man (Petrosyan, 2017, 172).

Other names by which Perkʷū́nos might be called in modern prayers today (they aren’t reconstructed for him) are *Koryonos, “god of the warband” (*koryos, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 30-1), Ḱerdhos (with the same meaning) (Weiss, 2017, 374), and Ḱówṛs *ḱóuh1r-), “Powerful One, Hero” (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 560).

The Baltic god Perkūnas (and other versions of this Baltic god) was connected with oaks, such as in a Latvian daina in which he’s said to strike an oak, cleaving it (Zaroff, 2019, 199). There were oaks (but also sorb trees) dedicated to Perkūnas in Samogitia attested in the 17th century (Zaroff, 2019, 200).

The thunder god was extremely popular. Indra is the most commonly mentioned god in the Rig Veda. Herakles/Hercules was worshiped all over Greece, and even beyond (Burker, 1979, 78).

The myth of Perkʷū́nos slaying a great serpent is the best-reconstructed Proto-Indo-European myth, surviving in many reflexes. Perkunas killed the dragon Áitvaras (West, 2007, 240). Indra killed a number of serpents/demons, the most famous being Vṛtra, a myth told many times (for instance RV 1.32; see O’Flaherty, 1975, 74-90 for examples). Herakles killed the multi-headed Hydra (Apollodorus, 2.5), the serpent of the Hesperides, and the serpents sent to kill him in the cradle. In the dindshenchas of Mag Muirthemne, the Dagda kills some kind of underwater monster with his “thunder-club” (lorg anfaidh; Gwynn, 1924, 4:295, translates it “mace of wrath,” but “thunder-club” is equally legitimate, and I think more likely). Thor is in constant opposition to the Midgard Serpent. Thor will kill and be killed by him in the final battle of Ragnarøk (Snorri, “Gylfaginning” 51). He fishes the serpent up and brings his hammer down on his head, but the serpent escapes (“Hymiskviða” 21-24, Hollander, 1962). In an early version, related by the tenth century Úlf Uggason, Thor killed the serpent some time before Ragnarøk (Turville-Petre, 1964, 76). The tale of their battle is also represented in stone reliefs (Stone, 1999, 17; Turville-Petre, 1964, 76). One of the panels of the Gundestrup cauldron, a silver-gilt work of art created in the Balkans or northeastern Italy but transported to and discovered in Gundestrup, Denmark, shows a deity holding a wheel, the symbol of the Gaulish Taranis. At the bottom of the panel is a ram-headed serpent. In eastern Gaul and western Germany we find the Jupiter columns, with their snake-spearing (or snake with men’s heads or upper bodies-spearing) Jupiters (note how in this last one the Jupiter figure has Taranis’ wheel on his shoulder) on top. Since the snakes sometimes have human heads, the columns may be meant to depict the fight with the semi-serpentine Typhoeus, but these columns are found only in this limited Celtic area, so they most likely represent something which was found in Celtic myth, represented in a classical form. Note that in these cases we are dealing with Jupiter the thunder and lightning god, not the reflex of Dyḗus Ptḗr. This myth may have survived into Christian times in the legend of St. George killing a dragon, represented in art in a form strikingly similar to that of the Jupiter columns.

In Albania, there is a monster called bolla, a term otherwise used for grass snakes (which are positive figures in both the Balkans and the Baltic regions), which on St. George’s Day (April 23) opens its eyes and eats whomever it sees. It was originally defeated by St. George (who hunts in the mountains (Elsie, 2001,100)), and cursed to be only able to open its eyes on this day (Elsie, 2001, 47). The dragon kulshedra, who guards the Earthly, Sea, and Heavenly Beauties, is a form of this dragon. She is defeated by St. Elias, who comes riding on his white horse or chariot of fire to kill her with thunderbolts (Elsie, 2001, 83). Her approach is accompanied by rain clouds. Churches dedicated to St. Elias are usually on hill tops (Elsie, 2001, 84).

The dragon-slayer is often accompanied by a human helper. Thus, Indra is helped in the killing of Trisiras by Trita Āptya (RV10.8). He returns the favor by helping Trita kill the serpent Viśvarūpa (West, 2007, 260), cutting off the snake’s heads. Herakles is helped to kill the Hydra by Iolaos (Hesiod, Theogony, 313-18). The Ukrainian dragon-slaying god is helped by a smith, although he is also a god (West, 2007, 259). The wheel on the Gundestrup cauldron is held up by a smaller figure, almost certainly meant to be a human rather than a deity. The reverse is the case with the Iranian Θraētaona, who kills the serpent Aži Dahāka with the help of the storm-god Vāyu (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 138).

The serpent often has multiple heads, usually three, or is multiple is some other way. The hydra, for instance, is shown in Greek art with a varying number of heads (see, e.g., Kron, 1998, 1991, figs. 1 and 2), although the canonical number is nine (Apollodorus 2.5.2, Hyginus 30). The serpent of the Hesperides had a hundred heads (Apollodorus 2.5.11), Trisiras has three, the kulshedra has seven to twelve (or nine tongues (West, 2007, 259)), Viśvarūpa three heads (RV 10.8.9; West, 2007, 260), and Aži Dahāka has three heads (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 138). There were two snakes killed by Herakles in his crib (Apollodorus 2.4.8, Hyginus 30). Geryon, a monster in mostly human form who was killed by Herakles, had three bodies (Apollodorus 2.5.10; Pausanias 5.19.1), joined at the waist, giving him three heads (Carpenter, 1991, fig. 201; Graves, 1965, 132) (or three bodies from the waist down, which would have meant he only had one head (Apollodorus, 2.5.10). (Geryon was the son of Chrysaor, who sprang from the neck of the decapitated Medusa, who had snakes for hair (Hesiod, Theogony, 280-93).) Thor is once called “cleaver of the nine heads of Þrívaldi” (Snorri, “Skáldskaparmál 4”; Lindow, 1988, 120).

The serpent is also connected with water in some way. The Midgard Serpent surrounds the earth in the waters. In “Skáldskaparmál” (Snorri, Epilogue 2) the Serpent is called “the water-soaked earth-band” against which Thor will “test his strength.” It is in the world-surrounding sea (Snorri, “Gylfaginning,” 34), and is called “Fiorgyn’s eel” (Snorri, Epilogue 57). We have seen how Thor fishes the serpent up from the sea. Geryon lives in “sea-girt Erythea” (Hesiod, Theogony, 290) and his mother was a daughter of Ocean (Apollodorus 2.5.10); the Hydra (“water”) lives in a swamp (Apollodorus 2.5.2); and the serpent of the Hesperides lives next to the ocean. The monster which the Dagda defeats is at the bottom of the sea. Vṛtra lays around (parisayānam) the waters, withholding them; Indra is “conquering in the waters” (Macdonell, 1897, 59). “Kulshedra” comes from the Greek kersúdros, “amphibious snake” (Elias, 2001, 153) and can turn herself into an eel, a turtle, a frog, or a salamander (Elias, 2001, 155), all water animals. She lives beneath a lake or a swamp, and rust-colored springs are believed to contain her blood; one way she kills people is by drowning them in her milk or urine (Elias, 2001, 155). She can cause wells to run dry, being appeased only by a human sacrifice (Elias, 2001, 155). In Albania, dead snakes were used in rain magic (Elias, 2001, 215). I think we are seeing here the connection between water and Chaos, of which the serpent is a representation.

Alternatively, the serpent might be guarding either women or cows (sometimes identified with each other). The Albanian kulshedra, guarding the three Beauties, is an example of this. Geryon guards cattle (Apollodorus 2.5.10; Hesiod, Theogony, 982-3; Carpenter, 1991, 126). The waters withheld by Vṛtra are described as cattle in a stall (West, 2007, 259). Cutting off the heads of Viśvarūpa released cows (RV 10.8.9, 10.48.2). Θraētaona wins women (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 138). The many maidens guarded by dragons in folklore may be part of this motif.

Sometimes it is the hero who is triple. On one of the fifth-century gold horns from Gallehus, in Schleswig, we find a three headed man holding an axe. To his right is a goat, which he seems to hold on a leash. To his left are three snakes, one large one which seems to suckle the others (Davidson, 1988, 43, f. 2). A marble relief from Plovdiv in Thrace depicts a three-headed horseman with an axe, whom the family setting it up thanks for “health and safety” (Schiltz, 1987, 303).

As a hero god, Perkʷū́nos conquered many other opponents, both human and monstrous, beside the serpent(s). Thor fought giants, both male and female (Turville-Petre, 1964, 76), and dwarfs, and other, little-known monsters, including the expected wolves (Lindow, 1988). Herakles, in his labors, killed the Nemean lion and the Stymphalian birds, as well as fighting other dangerous animals. Lug kills Balor, who has a single eye that can kill by its gaze, and his Welsh equivalent Lleu kills, of all things, a wren (earning, thereby, the title “Of the Skillful Hand” (Ford, 1977, 101).)

The Baltic hero was an ensurer of fertility. He was prayed to to send rain, as the Latvians did to Perkons (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 575) or, alternatively, to withhold damaging storms (West, 2007, 239; Gimbutas, 1973, 474). The Balts and Slavs believed that the first thunder of spring would “unlock the earth” (West, 2007, 259), causing plants to grow again; lightning achieves the same result (Gimbutas, 1973, 471; 1971, 165). The thunder revivified all living things (Laurinkienė, 2000, 152).

Thor and Lug have fertility connections. In Þrymskviða, Thor’s hammer is used to bless a bride (actually Thor himself in disguise), perhaps intended to give her fertility; the hammer has been interpreted in this case as phallic (Turville-Petre, 1964, 81). In both Denmark and Sweden there are wheatfields dedicated to him (Thórsakr) (Turville-Petre, 1964, 93-4), and in England there are Thunderfeld and Thunresfeld (Turville-Petre, 1962, 20). Lug gains the secrets of grain from Bres (Cath Mag Tuired), namely when to plough, sow, and reap. Both Perkunas (among other things an agricultural deity) and Zeus (who, as we have seen has, a form of Zeus Georgius, “Zeus the Farmer”) are associated with Thursdays (Tuménas, 2016, 360).

Because of this, it is possible that Perkʷū́nos’ wife is the Earth. Fjǫrgyn “Earth,” is, however, the mother of Thor, not his wife (Harbarðsljóð 56, Vǫluspá 55, Þrymskviða 1). It may be significant that the deity with the masculine version of the name, Fjǫrgynn, is the father of the fertility goddess Frigg. (Simek, 1993, 86, doesn’t think much of the idea that Fjǫrgynn was the predecessor of Thor, but that doesn’t prevent the name from being an alternate name of him.) (Simek, 1993, 86, doesn’t think much of the idea that Fjǫrgyn was the predecessor of Thor, but that doesn’t prevent the name from being an alternate name of him.) In Gylfaginning 10, and Skáldskaparmál in several places, Thor’s mother is Jǫrð, which, however, simply means “earth.” On the other hand, Parjanya is sometimes the consort of Earth (AV 12.1.12, Whitney, 1905, 663; Macdonell, 1999, 104; 1897, 84), and, similar to Perkons,it is his rain that is the semen that fertilizes her: “Nature is born for the whole world when Parjanya quickens the earth with his seed” (RV 5.83.4; Macdonell, 1999). In the rest of this hymn, dedicated to Parjanya, he is described as “bellowing,” just as Indra is, and as accompanied by the Maruts, who are thunderstorm spirits that more commonly accompany Indra. (It must be noted, however, that Dyaus also fertilizes the earth (RV 1.100.3, 5.17.3, in West, 2007, 181).) Indra has become the thunder god in the Vedas, but besides his name and his rain, Parjanya is the “father of the mighty bird” (RV 9.82.3, in Hillebrandt, 1980 (1929), 227) which brought the soma, the sacred drink of which Indra is so fond. It is both amusing and highly appropriate that in the agnihotra ritual Parjanya is offered to next to the water-barrel (Gonda, 1980, 417), which would have been filled by rain.

There is some question, however, as to whether the name of “Parjanya” belongs to this list. According to West (2007, 245), the expected outcome in Vedic Sanskrit should be “**Parkyn(y)a. Some have suggested a combination of another “strike” root, *per-ǵ-, and then perhaps taboo deformation to fix things. The name “Perkunas” was avoided by those in the Baltic lands (Gimbutas, 1973, 469-700), and there is the possible Greek Keraunos mentioned earlier to provide precedent. I am not competent to judge on the linguistics, but I find it difficult to believe that a name so close for a deity so close is not related somehow.

Herakles is not generally considered a thunder-god. However, as we have seen he is a serpent-killer and he is armed with both a club and fiery arrows. According to Apollodorus (2.4.9), fire flashes from his eyes . On the continent, he was sometimes identified with Donar (“thunder”), with whom Jupiter was also sometimes identified (Davidson, 1988, 207). According to Macrobius (3.12.2), there was a description of the rites of his Roman counterpart Hercules in a book by Varro named On Thunder. It is unfortunate that we don’t know much about this book, but the connection between Hercules and thunder is suggestive. Hercules was identified with Semo Sancus Dius Fidius (Johnson, 1958, 53), in whose shrine, according to Livy (8.20.8, in Weiss, 2010, 266), were bronze spheres or wheels (anei orbes (Johnson, 1958, 54)), perhaps a sort of thunderstone. Sancus may be from sancire, “strike,” and was worshiped in places that had been struck by lightning (Johnson, 1958, 54).

Mars is also not often thought of as a god of thunder and lightning, that role being taken by Jupiter. I believe he should be seen this way, however (as does York, 1988, 160). First, Jupiter likely acquired his thunderbolt from Zeus, who in turn acquired it from the Near Eastern chief gods who are thunder gods. The names of both deities – “Shining (sky)” – show that originally they couldn’t originally have been gods of the stormy, and therefore cloudy, sky. The connection of Mars with agriculture has puzzled generations of classicists, with the usual explanation being that he is the protector of fields (e.g Dumézil, 1970, 175), but it can easily be explained if he was in origin a thunder god, provider of rain. In Rome the Salii priests danced in honor of Mars through the city each March 1st (Mars’ birthday (Kershaw, 2000, 122)), 9th, 19th, and 23rd in armor; one of their shields, the ancilia, was that which had been cast down from the sky, and the others were duplicates (Scullard, 1981, 85-6, 93). Dumézil (1970, 146-7) is quite insistent that they were actually thrown down by Jupiter, referring to Servius 8.663, which says they are in the care of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, and asking rhetorically who else besides Jupiter could grant the sovereignty the ancilia guarantee, or throw things down from heaven. The question is a little more complicated, however. In Livy 5.52.7 the ancilia belong to Mars and Quirinus, while according to Statius, Silvae 5.2.129 it is Mars’ shield that fell from the sky. The sovereignty argument can be simply answered by the fact that Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus (Dionysius of Halicarnassus 2.2.3; Plutarch, Life of Romulus 2.3, give Mars as a possible father, although he himself considers the question unsettled), the founders of Rome; i.e., he gave birth to those who gave birth to Rome. Mars and Quirinus are at least sometimes identified; Servius (292; in Dumézil, 1970, 261-2) says that when Mars is tranquil he is Quirinus. And it is Mars who is the only member of all three lists. In the hymn the Salii sing, Mars is assigned the epithet Leuceste, referring to light. Dumézil (1966, 178) considers this to refer to lightning. It is therefore likely that the ancilia come from Mars. Hercules also had Salii (Macrobius 3.12.5-8); Macrobius says this is because Mars and Hercules were the same god. (We have already seen how Hercules was likely a reflex of Perkʷū́nos.) There was a stone kept near the temple of Mars in Rome which was carried in a procession to outside the city as a rain-making ritual (Scullard, 1981, 15). The bird sacred to Mars is the woodpecker; Dumézil (1970, 237, n. 49) points out that this bird is a “striker.” Mars was also connected with the oak (York, 1988, 161). Finally, there are Etruscan mirrors on which Mars (or three Marses; recall the triplicity associated with the dragon-slaying myth) appears to be the son of Hercle (Dumézil, 1970, 244), Etruscan for Herakles, whom we have already seen to be a reflex of Perkʷū́nos.

Mars’ role as a protector of agriculture (Pinsent, 1986, 182; Scullard, 1981, 83) is relevant here as well. He’s also connected with fertility through the story of the conception of Romulus and Remus, or rather the conceptions, since one tale just says that they were the sons of Mars, while another tells of a phallus appearing on the hearth of the king of the Albans, with which the king commanded his daughter to have intercourse. (She actually made her maid do it.) (Plutarch, “Life of Romulus,” 2.3-4, Lives). We are not told that the two stories are connected, but we have to consider at least the possibility that the phallus is meant to be that of Mars. There are images of Mars in a fertility role in the Cotswolds (Green, 1986, 136); this would likely be a British god identified with him, but those doing the identifying must have seen Mars as himself associated with fertility.

The hero Beowulf may be an epic reflex of this deity. At the end of his tale he, like Thor, kills and is killed by a dragon, and earlier he dives beneath the sea in his greatest deed of slaying Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Both these monsters come from beneath the sea to attack the well-ordered hall of Hrothgar, which, as Michael Enright (1996, 5) puts it, “symbolize[s] the realm of warmth, protection and honor standing true against the wintery waste and chaos of the stormy world outside.” Chaos threatens Cosmos, and the representatives of Chaos must be destroyed by the hero.

Perhaps the most famous reflex, however, is Indra, the Vedic champion god. His major deed is killing the great serpent Vṛtra, after being fortified with the sacred drink soma. He is so identified with this myth that he is often called simply Vṛtrahan, “killer of Vṛtra.” In Iran he survived under both names, as a demon Indara, and a god, Vərəθraγna. This is even though his dragon-slaying myth does not survive there, and there is no demon with the name Vərəθra, which would have been the Iranian version of Vṛtra (Duschesne-Guillemin, 1969, 332-3).

The Dagda has his “thunder club.” When Lug asks him what power he can put against the Fomorians, he says that the dead under his club will be as many as “hailstones under the feet of horses” (“Cath Maige Tuired,” Gray, 1982, 119). He also has an axe; when a woman said that she would block every ford before him with an oak tree (notice that the tree is an oak), he said he would go past and leave a mark from his axe on them (“Cath Maige Tuired,” Gray, 1982, 93).

Both Lug (Gray, 1982, 61) and Lleu kill with rocks; Lug uses a sling, and Lleu goes barehand. (Kim McCone (in Radner, 1991, 143)) holds that the battle between Lug and Balor, including, I would presume, the use of a sling, was influenced by that of David and Goliath. However, the parallel with Lleu, a story which is less similar to the biblical one, suggests that this is not the case.) Lug also has a spear that no foe has ever withstood (“Cath Maige Tuired”, Gray, 1982, 25). In some folklore variants, Lug’s weapon is a red-hot iron staff from a smithy (Radner, 1991, 142), but that can be seen as a variant of a spear, perhaps connected with lightning because of its heat, and because it is taken from a smith, the user of fire, iron, and a great hammer. Lleu later uses a specially made spear against an enemy (Ford, 1977, 108-9), but it’s against his wife’s lover.

Thor’s famous hammer was named Mjöllnir, which is cognate with Russian molnija, Old Prussian mealde, and Welsh melt, all of which mean “lightning” (Maher, 1973, 450), and, more significantly, with the Latvian Perkun’s hammer milna (Lindow, 1994, 488). Thor’s hammer may have been a later replacement for an axe (Davidson, 1969, 614), which is found in Landnámabók (Sturlubók, ch. 257, in DuBois, 1999, 161; Turville-Petre, 1964, 84). His weapon is also described as a club (Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica III, 73, in DuBois, 1999, 159). He is also connected with arrows, being referred to as Véurr, “Archer,” and Harðvéurr, “Strong Archer” (Simek, 1993, 131). We’ve seen the axe of the three-headed figure on the Gallehus horn.

Perkunas can be armed with a mace, a spear, a sword, an iron rod, arrows, or stone bullets (West. 2007, 240), and Perúnъ with an axe (Kropej, 2003, 126; West, 2007, 242), arrow (West, 2007, 242), club (Polomé, 1983, 547), or hammer (Kropej, 2003, 126). The strely, “arrow,” of Perkunas is, despite its name, a Neolithic axe or a piece of a meteor (Gimbutas, 1973, 475). Stone tools, i.e., Neolithic axes and such, often turned up by farmers when plowing, were believed in Germanic and Lithuanian folklore to be thunderbolts (Maher, 1973, 446; Stephany, 2006, 8, n. 14; Vaitkevičius, 2013, 49). This connects with a belief held of Perkunas that the first thunderstorms of spring fertilized the fields (Gimbutas, 1973, 471). This forms one more connection of the Thunder God with agriculture. These "thunderbolts" were used as talismans to protect homes from lightning (Gimbutas, 1973, 476) and to protect soldiers and hunters (Maher, 1973, 446). Fossils of the internal shell of an extinct mollusk (belemnites) that are cylindrical with a pointed end were identified with Perkunas’s bullets (Tumėnas, 2016, 363). Fossilized belemnites and sea urchins were also thought to be thunderbolts in Denmark and Britain (Tumėnas, 2016, 363).

The enemies of the kulshedra, the drangues, (or dragua (Elsie, 2001, 83)) fight with her with meteors or lightning (West, 2007, 259), or with a plough (Elsie, 2001, 208). A three-headed figures from Thrace carries an axe.

Although a club was Herakles’ defining weapon (he is almost never shown without it), he more often fights with arrows. This is how he killed Geryon (Apollodorus 2.5.10) (although in a 7th century BCE bronze relief, as well as one from the 6the century BCE, he uses a sword (Carpenter, 1991, fig. 201, 202)) and the serpent of the Hesperides (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 4.1422 ff.; Graves, II, 146). He killed the Hydra with both flaming arrows and his club (the arrows forced it out of its lair, and he used the club to crush its heads), with the help of Iolaus burning the heads as he crushed them (Apollodorus, 2.5.2) (or as he cut them off). Apollodorus (2.4.9) also provides him with a javelin, another airborne weapon.

Tarhunt carried an axe and lightning bolt (Bryce, 2002, 144); he might also use a mace (Güterbock, 1950, 89). Indra was armed with some sort of throwing club (it may also be used to strike), called the vájra. It is likely of copper, since it is described as “red-brown,” the Vedic term for copper (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 112), but is also sometimes called aśman “stone” or parvata “rock” (Macdonell, 1897, 55). In RV 1.85.9. it has a thousand spikes. As well as his vájra, Indra also used arrows (RV 8.66.6-7; 10.103.3).

Proto-Indo-European *H2ekmon applies to a constellation of ideas including the sky, thunder, and stone axes (Maher, 1979, 161).

The weapons of the reflexes vary, then, but they can be categorized as either clubs (Perkunas, Indra, Herakles, the Dagda, Thor, the Hittite Weather God) or aerial weapons (mainly thrown axes and hammers (Perkunas, Perúnъ, Thor) but also arrows (Herakles, Perúnъ, Perkunas, Indra; Indra’s vájra, although a club, is also thrown)). There are inscriptions to a plural Lugos in Spain where he is given the epithet “Arquius,” meaning “archer” (Koch and Fernández, 2017, 41). The most primitive of these weapons would be a club or axe.

From all this, I believe that Perkʷū́nos’ classic weapon is the double-headed axe. Saxo, in Gesta Danorum, reports a hammer of bronze in a temple in Sweden which were associated with Thor (Stephany, 2006, 4). We have already seen Semo Sancus Dius Fidius associated with bronze spheres, and that Indra’s vájra was called “reddish-brown” and was therefore most likely copper. I suggest, therefore, that Perkʷū́nos’ axe was either flint or, if metal, either bronze or copper.

The Proto-Indo-European word for his weapon would be *wágros, “smasher” (Watkins, 1995, 411; West, 2007, 460), from which Indra’s weapon, the vájra, draws its name. Perkʷū́nos throws his wágros, and it returns to him to be thrown again. It does not take much imagination to see in a club or an aerial weapon an image of lightning.

An attribute found in the western Indo-European world which does not seem to be a weapon is the wheel (although the deity on the Gundestrup cauldron may be using it as such; perhaps it has been broken in the battle). This is commonly found in British and Gaulish representations which appear to combine Jupiter and a Celtic god, presumably Taranis. There are inscriptions which identify the two, such as one from Chester, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Tanarus (Green, 1986, 130). There are also images which combine the two, with a wheel in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other (e.g., MacCana, 1970, 35). One intriguing image is on a pottery stamp from Corbridge (Ross, 1967, pl. 65a), which shows a helmeted god carrying a shield and leaning on a crooked club. A wheel is on the ground to his right (since this is a mold, in the formed version it would have been on his left). The helmet and shield may link him with Mars, who is a protector and agricultural god, and the club with the snake-killer Hercules. That the club is crooked may be an attempt to portray a lightning flash. We would therefore have a Taranis-Mars-Hercules, and a god who is a protector, agricultural, a slayer of serpents, and connected with lightning, accompanied by a wheel. One of the Dagda’s by-names is Roth, “Wheel,” and his club is so long it has to be supported by one (Cath Maige Tuired, Gray, 1982, 93). In Rome, Summanus, who was the god of nocturnal lightning, was offered bread in “the shape of a wheel” (Festus 474.17L; in Glinister, 2014, 219).

We have already seen how the wheel can be a sun symbol, and there are those, such as Miranda Green (see, for example, her 1986, 130-1), who identify the wheel found with the thunder god (and, indeed, all wheels) that way, and believe that its connection with the thunder god is as a celestial symbol. It must be remembered, however, that a symbol can have more than one meaning. I don’t see, however, why a sun would be an appropriate symbol for a god of the cloudy sky. More likely is that the wheel is a representation of thunder, which even today we describe as “rolling.” This seems to have been the Germanic concept as well; thunder in both Old English and Icelandic is referred to as “travelling or moving” (Turville-Petre), and thunder-gods often move in chariots.

There is a possible connection between columns and thunder gods. In Gaul (particularly eastern France and western Germany) and Britain we find the Jupiter columns. “Thurstable,” the name of a place in England, had the original meaning of “Thor’s Pillar” (Turville-Petre, G., 1962, 21; Turville-Petre, E. O. G., 1964, 99). Thor was the god of house pillars (Turville-Petre, 1964, 88). There is a Vedic festival named Indramahotsava, held in early August, which involves erecting a pole; it is “Indra’s feast” (Gonda 1980, 427; Kuiper, 1975, 111; Toffin, 1922, 80). Indra was also connected with the sacrificial pillar, the yūpa (Woodard, 2006, 95). The close connection between Odin and Yggdrasill (he hangs on it to gain the runes, his horse is tied to it) may be relevant; although Odin is not a thunder god, he is the chief one. In fact, perhaps it is being chief god, rather than being the thunder god, that makes the connection; the god of the pillar is the god of the axis mundi. Might “the pillars of Hercules” be connected here? There is certainly a myth explaining them, but the use of the word “pillar” to describe them is suggestive; other words could have been used.

Perúnъ was a god of truth, specifically of oaths. He was invoked in treaties; in one case it was said that oath-breakers, who had thereby become accursed by him, would be slain by their own weapons (Jakobson, 1969, 582; Turville-Petre, 1964, 96). Thor was also a god who enforced law (Davidson, 1969, 613). The enforcement of law by Perkʷū́nos is a natural outgrowth of his role of slaying forces of disorder.

Perkunas is described by Simon Grunau in the Prussian Chronicle (dating from c. 1520), (West, 2007, 240), as “an angry-looking middle-aged man with a fiery face and a dark crinkly beard. He spits fire, and hurls an axe or (less often) a hammer, which returns to his hand.” Perúnъ has a tawny (West, 2007, 242) or copper (Gimbutas, 1971, 165) beard. Indra also has a tawny beard (RV 10.23.4, in Macdonell, 1897, 55) as well as tawny hair (10.96.5, 8 in Macdonell, 1897, 55).

Indra’s arms are long and far-extended (Macdonell, 1897, 55), lining up nicely with “Lug of the Long Arm” (Rees & Rees, 1961, 52). The epithets likely refer to the two deities’ throwing ability.

The sacred animal of Perkʷū́nos is the bull, an animal of great power, rampant sexuality, and danger (For Perkunas, Gimbutas, 1973, 470.) Among the Romans, only Mars was offered a bull specified as fertile (Puhvel, 1978b, 360). The Umbrians sacrificed bull-calves to Mars Hodius (“The Bronze Tablets of Iguvium” I b 3; in Poultney, 1959, 162; Weiss, 2010, 248) and three bulls to Mars Grabovius (VI b 1, Weiss, 2010, 248, n. 7. Poultney (1959), 251, had previously translated this as “three oxen.”) Cato (On Agriculture, 83) relates a ritual for the health of cattle directed towards Mars Silvanus. Bulls are also not the only animals sacrificed to Mars in Rome; in Cato’s famous suovotaurilia prayer (On Agriculture, 141), he is offered a calf, a lamb, and a pig (probably a piglet).) Procopius (De Bellico Gothico 3.14) tells us that bulls were sacrificed to the Slavic thunder god, and, indeed, bulls were sacrificed to St. Elias, his Christian replacement, into modern times (Polomé, 983, 546) (although Elsie, 2001, 84, says oxen). In Armenia, a black bull was associated with the thunder god (Petrosyan 2011, 346). Black bulls were also offered to the Lithuanian and Hittite thunder gods (Petrosyan, 2011, 347). A plaque from Thrace with a horseman similar to the three-headed one depicts a bull sacrifice (Schiltz, 1987, 298). Indra eats many buffaloes (Macdonell, 1897, 56), and may take the form of a red bull (Hillebrandt, 1980 (1929), 132). His mother is identified as a heifer and he as a bull in RV 4.18.10. RV 1.171.5 calls him a “strong and terrible bull.” In RV 1.32.11, he is compared as a bull to the castrated steer Vṛtra, who he has just destroyed. In sacrifices to him, the dakṣiṇā (the gift to the priest) was a bull (Hillebrandt, 1980 (1929), 132). In the triple sacrifice, the sautrāmaṇi, of a ram, a bull, and a buck, the bull is sacrificed to him (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 138). Parjanya is sometimes called a bull, who fertilizes the earth (RV 5.83.1; Macdonell, 1897, 83). The hoof beats of a running bull suggest thunder. One of the Proto-Indo-European words for "bull," *wisontos, means "the one who urinates." The combination of bellowing and urination brings to mind the god of thunderstorms.

Some of his reflexes are connected with goats. An image of Thor described in the late 12th or early 13th century is seated in a chariot drawn by goats, which is how is described in the Haustlong as well (Turville-Petre, 1964, 81-2). He is even called “lord of goats” (Hvmiskviða 20, 31; Turville-Petre, 1964, 82). The Gallehus figure has a goat on a leash. The car of Perkunas is drawn by one or more (West, 2007, 240; Gimbutas, 1980, 165; Gimbutas, 1973, 466). A 16th century sacrifice to Percuno(s) included a goat (Turville-Petre, 1964, 97). The infant Zeus, who has acquired the thunder and lightning power of Perkʷū́nos is fed with goat’s milk. Zeus sits on a goat skin when he produces rain (Gimbutas, 1973, 471). There was a Roman festival of Jupiter at the Caprae Palus, “Marsh of the She-Goat” (Evans, 1974, 103). The Ossetes set up a pole with a black goat’s skin on it by the grave of someone who had been struck by lightning (Evans, 1974, 103, n. 2).

Finally, Indra was associated with rams; he is called one (RV 1.51.1, 1.52.1), or even takes the form of one (RV 8.2.40).

Bulls, goats, and rams are, of course, animals connected strongly with male sexuality and fertility.

It is probable that rituals in honor of Perkʷū́nos involved dancing. Mars and Hercules had their Salii. Zeus had his Kouretes, who drowned out his crying as a baby, thereby protecting him from Cronos, by dancing with spears and shields ( Apollodorus, 1.1.7, 1.1.7). Hesiod (Fragment 6, in Hesiod, 1937, 277) calls them “sportive dancers.” There were dances to Herakles celebrating his slaying of various monsters, especially Cerberus (Lonsdale, 1993, 272). Zeus himself is said to be a dancer (“The Epic Cycle” 5, in Hesiod, 1936, 481), and Perkons danced as well (Ogibenin, 1974, 33, n. 11). The Armenian Sanasar’s mother Covinar dances in the clouds (Petrosyan, 2017, 172). Indra and the Maruts were called nṛtu, “dancers” (Dumézil 1970a, 211).

It is certainly true that in the western Indo-European world there were dancers associated with military endeavors. In Livy, in Iberia they precede gladiatorial combat (21.41.3) and the onset of battle (38.17.4), and among the Gauls as they enter battle (38.17.4); the Germans also dance as they go into battle (Tacitus, Histories 5.17) (references in Hanibek, 2005, 22). As part of their training for adulthood initiation (that is, into a warrior’s status), Cretan adolescents were taught to dance (Bremmer, 1999, 44), as they were at Sparta Athenaeus (14). (On the other hand, girls were also taught to dance in their periods of initiation (Bremmer, 1999, 69), so this may not be significant. A poem of Socrates recorded by Athenaeus (14) says that those who are best in dance is best in war. It’s worth noting, however, that in Greece weapon dances were also performed in honor of Apollo and Artemis (Lonsdale, 1993, 73).

The Thunder God is a glutton. Thor in the land of giants downs three barrels of mead and the Dagda eats a cauldron full of eighty gallons of milk, eighty gallons of oats, eighty gallons of fat, goats, sheep, and pigs (“Cath Maige Tuired,” Gray, 1982, 89-92). Thor can eat two whole bulls (“Hymiskvitha” 15: Crawford, 2015, 94). On one occasion he ate an ox, eight salmon, “all the delicacies reserved for the women” at the feast, and drank three kegs of mead (“Thrymskvitha” 24: Crawford, 2015, 120). A statue of Thor which St. Olaf of Norway destroyed had been offered four loaves of bread a day; although Chaney (147, n. 133) seems to suggest that this was because of some significance of the number four, that’s still a lot of loaves for one god to eat in a day. According to Festus (358 L2; in Dumézil, 1970, 436), Hercules could be offered anything edible or drinkable.Plutarch (Roman Questions 18) describes Hercules as a huge eater. In the Greek Anthology 9.316, there are two gods at a border, Hermes and Herkales. Hermes says that if wild pears are offered to Herakles, he “bolts them down,” and if grapes are offered, Herakles doesn’t care if they are ripe or sour. Herakles he can eat two oxen at one sitting (Burkert, 1979, 96). At one of his sacrifices, the entire animal had to be eaten on the spot, including the skin (Dumézil, 1970a, 436-7). Eating was central to the festivals of Herakles (Burkert, 1979, 96), and Burkert writes “comedy has made him the glutton par excellence” (1979, 96). Images of him often shown him at banquets, either with family members or other deities (Jameson, 1994, 47). Indra can eat up to three hundred buffaloes (Keith, 1989, 124-5) and drinks more soma than he should. He is so much of a glutton that in RV 10.28.2 he has two stomachs.

There is an ancient connection between Perkʷū́nos and Dyḗus Ptḗr (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 694), (possibly pre-dating the rise of the social division seen in the ideology of the three functions), as gods of the stormy and of the sunny sky, respectively. This is well expressed in the comparison between their usual sacrificial victims, the unpredictable, passionate bull (the stormy sky), and the placid, rulable ox (the clear sky).

There is an interesting parallel between two myths told of Thor and of Indra. Loki has stolen Thor’s hammer and given it to the giants. To get it back, the two travel to the land of the giants, with Thor dressed as a woman. A comic tale follows, with Thor supposedly there to marry one of the giants. Indra, on the other hand, falls in love with an Asura. He goes to live among them, in the form of a woman among the women, and a man among the men (Macdonell, 1897, 57). The combination of taking a female form among Outsiders is interesting and suggestive, but we can’t go any further.

It is possible that being on horseback was a characteristic of Perkʷū́nos. As well as the Jupiter columns, there is an altar dedicated to Perúnъ (found at Peryn’, near Novgorod, where he is on horseback, and the Hittite Pirwa also rode a horse (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 474). The Roman horse sacrifice was dedicated to Mars, and the Vedic one originally to Indra. However, this remains only a possibility.

There is some question as to whether his name should be translated as “Striker” or “Oak God.” The *perkʷ- in his name may be that which is the root of “percussion,” or the source of words meaning "oak," perhaps because oaks were believed to be often struck by lightning (Gimbutas, 1973, 467; Polomé, 1983, 546). (This has, in fact, been shown to be the case in reality (Hillebrandt, 1980 (1929), 398-9)). The root has reflexes meaning “strike” in Lithuanian (perti), Slavic (prati), and Armenian (harkanem) (Gimbutas, 1973, 466, n. 1). In Latin (quercus) and Celtic (hercos), on the other hand, the meaning is “oak” and “oak forest,” respectively. Other descendants are linked with "mountain" (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 526-527), such as Hittite peruna and Sanskrit párvata, both meaning “mountain top” (Gimbutas, 1973, 466); this is also the case in the Gothic fairguni (Jakobson, 1972, 6). Maximus of Tyre provides the additional information that the Celts venerated oaks as a symbol of Zeus (Davidson, 1988, 23; Ross, 1967, 33). There was an oak grove dedicated to Thor at Dublin.

This complex of ideas – striking, lightning, oak, and mountain – identifies Perkʷū́nos with the axis mundi. This fits with his position as defender of truth; he is the support of the universe. The oak connection also emphasizes his strength, integrity, and tenacity. The root *dreu-, from which comes English "tree" and "true," formed the root for "oak" in some languages. Perkʷū́nos is hard, even stubborn. But stubbornness in defense of truth is a virtue.

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Diwós Sunú
The "Sons of God" are twins who are third function deities (Dumézil, 1970b, 57-8). Diodorus Siculus (4.56.4) tells us that the Celts along the sea worshipped the Dioskouroi above all, because they believe the Dioskouroi came from the ocean, but unfortunately doesn't tell us their names. Tacitus writes of the Alcis, a pair of deities worshipped by the Naharvali (likely in Silesia) "as young men and brothers," and whom he identifies with Castor and Pollux (Germania, 43). It’s interesting that they were worshiped by a priest who wore women’s clothes; might this be a reflection of the close connection between the Twins and Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr (see her below)? The 3rd century Greek historian Timaios says that Germanic tribes on the North Sea (he says they’re Celts) were particularly devoted to the Dioskouroi (Simek, 1993, 59). Other deities have been suggested as Germanic reflexes, such as Njörðr and Freyr (Ward, 1968, 36-8). Their worship survived among the Greeks and Romans (Castor and Pollux, called the Dioskouroi, "Zeus's boys"), as well as the Theban Zethos and Amphion (Burkert, 1985, 212, Polomé, 1980, 160; Ward, 1967, 234)). Among the Balts the were worshiped as the Dieva dēli (Latvia) and the Dievo sūneliai (Lithuania) (Parpola, 2004-2005, 6). Among the Iranians they have become a demon, Nânhaiθya (Duchesne-Guillemin, 1969, 331, 333), but also may survive in the form of the linked Haurvatāt-Amərətāt. Vedism gives us the Aśvins, also called the Nāsatyas ("Those who bring together/bring home;" Bailey, 1975, 15) or the Divó nápālā (“Sons of God”), (Boyce (1975, 54, n. 209) believes that it is the Indo-Aryans who have innovated by making an original individual into twins, but the existence of the cognates show that this unlikely to be the case.)

The Twins are strongly connected with horses. They often appear in battle, riding on white horses (West, 2007, 483). In Wales we have Pryderi, son of the horse goddess Rhiannon, who is born on May day (a holy day), at the same time as a horse. This horse is raised with him (Ford, 1977, 50-4). In Ireland, the hero Cú Chulainn is also born at the same time as a horse, which also is raised with him. When one form of the horse goddess Macha dies, she has just given birth to twins. In Germanic tradition, we find the heroes Hengist and Horsa, both of whose names mean “horse” (Ó Brien, 1982, 119). The Roman Castor and Pollux were the patrons of the class of the equites (Johnson, 1958, 237). Pindar (Olympia 3.39) describes the Greek Dioskouroi as "having good horses;" elsewhere (Pythian 5.10), Castor is "gold-charioted," and in Pythian 1.66 they are leukópōloi, "having white horses." The two of them are "the mightiest of hero charioteers" (Pindar, Isthmian 1, p. 121). Alkman (Fragment 12, in Ward, 1868, 12) calls them "skilled riders." The only other Greek god besides them who is described as riding horseback (rather than in a chariot) is Poseidon, who created horses, and him only rarely (Walker, 2015, 25). In Sparta, both their wives and their young virgin priestesses were the Leukippides (Walker, 2015, 131), the “White Horses;” there was another priestess there called “the Foal of the Two Most Holy Gods” (Walker, 2015, 132), who would of course have been the Dioskouroi. The Theban twins are called "The White Colts of Zeus” (Ward, 1968,12). In some versions of their myth they are the sons of a mare goddess. The horses of the Baltic Twins are often mentioned, and they are even sometimes themselves called "the horses of God" (Ward, 1968, 12), who pull the chariot of the sun (Ó Brien, 1982, 118). There are Illyro-Dalmatian plaques from northern Croatia and Italy which show pairs of men either on horseback or in boats (Prusac, 2008, 7), who may represent divine twins. "Aśvins" means "horse-men." They are born when Saraṇyū (called Samjñā in the Mahābhārata) transforms herself into a mare, Aśvini, and runs off, abandoning her husband Vivásvat (a solar figure) and children, Yama and Yami, and leaving behind a mortal double. Vivasvat turns himself into a stallion and tracks her down, and then ejaculates into her mouth. She vomits the semen out through her nose, giving birth to the Aśvins. Vivásvat also has sex with the replacement, who gives birth to Manu. (Polomé, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 232; Ward, 1968, 12. Their most important connection, then, is with horses, to the point of having a name which means or includes “horse,” or even having the form of a horse.

Like Indo-European warriors in general, the Twins are dancers (Littleton, 1970, 231; O'Brien, 1982, 118). In Sparta, the Dioskouroi are the inventors of the war dances (Burkert, 1985, 212; Lonsdale, 1993, 148). The Dieva dēli are described in a daina as "leading the dance" (Ward, 1968, 25). The Vedic twins are dancers (RV 6.63.5).

The Dioskouroi are associated with oaths (O'Brien, 1982, 118), as are the Aśvins (Parpola, 2004-2005).

Although twins, they are not identical in nature. Although they are both associated with horses, and both are warriors, one is more so, a god for riders, owners of horses, and warriors, especially cavalrymen. The other is more peaceful, and associated with cattle. They may even have different parentages or births. Among the Greeks and Romans, the difference in parentage results in a difference in mortality: Castor, as the son of Tyndareus, is mortal, while Zeus’s son, Pollux, is immortal. When Castor died, Pollux chose to share half of his immortality with him so that half of the time the two live in heaven, and half of the time with the dead (Pindar, Nemean 9, 115-7). In the Iranian pair, Haurvatāt is connected with water, and Ameretāt with plants (Dumézil, 1970, 57). The Aśvins sometimes have different parents. In RV 1.81.4, one is said to be the son of a particular prince, and the other the son of heaven, or one can be the son of dawn and the other the son of night (Macdonell, 1897, 49). They are even “born separately” (RV 5.73.4). (To be fair, however, these are the only verses in the Rig Veda that make such a distinction (Walker, 2015, 39).) One of their reflexes in the Māhabhārata (1.3.153), Nakula, is a horse groom, and the Sahadeva, is a cattleman (Petrosyan, 2017, 173). Also in the Mahābhārata, Nakula is a warrior and breaker of horses, and Sahadeva a keeper of cattle and not so much of a warrior (Littleton, 1970, 235).

Even though they have these different function and personalities, they are almost always invoked together. (There are cases of Castor being invoked alone.)

As a pair, the Twins guide mankind, especially sailors, farmers, and riders, and may be prayed to for healing, fertility, and prosperity. They are divine rescuers from all sorts of immediate crises. They may not help you get that project done on time, but they will be there in the midst of a hurricane. The Dioscuri are rare in monumental images in Gaul (Wightman, 1986, 548), but are found on the Pillar of the Sailors from Paris. The Dioskouroi were thanked for the naval victory of Salamis. In Menander, The Dyskolos (l. 192, p. 15), a character cries out, "Apollo, Castor, Pollux! Heal me - save me!" (Apollo being a god of healing, the saving is left for Castor and Pollux.) Násatyā probably means "saviors" (Walker, 2015, 32; Ward, 1968, 14). The Aśvins are the physicians of the gods (Hillebrandt, 1980, 318; Macdonell, 1897, 51). They are also prayed to for progeny (Knipe, 1975, 103).) According to Ammianus Marcellinus (19.10.4), in 359 CE a storm that was keeping grain ships from the Roman port of Ostia was stilled while Tertullus was sacrificing in the temple of Castor and Pollux. They are also especially rescuers at sea in both Greece (Euhemerus 6, in Grant 1953, 76) and India (Parpola, 2004-2005, 30). In the second Homeric hymn to the Dioskouroi (33), they are called "deliverers of men on earth and of swift-going ships when stormy gales rage over the ruthless sea."

The sea is therefore a common connection of theirs. The Baltic Twins drive their sledges (Ward, 1967, 235-6), and the Aśvins their chariots, on the sea. St. Elmo's fire, which gathers around the masts of ships, was considered by the Greeks to be the manifestation of the Dioskouroi (Burkert, 1985, 213). In the Greek and Baltictraditions the Twins are found at sea, either in a chariot or on winged horses (Ward, 1968, 11). In one verse of the Rig Veda (1.46.2) the Aśvins are said to be the sons of the ocean (although, as is typical for Vedic myth, other verses give them other parents (Macdonell, 1897, 51)). In RV 1.116 they have their own ship that “float(s) in the atmosphere, waterproof,” and has a “hundred oars” (Walker, 2015, 60).

The connection between horses and the sea might be relevant. The Welsh Manawydan, cognate with the Irish Manannán son of Sea, is the husband of the horse goddess Rhiannon. Poseidon is Poseidon Hippios (Diodorus 5.69; Burkert, 1985, 138) and conceived three sets of twins while in the form of a horse (Adams, Mallory, and Miller, 1997, 277). In India, the fiery horse head is hidden under the sea. Waves are horses throughout folklore,

As might be expected of deities who are turned to in moments of dangers, the Twins are close to mankind. They are, in fact, the deities who are closest to us. In Greece there was a form of offering called theoxenia, in which offerings were laid out for a deity in front of their image; a non-sacrificial (at least not in the sense of killing an animal) meal with the god as guest. Of all the deities, the Dioskouroi were the most common guests in this intimate rite (Burkert, 1985, 107, 213; Parker, 2011, 142). Ward (1968, 19) thinks that this reflects a connection with the harvest, but I think it is intimacy that is being expressed. The closeness is further reflected in their being absent from the epic tradition (Walker, 2015, 25); they are more connected with the everyday than the glorious Heroes. We have seen that in some versions of the Greek myths, Pollux was originally mortal, and that Castor came to share in his mortality half of the time. Because of their closeness to mortals, the Aśvins were originally excluded from the soma, only gaining it in turn for healing the sacrifice (Hillebrandt, 1980, I:318). The closeness is likely because in some cases, such as the Dioskouroi, one was in fact originally mortal. The Aśvins were the brothers of Yama and Mannus (see Yemós and Mannus, below) who were human (Panikkar, 1984, 34, n. 36) (at least in the case of Yama, originally human). Henry John Walker, on the other hand, explains this in part by the low status of horse tenders (2015, 12 and passim). There are even hints that they were originally mortal. Yaska quotes an otherwise unknown Vedic hymn as saying, “When, o you Aśvins, / did you go to the gods?” (Walker, 2015, 43).

The Twins are closely related to the sun and mare goddesses (see below), and are often found in the same stories as them and related to them in some way. The Welsh Pryderi is the son of mare goddess Rhiannon and the husband of the daughter of "Fair Shining One." The Greek Helen (of Troy), likely originally a sun goddess, is the sister of the Dioskouroi; the three were the major deities at Sparta (Richer, 2010, 239). Castor and Pollux accompany the sun. The Lithuanian and Latvian "Daughter of the Sun" (Saules Dukterys and Saules meita, respectively) is wooed by her brothers the Dieva deli, who accompany her through the sky (Ward, 1967, 234) or draw her in their chariot (O'Brien, 1982, 118). They also sail with her in a boat made of apple wood (Ward, 1967, 234). The Aśvins are the husbands and/or brothers of Sūryāduhite or Duhitā Sūryasya (“Daughter of the Sun”) (Ward, 1967, 235; 1968, 11; West, 2007, 227); in RV 10.85.8-9 they are Sūryā’s suitors and it is Soma who is her husband. Sūryā rides in the Asvin’s chariot (e.g. RV 1.34.5, 1.117.13, 1.118.5). In RV 8.35.19-21 the Asvins are called to drink soma with Surya (Sun) and Uṣas (Dawn). According to Steven O'Brien (1982, 117), the connection is due to the image of the sun being drawn by horses across the sky. The two most common relationships are that either the three are siblings or the Twins are the suitors or husbands of the goddess. Of course, we are dealing with deities here, so these are not mutually exclusive.

They may also, but less commonly, be connected with the dawn goddess. The Aśvins follow Uṣas (RV 8.5.2), and she is born when they yoke their chariot (RV 10.39.12) (Macdonell,1974, 50), or she wakens them (RV 8.9) (Macdonell, 1974, 48). They are gods of the dawn (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2.15; Macdonell, 1974, 51), and are invoked during prayers in the first hour of the morning (Hilldebrandt, 1980, 365). In RV 5.77.1, the Aśvins are the ones who “come in the morning” (Hillebrandt, 1980, II:308)

Whichever goddess they are associated with, they sometimes serve as her rescuer. They perform this function in the Greek, Baltic, and Indian traditions (Grottanelli, 1986, 126). Castor and Pollux rescued Helen when she had been kidnapped by Theseus son of Aegeus and Pirithous son of Ixion (Hyginus, 79). The story may also be found in the Germanic tradition, where Swanhild is rescued from her evil husband by her brothers (O’Brien, 1982, 120). Grottanelli suggests, however, that the goddess is their superior, in part because of the two to one relationship. In the Mabinogi, in fact, it is Rhiannon who tries to save Pryderi (Ford, 1977, 81).

Another connection is with swans. The sister of Hengist and Horsa is Swana; the Norse Swanhild is the sister of two brothers (Ó Brien, 1982, 119-20); Helen and Castor and Pollux are born from a swan’s egg after Leda has been impregnated by Zeus in a swan form (Apollodorus 3.10.7, Hyginus, 77). O’Brien (1982, 119-20) says that the connection is that the swan is the epiphany of the solar goddess, but I have to wonder if the connection is because swans are the largest water bird, and the twins are connected with water.

The father of the Twins would have been Dyeū́s Ptḗr, as for instance among the Greeks, where Castor and Pollux are the sons of Zeus, or the Balts, where they are the sons of Dievas. The Aśvins are sometimes the sons of Dyaus Pitar, although sometimes only one is. Their fatherhood by Dyeū́s Ptḗr is only found in the easternmost families (Greek, Baltic, and Indo-Iranian), so it may not have been a common Indo-European belief. Nevertheless, Pryderi is fostered by Teyrnon, whose name means “Lord;” with such a name it is possible that he is a reflex of Dyeū́s Ptḗr (although it must be pointed out that Ford, in the notes to his translation of The Mabinogi (1977, 12) suggests instead that he is a sea god). Pryderi is later the foster son of Manawydan uab Llyr, the Welsh version of the Irish Manannán mac Lir, “Son of the Sea” (one more connection between a Twin and the ocean).

The Diwós Sunú are connected strongly with third function values; Dumézil (1970, 31) calls them, along with Sarasvati, “the canonical deities of the third function – the function of health, fecundity, and abundance.” Perhaps that is why the (randy) goat is sacrificed to the Aśvins (SB 5.5.4.1, in Macdonell, 1897, 51). In RV 10.40, after invoking the Aśvins as helpers of various people, they are described as rescuing the “worshiper and the widow”, and their role as marriage helpers is invoked. The Dioskouroi are shown on coins and reliefs with cornucopia and grain, and wear hats shaped like eggshells (Ward, 1968, 19). The Latvian Twins have a gold plough and silver seeds (Ward, 1968, 20). The Aśvins bring lovers together (AV 2.30.2, in Macdonell, 1897, 51). There is a connection with weddings; Pryderi gives his mother as a wife to Manawydan, and both the Aśvins and the Baltic Twins have complicated relationships with weddings to sun goddesses (see below). In Gaul, statues of the Dioscuri, who may be standing in for a Gaulish pair of deities, are almost uniquely represented in the inexpensive terracotta rather than the more expensive bronze or stone (Wightman, 1986, 548), indicating that they were more popular among those in the lower levels of the economy.

When described physically, the Twins are always youthful. They may also be blond, or connected with gold in some way. Pryderi, when he was fostered with Teyrnon, was named Gwri, “Golden Hair” (Ford, 1977, 53). The Aśvins are described as bedecked with gold (RV 8.8.2), and . This is not a rare attribute for a deity, however, and may not be significant.

Riding on your well-matched steeds,
Come to me, Diwós Sunú.
Come with your blessings for house and land.
Come with your blessings for men and cattle.

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Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

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Lonsdale, Steven H. Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. Vedic Mythology. New York: Gordon Press, 1897 (reprinted 1974).

----A Vedic Reader for Students. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999 (1917).

O’Brien, Steven. Dioscuric Elements in Celtic and Germanic Mythology. Journal of Indo-European Studies 10:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1982), 117-136.

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Petrosyan, Armen. Armeno-Indian Epic Parallels. Journal of Indo-European Studies 45:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 2017), 172-86.

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Walker, Henry John. The Twin Horse Gods: The Dioskouroi in Mythologies of the Ancient World. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2015.

Ward, Donald. Solar Mythology and Baltic Folksongs. In Folklore International: Essays in Traditional Literature, Belief, and Custom in Honor of Wayland Debs Hand. ed. D. K. Wilgus. Hatboro, PN: Folklore Associates, 1967, 233-42.

---- The Divine Twins: An Indo-European Myth in Germanic Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968. (The classic treatment.)

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Wightman, Edith Mary. Pagan Cults in the Province of Belgica. Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II:18:1 (1986), 542-589.


Xápōm Népōts
"Close Relative of the Waters" (sometimes called just "Neptonos"). *nepot most precisely means one’s male relative in the female line, either the son of one’s sister or the brother of one’s wife; what is meant in the case of this god, however, is close association, not biological relationship (Puhvel, 1987, 278), just as with *ptḗr. *Népōts in this case is likely to have meant "connected in a very close way" or "dweller in." (The form Xápōm Népōts (*H2epom nepots) is from Edgar C. Polomé and J. P. Mallory (in Mallory and Adams, 1997:203); Jackson (2002:82) suggests rather *Xákʷōm Népōt (*H2ékʷom népot)).

A Norse kenning for “fire,” “descendant of the sea” (Jackson, 2002, 82) may be relevant. In Skaldskaparmal 31 (in Snorri, Prose Edda), the sea god Æegir (< *H2ēkʷió- (Jackson, 2002, 82) uses luminous gold for light.

Xápōm Népōts guards a well which contains a fiery liquid. This liquid grants rule, wisdom, inspiration, or prosperity to those who drink it. There's a catch, though. (There always is.) Those who wish to drink from the well must deserve the well's gifts. They cannot have any moral flaws, and they must approach the well in the appropriate ritual manner. In other words, the gifts of the well are available only to the virtuous.

In the myths of the well some sort of disaster arises that demonstrates this. An Irish reflex is Nechtan, whose well contains a fiery liquid which only he or his three cupbearers can draw. If someone looked into it to the bottom, their eyes would burst; going about it counterclockwise would also bring disaster. His wife, Boand, committed adultery with the Dagda, and to prove her innocence she goes to take water from the well. Alternatively, she is jealous of her husband and the cupbearers, and the disastrous trip to the well is an attempt to prove herself their equal. She goes about it three times, and each time the well overflows, destroying in turn a foot, a hand, and an eye. This trifunctional destruction is completed when the last eruption chases Boand to the coast, drowning her and forming the river Boyne (Gwynn, 1913, 3:29-31, 37; Stokes, 1892, 500; 1894, 315-6). Poets would go to the resultant river to gain inspiration: “for the poets deemed that on the brink of water was always a place of revelation of science” (W. Stokes, Immaccallam in dá Thuarad, in Muhr, 1999, 196). Like the waters of the river in the Zoroastrian cosmology, the Boyne becomes all the rivers of the world before returning to its source (Muhr, 1999, 198.) In one version of the similar story of Sinann (> the river Shannon), the well is Condla’s (or Connla’s) (Gwynn, 1913, 3:287-91). We don’t know of a motive but the well is described as under the sea, having hazels over it that drop their nuts into it, creating a drink for poets. In another version, however, the nuts are described as forming “mystic bubbles,” and it is to obtain the mystic arts that Sinann goes to it. (Gwynn, 1913, 3:287-91; Stokes, 1892; 487-8; 1894, 456-7). (The well and hazel are, of course, representations of the Indo-European axis mundi).

That this was not simply mythology is shown by a well in Llandrillo yn Rhos, Clwyd, which at least until the 19th century was used for cursing (Alcock, 1965, 1-2). Applicants could only drink from the water as part of the ritual with the aid of the keeper of the well.

The Roman version is in the form of history. This is typical; before their contact with Greece, they had turned much of their myth into history. In the 4th century BCE, during the feast of Neptune (probably originally not god of the sea, but of water in general (Dumézil, 1970, 389)), the Alban lake, fed by a spring and enclosed within an extinct volcano, overflowed. The oracles said the lake was offended because improperly created magistrates were conducting rituals. To stop its overflow, the water had to be diverted into channels. The verb that Livy uses here is extinguere, i.e., “extinguish,” a word that is otherwise used only of fire (Puhvel, 1973). Once again there is a spring-fed body of water, associated with fire and a water god, offended by a breach in sacred law.

The Greeks had their own myth of this type. The god Poseidon, equated with Neptune by the Romans, had a holy salt-well in Mantinea. It was in a temple which had a barrier of a wool thread; when Aepytus cut the thread and entered (thereby violating sacred law), a wave from the well first blinded and then killed him (Pausanias 8.10.2-4).

Over in Iran, we find the Zoroastrian Apām Napāt. We have seen what happened when Franrasyan attempted to seize the xvarərnah; it was Apām Napāt who put it in Lake Vourukaša. Note again that the overflow caused by the xvarənah is again caused by someone unqualified approaching it. These waters are personified as female spirits.

In India the Son of the Waters, there called Apāṃ Napāt, is so closely related with fire that he was sometimes even addressed as “Agni” (Macdonell, 1897, 70). His liquid nature was not forgotten, though; he is also connected with Soma, the god of the sacred drink of the same name. He also lived in the water, and was surrounded by the Waters, who are seen as goddesses (Macdonell, 1897, 69).

Both Apāṃ Napāt and Apām Napāt have a creative role; the former is said to have “created all beings” (RV 2.35.2), and the latter to have created and formed mankind (Yašt 19.52) (in Duchesne-Guillemin, 1969, 331). I do not find this role in the other cultures, however, where it is his connection with a (potentially) destructive liquid that is emphasized.

The waters of which Xápōm Népōts is both guardian and relative are the source of all that is good in all three functions plus the transfunctional sovereignty. It makes sense, then, that he doesn't fit into any single function. Such powerful water comes, of course, from the well at the world's center. The waters themselves appear sometimes as cows (prosperity) and sometimes as young women (such as those around Apāṃ Napāt (surprisingly, the cupbearers of Nechtan are male)). The waters themselves may stand for the waves, who to the Norse were the nine daughters of the sea god Ægir (Turville-Petre, 1964, 152). They’re not the ocean, though, and so Xápōm Népōts is not a sea-god. The Proto-Indo-Europeans did not, so far as we can tell, have such a god, as is only reasonable, since they apparently didn’t live near the sea. The word *mori-, which in some of the Indo-European languages became the word for “sea” (e.g., Latin mare), meant simply a large body of water.

With such widespread survival of his name and myths, Xápōm Népōts was clearly an important figure to the Proto-Indo-Europeans. He is connected with one of the most central mysteries of Indo-European myth and religion, the Nektér. For now it is important to note that Xápōm Népōts provides immense power, but only to those who approach him in a morally pure state and with the proper ritual.

West (2007, 276-7), however, casts doubt on those etymologies of “Neptune” and “Nechtan” which connect them with Apāṃ Napāt /Apām Napāt. He reports an etymology of “Neptune” as meaning “Master of the Wetness” (< a possible *nebh-) and “Nechtan” as from either *nigʷto- ‘washed, pure, bright’ or *nebh-tu-. Jendza (2013, 451) agrees with the etymologies, but suggests that it is valid to reconstruct two deities, *Nebh-tu-H1/3no-s (Neptune and Poseidon) and *Nebh-tu-H1/3no[GEN.SG.] nepots (Theseus, Apāṃ Napāt, and Apām Napāt), with Nechtan being an outlier as*nigw-to-nos. If these etymologies are accepted, the name Xápōm Népōts would not be valid. The existence of such a deity, however, based on the mythology, is, I believe, still firm, even if Jendza finds it unconvincing.

Alcock, Joan P. Celtic Water Cults in Roman Britain. Archaeological Journal 122 (1965), 1-12.

Dumézil, Georges. Archaic Roman Religion. tr. Philip Krapp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970 (1966).

Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. The Religion of Ancient Iran. In Historia Religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions. ed. C. Jouco Bleeker. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.

Findly, Ellison Banks. The "Child of the Waters": A Reevaluation of Vedic Apam Napat. Numen 26:2 (1979), pp.164 - 183.

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Jendza, Craig. Theseus the Ioian in Bacchylides 17 and Indo-Iranian Apām Napāt. Journal of Indo-European Studies 41: 3 & 4 (Fall/Winter, 2013), 431-57.

Littleton, C. Scott. Poseidon as a Reflex of the Indo-European "Source of the Waters" God. Journal of Indo-European Studies 1:4 (Winter, 1973), pp. 425 - 440.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. Vedic Mythology. New York: Gordon Press, 1897 (reprinted 1974).

Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Muhr, Kay. Water Imagery in Early Irish. Celtica 23 (1999), pp. 193-210.

Pausanias. Description of Greece. tr. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.

Puhvel, Jaan. Aquam Extinguere. Journal of Indo-European Studies 1:3 (Fall, 1973), pp. 379 - 386.

——Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1987.

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Turville-Petre, E. O. G. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1964.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.



Yemós and Mannus
Yemós ("Twin") (*(H)iemós (Jackson, 2002, 81)) and Mannus ("Man") are another set of twins found throughout the Indo-European world, in myths from the Germanic peoples (Norse Ymir, and German Tuisto and Mannus), as well as from the Celts (the Irish Donn) and the Romans (Romulus and Remus). Yemós really comes into his own in the Indo-Iranian area, where as Yama/Yima he is the god of the land of the dead.

We find them in the story of the origin of the Cosmos. In the primordial time, Mannus sacrificed Yemós and formed the world from his body: stones from his bones, the sun and moon from his eyes, water from his blood, etc. (Lincoln, 1986). Mannus was therefore the first priest, and Yemós the first to die. Yemós (or his soul) went to the land of death and became its ruler. In so doing, he established the pathway to death.

These twins didn't just establish the Cosmos and then go away. After their deaths they were both deified, although Yemós is definitely "more divine" than Mannus, a first among equals. Remember how in the story of Saraṇyū Yama is born from her, a goddess, whereas Manu is born from her mortal shadow copy. Both are children of a god, and may therefore be said to be deities, but Yama is more divine than Yama. Yemós gets into the very structure of the world, while Mannus stays behind and starts history rolling, as first king (for the Vedic Manu, see Macdonell, 1897, 139).

Although they are twins, then, they are not the same in either rank or function. Of the two, Yemós is higher; his name describes both of them. He is the twin.

The most important aspect of Yemós is as god of the dead. This is because as the first to die he marked out the way for the dead to go. For instance, RV 10.14.2, “Yama was the first to find our path” (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 722). He may be prayed to by those about to die, or on behalf of those who have just died. The main thrust of such prayers if for him to show the soul of the deceased the way to the kingdom of Yemós.

Yemós is not the god of death, however. He is the one who rules over the dead, but he does not make them die, or decide when they will. (For the Greek Hades, Felton, 2010, 90).

Hades received little worship (Felton, 2010, 90), and Yama/Yima was important primarily in the funeral rituals. Yemós is not a god you want to worship, but one you want to appease.

It might even be possible that Yemós was not seen as a god. Certainly Yama was not, at least in the strictest sense; in the Rig Veda he isn’t even ever called a “god,” but only a “king” (Panikkar, 1984, 35) (of the dead (Macdonell, 1897, 139)). You could say that he is the ultimate Hero.

As the offerer of the first sacrifice, Mannus is the first priest, treating his brother as if he were a sacrificial bull. The first sacrifice offered by Manu becomes the archetype for later Vedic sacrifices (RV 1.26.4; Macdonell, 1897, 139). Mannus as first sacrificer (and Yemós as first victim) may explain why the Irish Donn, first to die in the invasion of Ireland and lord of a land of the dead, shares his name with the great bull of Cuailnge whose story is told in the Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge (MacCana, 1987, 155). Like Yemós, the body of the Táin’s Donn was dismembered; while the parts didn’t order the Cosmos, they did contribute to that of Ireland, giving names to the places where they fell.

The mystery is that Yemós became an immortal god by submitting to death voluntarily, while Mannus, who sought to avoid it, in the end was stricken by it. In India, what Yama in fact submitted to was the ṛta (Panikkar, 1977, 34, 37). He “knew his place” in the most positive way; he acted by the Xártus, and by doing so in a sense overcame death. Death is the fate of men, and Yemós accepted this. But Mannus tried to reject his proper fate, and received death as a result. This was effectively a final death, since Mannus is not an object of cult, but only of myth.

Felton, D. The Dead. In A Companion to Greek Religion. ed. Daniel Ogden. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 86-99.

Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, Vjaceslav V. Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. tr. Johanna Nichols. New York: Mounton de Gruyter, 1995.

Jackson, Peter. Light from Distant Asterisks: Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage. Numen 49 (2002), 61-101.

Lincoln, Bruce. The Indo-European Myth of Creation. History of Religions 15:2 (1975), pp. 121 - 145.

--The Lord of the Dead. History of Religions 20:2 (Nov.,1980), pp. 224 - 241.

--Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Creation and Destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

MacCana, Proinseas. Celtic Religion. The Encyclopedia of Religion, v. 3. ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1987.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. Vedic Mythology. New York: Gordon Press, 1897 (reprinted 1974).

Panikkar, Raimundo. The Vedic Experience. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977.

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. tr. Bernadotte Perrin. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1914.

The Tain: Translated from the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cuailnge. tr. Thomas Kinsella. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Ward, Donald. The Divine Twins: An Indo-European Myth in Germanic Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968.


Páxusōn
"The Protector" or "Shepherd" has a famous descendant - Pan (<Πάον (Skutsch, 1987, 190)). Páxusōn (*PéH2usH3en), genitive *PuH2s(H3)nés (West, 2007, 282) is also the source of the Vedic Pūṣan (Skutsch, 1987, 190), god of herds and roads (Macdonell, 1987, 35-6), (and the Kalash version of Pushao (Schetelich, 1998, 97)), and may have a functional cognate in the Gaulish Cernunnos (Fickett-Wilbar, 2009). Originally probably a god of herds, from the location of the pastures outside the homestead and the nature of the herds as between properly domestic and wild because of where they are herded, he early, apparently still in the Proto-Indo-European period, became a god of bidirectionality. He is the one who stands between. He guards travelers, merchants, and other go-betweens. He guards herds, source of wealth, as well. He may thus be prayed to both as an opener of the ways and as a giver of prosperity.

It was certainly the case that Pūṣan was a god of prosperity (Houben, 1991, 125, n. 121); for instance, in RV 1.89.5 (in Schetelich, 1998, 95) his is asked to “further the growth of our properties.” As a god of herds, Pan is also a god of prosperity.

Pūṣan and Pan both also protect. Pūṣan, in RV 1.89.5, is called “the unswerving protector and guardian.” Pan served to protect warriors by sowing “panic” among their enemies. He contributed to the victory of the Athenians over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon (Herodotus 6.105, in Borgeaud, 1988, 133). Philippe Borgeaud (1988, 98), holds that this panic role was late, and acquired from Phobos, as a result of the fear of wild places that Pan was god of, but it may simply have been a natural outgrowth of his role as a protector, applied specifically to a field in which protection was especially desired. After all, his name means “Protector.”

Pan was involved in rituals of purification and initiation (Lonsdale, 1993, 76-7). Was this as a result of his residing on the borders?

In the Vedic horse sacrifice ritual the first animal sacrificed is a goat to Pūṣan (RV 1.162.3), who is asked to announce the sacrifice to the gods. In the agnihotra a goat is sacrificed to Agni instead (Hillebrandt, 1980, I:62), but then he’s someone who prepares the way as well, this time for the dead person. Combining the two ideas, we can see Pūṣan as the psychopomp, the deity who guides the souls of the dead on their way (Keith, 1989, 70; Macdonell, 1897, 35). That this is the case with Páxusōn is indicated by goats being sacrificed in both Greek and Indic funerary ritual (RV 10.16; Adams and Mallory, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 230). It is therefore appropriate to pray to him in the funeral ritual.

Pan is, of course, part goat, continuing the goat connection. The half-animal nature of Cernunnos is certainly relevant here; the point is that both Pan and Cernunnos are in-between human and animal. The choice of goat and deer may be no accident; the goat can be either wild or tame, and deer live primarily in the outskirts areas of forests, between open land and forested land.

In the morning and evening offerings, Pūṣan is offered to on the threshold (Macdonell, 1897, 36), a double dose of liminality, both figurative and literal. He also leads the bride, in RV 10.85.26, another double dose, since she is both changing her marriage status and moving to her husband’s home.

Even putting aside the possibility that Cernunnos was a deity of this type, deities of the path or road exist outside of the Graeco-Indian world. When Caesar tells us (GB 6.17) that the Gauls worshiped Mercury above all other gods, he also tells us he is "leader of ways and journeys" (uiarum atque itinerum ducem (West, 2007, 283)). We have a dedication to a god of roadways from another part of the Celtic world, North Yorkshire, from 191 CE: deo qui uias et semitas commentus est (CIL vii. 271; Birley, 1986, 10; West, 2007, 283), "to the god who invented paths." (I would give much to know the name of this deus.) We also have evidence from the Balts in a sixteenth-century report of a Keliū diēvas, "god of roads", and later Matthaeus Praetorius writes of "Kellukis, who has concern for ways" (West, 2007, 283). Compare this with Pūṣan's title of "lord of the paths," pathas-pati- (RV 6.53.1), which may be a title descended from a Proto-Indo-European *pontos-potis.

There is also the Greek Hermes, who is the father of Pan. He is in many ways a god of reciprocity: messenger of the gods, psychopomp, god of thieves and a finder of thieves, protector of travelers, watcher over roads, patron of tracking (Watkins 1970, 345-6).

In RV 10.85, the Vedic “wedding hymn,” Pūṣan is asked to arouse the sexual longings of the bride. Pan also arouses sexual desires, to the point where he can give an erection to all the men in a city (Borgeaud, 1988, (85) and “presides over sexual union” (Borgeaud, 1988, 75).

Páxuson, guardian of the borders,
Open up the gate
and let our prayers through.
Bless all our beginnings
so our acts may be done rightly.

Birley, Anthony. Marcus Aurelius: A Biography. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1987.

Borgeaud, Philippe. The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece. tr. Kathleen Atlass and James Redfield. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988.

Caesar, Julius. The Conquest of Gaul. tr. S. A. Handford & Jane Gardner. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1951, rev. 1982. Latin text.

Fickett-Wilbar, David. Cernunnos: Looking a Different Way. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 23. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. An expanded video presentation of this can be found on youtube

Hillebrandt, Alfred. Vedic Mythology (2 vol.). tr. Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1980 (1929).

Houben, Jan E. M. (tr. and notes). The Pravargya Brāhmaṇa of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991.

Keith, Arthur Berriedale. The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989 (1925).

Lonsdale, Steven H. Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993.

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. Vedic Mythology. New York: Gordon Press, 1897 (re-printed 1974).

Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Schetelich, Maria. Sheep and Goat in the Religious Beliefs of Ṛgvedic People. Recent Research on Ladakh 3. ed. L. Icke-Schwalbe and G. Meier, 1998, 90-9.

Skutsch, Otto. Helen, her Name and Nature. Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987), 188-193.

Watkins, Calvert. Studies in Indo-European Legal Language, Institutions, and Mythology. In Indo-European and Indo-Europeans: Papers presented at the 3rd Indo-European Conference at the University of Pennsylvania. ed. Cardona, George; Henry M. Hoenigswald, and Alfred Senn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970, 321-54.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

/td>



Mēnōt
"The Moon" – yes, the Indo-European moon is male, as shown by the gender of the word in Celtic and Germanic, and the sex of the Indic moon god Soma. The female moon of Greece and Rome seems to have been an eastern Mediterranean invention. The Man in the Moon is a good Indo-European figure.

He's found by name in Turkey (Men (Dexter, 1996, 239)), Latvia (Mēness (Dexter, 1996, 238)), Lithuania (Mėnuo), and possibly Greece (Menelaus and Memnon (Dexter, 1998)). *Mḗnōt (*MéH1-nōt) means "Measurer" (Matasovič, 2009, 122; Mallory and Adams, 2006, 129); the moon measures the sky in space, while measuring out time as well. In “Alvissmal” 14 (Crawford, 2015, 135), the dwarf Alviss, "All-Wise," says that the elves call the moon “Year-counter.” In RV 10.85.18, the moon “portions the seasons.”

Mḗnōt would make an excellent god of clear thinking. As George Giannakis (1998, 10) observes, “thinking, after all, is a measured calculation.” In RV 10.0.13, in the list of social and cosmic entities formed from the sacrificed Púruṣa, the moon comes from his mind.

Often cosmic deities don’t make much impact in personal worship. In the case of Mḗnōt, however, the metaphorical connection between measuring and thinking (as in “reckoning”) and the near homonym *men- “think,” connects us with him as a god of thinking and memory.

There are Indo-European stories, such as in Baltic folk songs, in which the Sun Maiden and the Twins are romantically involved with the Moon (Dexter, 1984). It’s possible that “Menelaus,” the name of the husband of Helen (who, as we will see, is a reflex of the Sun Maiden), is from *mēn- (Dexter, 1984, 139-40). The Moon may also be the son of Dawn (Dexter, 1984).

In the west, at least, the moon was associated with healing. Pliny (Natural History 16.95) says that the Gauls call the moon by a name which means “all healing.” In Lithuania, Menulis is connected with health, vigor, and youth (Greimas, 1992 (1979), 106).

In the east, there is RV 10.85.19, where the moon extends life. There is also the moon god being identified as soma, the ritual drink that brings vigor, long life, and power. (See here.) The image was of the moon filling with the drink as it waxes, and then wanes. The identification is late, found only in the later books of the Rig Veda, but may represent a reflection of an earlier idea.

The connection between healing and the moon would be via the lunar cycle. The moon gets old, and then recovers its youth. That this is the case is shown in Lithuania by the waxing moon being a source of life but the waning moon the opposite. Note as well that the druidic ritual Pliny describes is held on the sixth night of the moon – it is waxing, and is no longer a crescent; it has become substantial.

Alternatively, the idea could be that as the measurer the moon restores things to the proper pattern.

Another possible name for the moon would be Louksnos, “The Shining One” (Matasovič, 2009, 122).

Shining Wheel turning, rolling through the night,
Continue to measure the far-flung sky.
Continue to measure the days' steady passing,
Continue to measure with the Xártus in mind.

Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Proto-Indo-European Sun Maidens and Gods of the Moon. Mankind Quarterly 25:1 & 2 (Fall/Winter,1984), 137-144.

-----Dawn-Maid and Sun-Maid: Celestial Goddesses Among the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Indo-Europeanization of Northern Europe: Papers presented at the International Conference held at the University of Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph, 17. 1996, 228-46.

-----Dawn and Sun in Indo-European Myth: Gender and Geography. Studia Indogermanica Lodziensia 2 (1998), 103-22.

Greimas, Algirdas J. Of Gods and Men: Studies in Lithuanian Mythology. tr. Milda Newman. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992 (1979).

Lincoln, Bruce. Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Creation and Destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Matasovič, Ranko. "Sky" and "Moon" in Celtic and Indo-European. Celto-Slavica 2 (2009), 154-162. (Differently paginated on-line, from 121-27).

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. H. Rackham, tr. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945.


Əwḗtōs
“Winds.” There are cults of the winds in many Indo-European cultures, including India, Anatolia, and Rome, as well as among the Balts (Vejōspatis; Polomé, 1985, 31; West, 2007, 263-5) and Slavs (Větrъ; Dvornik, 1956, 50; Jakobson, 1972, 8). 341-2). They were worshiped in Greece as early as the Linear B tablets (Parker, 2011, 77, n. 35), where there was a priestess of them (Burkert, 1985, 43). In Pindar, Pythian 4:194-5, the Argonauts offer to the winds, along with other deities, including Zeus, and at Corneia (Pausanias 9.34.3) and Titane (Pausanias 2.12.1) there were altars to them; in Attica there was a shrine to the North Wind in gratitude for wrecking the Persian fleet (Parker, 2011, 74). It is no surprise that their cult is particularly popular among sailors. Horace, Epodes 10, hoping for someone to be shipwrecked and drowned, promises a goat and a lamb to the Tempestati, “the Storms,” by which he may have meant the winds. The Winds for the Slavs seem to be connected with warfare (Zaroff, 1999, 63). The Iranian Vayu averts danger, particularly that which comes from demons, and is sacrificed to by unmarried women who wish to obtain husbands (Duschesne-Guillemin, 1969).

In RV 10.90.13, when the cosmos is made from the sacrificed Puruṣa, Vayu is created from his breath. It is interesting that the Vedic word for, roughly, “soul,” atman, is cognate with German atmen, “to breathe.” Something that seems not to have been made by the Proto-Indo-Europeans but is worth pondering is whether a connection can be made among the Əwḗtōs, the human breath, and the human soul.

Their attributes are not similar enough to say that they descend from Proto-Indo-European deities, although their names often come from *H2u̯eH1tos. Gods of the winds are fairly common throughout the world, so this could be independent origination. On the other hand, the fact that they are common makes it reasonable to suggest that the Proto-Indo-Europeans possessed wind gods as well.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1958.

Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. The Religion of Ancient Iran. In Historia Religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions. ed. C. Jouco Bleeker. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.

Dvornik, Francis. The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization. Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1956.

Jakobson, Roman. Slavic Gods and Demons. In Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings. Vol. VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology. (1972). ed. Stephen Rudy. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1985, 3-11.

Mikalson, Jon D. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Parker, Robert. On Greek Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Pausanias. Description of Greece. tr. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.

Polomé, Edgar C. Germanic Religion and the Indo-European Heritage. Mankind Quarterly 26:1 & 2 (Fall/Winter, 1985), 28-55.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Zaroff, Roman. Organized Pagan Cult in Kieven Rus’. The Invention of Foreign Elite or Evolution of Local Tradition? Studia Mythologica Slavica 2 (1999), 47-76.


PIE Goddesses (An Overview)

While gods can generally be assigned to specific roles and Dumézilian functions (with some fuzziness, of course), the goddesses are more difficult to pin down. This is due in part to the patriarchal nature of Proto-Indo-European society. Most goddesses were less important than the gods.

What is more interesting is that some goddesses are more important than the gods. This is because while men were associated with doing things (the three functions), women were associated with being things. They are associated with natural phenomena, locations, weather conditions, times, etc., rather than with roles. Because many of the goddesses were associated with locations, the Indo-Europeans left many of them behind as they migrated, replacing them with the goddesses of the new lands. The gods came with the Indo-Europeans because they could. The goddesses stayed behind because they had to. The land couldn't move with the Indo-Europeans, and the land's goddesses stayed with it.

What made some of the goddesses so important is that proper worship of the new goddesses validated the Indo-European possession of the land. The Indo-Europeans knew that without the approval of these goddesses they had no business being in their new lands. Such approval was approval by the land itself. This belief was repeated in the home life, where the hearth fire was a goddess, and it was the establishment of a hearth fire that made possession of the house legal.

The Indo-Europeans did, however, pour the new goddesses into the Indo-European mold. Thus, although we can’t always be sure of the original Indo-European goddesses, their shapes have been left behind in the descendant traditions. This means that we can make some good guesses as to what those goddesses must have been like.

Because of the adoption of local goddesses by the early Indo-Europeans, it is most proper for Indo-European worshipers to learn the goddesses associated with the land in which they live, and to worship them in the manner preferred by those goddesses. This is the Indo-European way.

There are some Proto-Indo-European goddesses that did survive. Two are astronomical goddesses - locations that are accessible from everywhere. One is a portable location. Two are not so much particular goddesses as categories into which local goddesses can fit, and two are with us no matter where we go. One is a very special case.

Functionally speaking goddesses tend to fall into one of three categories. They may belong to no function at all, they may fall into the third function, or they may be trifunctional.

Trifunctional goddesses may in turn be classified as Cow Goddesses and Mare Goddesses. A cow goddess is maternal, safe, and protecting. Her sexuality is at the service of the tribe. A Celtic example is Brigid. She is the patron of poets (first function), smiths (second function), and healers (third function). She is attended by a white cow with red ears, and is given offerings of dairy products. In her Christian form, St. Brighid, called the foster mother of Christ, her maternal aspect is clear.

The mare goddesses are more dangerous. Because of this, they tend to be harder to identify, their stories having been toned down by Christian recorders, or even by their own worshipers. An Irish example of her would be Medb. She practices magic (first function), leads an army (second), and is sexually promiscuous (third). It is this latter that is frequently emphasized. Mare goddesses usually have many mates, and are not faithful to any of them. This is a goddess whose sexuality is in service only to herself. She is great, but she is dangerous.

While the mare goddess may seem to be more appealing to moderns than the cow goddess (macho goddesses are in), the ancients were quite clear that she was not someone to be trifled with. Medb sends most of her lovers to their deaths in battle against Cú Chulainn, for instance. The ancients by far preferred cow goddesses; this is only to be expected, since they were more concerned with the survival of the tribe than the sexuality of the individual.

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Sacred Cows and Profane Mares in Indian Mythology. History of Religions 19 (1979-1980), pp. 1 - 25.

-- Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Robbins, Miriam. Indo-European Female Figures. Dissertation, UCLA, 1978. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International.


Ɂeḱwonā
The exemplary “Horse Goddess.” (The sound in the middle of this is indeed [ḱw], not the usual [kʷ].) The Gaulish Epona bears a name which is an exact reflex. Another possible name would be Medhuna “Intoxicator” (“Goddess of Mead”). This is a fairly well-reconstructed name found in Ireland (Medb < *medhw-ā (West, 2007, 416)), Gaul (Meduna) and India (Mādhavī). Another possible reflex is Mycenean po-]ti-ni-ya i-qe-ya = Potnia Ikkweīa (in the dative), “Mistress of horses” (Dexter, 1990a, 286; West, 2007, 145-6). Numerous Greek goddesses are surnamed “horse,” including Athena, a number of times, such as in Pindar, Olympian Ode 13.82, and Sophocles, Oedipus at Coloneus, 1070-1, and Hera (Pausanias, 5.15.5-6). The Welsh Rhiannon, whose tale is told in the Mabinogi (Ford, 1977), and who also appears in the Triads (Bromwich, 1978), is connected with horses in several ways; her son is born at the same time as a foal, she first appears riding, she is sentenced to serve as a horse by carrying people on her back, and during a period of captivity has to wear ass harnesses around her neck.

ʔéḱwonā is the goddess who provides sovereignty through mating with the one who would be king. If refused or mistreated, though, she can be vicious in her reprisals. The Irish Cú Chulainn, having rejected the mare goddess Morrígain, (she is described in Fíanaigecht as throwing her mane over her back (Muhr, 1999, 195)), was sent to his death. Even not refusing her can be no treat, since she often appears in the form of a hag who demands sex. Those who give her what she wants are delighted when afterwards she turns into a beautiful women who gives them the kingship. In the story of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the hag he encounters is described in horsy terms, her hair like a mane.

Rhiannon comes from *Rīgantonā “Great Queen” (Ford, 1977, 5). Epona sometimes bears the title “Queen” or “Augusta,” but all of these inscriptions are from eastern Europe (Jufer and Luginbühl, 2001, 39-40), which may mean she was only seen to have a sovereignty function by a small part of the Gaulish world. More likely, perhaps, is that the inscriptions were set up by the members of Roman cavalry unit made up of Gauls, stationed in the area, who wanted to pay special honor to the imperial family by linking them with the goddess. Epona was particularly, and not surprisingly, popular among Roman cavalry units (Webster, 1986, 71), many of whom were Celtic auxiliaries.

Gerald of Wales (102) describes a ritual involving this goddess. According to him, in northern Ireland a king was inaugurated by having intercourse with a mare. The mare was then killed and cooked. The king bathed himself in her broth and drank it without using his hands. (I have proposed (Ritual Details of the Irish Horse Sacrifice in Betha Mholaise Daiminse) that a story told in "Betha Mholaise Daiminse," "The Life of St, Molasius of Devenish," (English translation here), contains more details of the ritual.) There are parallels with the Roman ritual of the October Equus, and also with the Vedic Aśvamedha, a horse sacrifice performed to make a king a universal sovereign. In turn, "Aśvamedha" is cognate with the name of a prince, Epomeduos, found in a Gaulish inscription" (Puhvel, 1955).

Although we don’t see any horsey characteristics in them, it is nonetheless the case that even into historical times a dependable way for someone to become a king in Germania was to marry the queen of the previous king (Enright, 1996, 69). Presumably she in some cases or ways represented the kingdom.

A figure who preserves the characteristics of Ɂéḱwonā is the Indian Mādhavī (from *medhu-), whose story is found in the Mahābharata. There was a rule in India that after “graduating” from his training, a disciple was to offer a gift to his teacher. When Gālava asked his teacher Viśvamitra what he wanted, the teacher asked for eight hundred horses, each white but with one black ear. In despair over where to find so many of such a rare kind of horse, Gālava asks advice from Yayāti. He doesn’t have the horses, but he gives her his daughter Mādhavī. Gālava brings her to a king named Ayodhya, who has such horses. He offers the king Mādhavī, but Ayodhya has only 200 of the horses. Mādhavī then pipes up and says that she has the magic power of restoring her virginity, which means that she can bear this king a son, but still be qualified to marry other kings. The deal is made, and after a son is born Gālava and Mādhavī make the same deal with two other kings. Now with 600 horses, Gālava is appalled to learn that that is all there are. He returns to Viśvamitra, and offers Mādhavī to him as a substitute for the missing horses (we have, after all, already learned that she is equivalent to 200 of them), for his own conception of a son. Viśvamitra replies that if only Gālava had brought her to him in the first place, he would have engendered four sons, and they would have been even. Mādhavī is returned to Yayāti, who gives her the choice of a final husband. Turning down the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men, sages, spirits, and even animals, who present themselves to her, she chooses instead to “marry” the forest, and disappears into it to live as a sage (Dumézil, 1973, pp. 70-78; West, 2007, 416).

Even with the elements inserted by later patriarchal society, the identity of Mādhavī as a horse goddess shines through. Although Gālava comes up with the idea of trading her for the horses, it’s she who suggests only giving the first king a son, and then regaining her virginity so she can do this more times. As well as showing that she has control over her own sexuality (no matter how limited is the degree to which society can allow her this), her serial marriages are, for Hindu society, downright promiscuous. Add in the facts that not only is she the equal of 800 rare horses, but that she is, through bearing kings, the founder of royal dynasties, and then topping this with the source of her name in *medhu-, and we have clear reflex of Ɂéḱwonā.

The sequential matings are also found in the Irish Medb (also < *medhu-), a wife and mother of kings, who never had a man without another in his shadow. The Irish story of the “Cattle Raid of Cooley” (Táin Bó Cuailnge; Kinsella, 1989) tells of a war she starts a war to gain an especially fine bull. Her nemesis in this war is Cú Chulainn, whom we have already seen having troubles with a mare goddess. At the end of this war, one of her men complains that they’d lost the war because they had followed a mare. We are also told that wherever she plants a horse goad, a bile grew. A bile was a sacred tree which mythically symbolized a territory and the right of its king to rule, and ritually a common spot for inauguration rituals. That we have here a goddess who isn’t just Irish, but pan-Celtic is shown by the Meduna in Gaul, about whom we would dearly love to know more.

Ɂéḱwonā is not exactly a one-man woman, then. She is partial to warriors, whom she makes into kings. On a divine level, her natural mates are the warrior Perkʷū́nos, with whom she conceived the Twins in some versions of the myth, or the kingly lawgiver Dyḗus Ptḗr, the father of the Twins in others, or, of course, both.

The Mare Goddess has both benevolent and malevolent sides. In her malevolent aspect, she is a bitch goddess, in both senses of the word. There is, for instance, the Irish Morrígain, with her love/hate relationship with Cú Chulainn ("Hound of Culann").

Her malevolent side is due to the untamed nature of her sexuality. Sexual force is dangerous, both to individuals and to society, if it is not channeled into constructive outlets. With the Mare Goddess we are dealing with pure power, which is beyond our ability to control. It is only by playing according to her rules that her power can be harnessed. (O’Flaherty (1980, 237) puts it well when she writes, “The Indo-European mare was dangerous in her erotic powers precisely because they were untamed; as raw forces of a Goddess, they were overpowering.”

Ɂéḱwonā overlaps the sun goddess Sawelyosyo Dhugətḗr somewhat to the point that in some of the later descendant traditions they have become identified with each other. Sawelyosyo Dhugətḗr is connected with horses (especially through the Diwós Sūnú), and Ɂéḱwonā is described with solar imagery. Remember Saraṇyū. Ɂéḱwonā is particularly solar in her power and the danger of approaching her. In Proto-Indo-European times, they seem to have been different goddesses, though.

Horse goddesses are often accompanied by or in some other way associated with birds. The Welsh horse goddess Rhiannon had birds which could wake the dead and lull the living to sleep (“Culhwch and Olwen,” The Mabinogi, 139). The Dioscuri and Helen of Troy were conceived when Zeus raped Leda in the form of a swan; she then gives birth to an egg from which her children hatch.

Although primarily connected with sex separated from motherhood, Ɂéḱwonā’s descendants nonetheless sometimes do have children. When she does become a mother, she is a dark one. She may destroy her children, as Rhiannon was accused of doing, or simply abandon them, as Mādhavī and Saraṇyū did. The story of one of the Machas, referred to earlier, tells of a mýsterious woman who appears at the home of Cruinniuc and marries him. She becomes pregnant, so when Conchobar calls him to court for a festival, she stays behind. After a horse race, Cruinniuc brags that his wife was faster than any of the king’s horses. Despite her pregnancy, Macha is forced to race. She wins, gives birth to twins and dies. (Another Macha, the one who had Emain Macha created with pin of her brooch, who was the daughter of Aed, is called Mongruad, “red mane.”) She may even die giving birth, such as Medusa (Hesiod, Theogony 276 ff.).

She may also have conceived through rape, as Leda, Medusa, and Saraṇyū do. Demeter of Phigalis was lusted after by Poseidon. To escape him, she changed herself into a mare and ran away. He changed himself into a stallion, followed her, and raped her. Because of her rage over this she was given the name "Fury." She gave birth to either a foal, Arion, to a goddess, Despoina, or both (Dexter, 1990a, 287). A similar tale is told of Medusa, who lay with Poseidon (in Hesiod, Theogony, 276 ff), which is described as a rape in Ovid, Metamorphoses (4.798; p. 135), and from whom, when she is killed, a human, Chrysaor, and a horse, Pegasus, spring. Compare with this Macha, who also gives birth to twins (they are both human, but they are still different from each other, male and female; there are some who replace the daughter with a mare, Liath Macha “the Grey of Macha” (Dexter, 1990, 289)). Compare also Rhiannon, who gives birth to Pryderi at the same time that a foal is born; she doesn’t die, but is accused of killing Pryderi, and is punished for this crime she hasn’t committed. In Sparta, maidens honored heroines, the Leukippides, the “White Mares.” They were represented in myth as having been captured by the Dioskouroi, the “Tamers of Wild Horses,” and then married. In a Thessalian marriage, the groom gave his bride a horse. Bremmer (1999, 73) explains this as expressing the fact that a Thessalian expected his wife to act like “a completely domesticated and tame horse. In both cases, we see horses required to be tamed in order to be married, to be turned from a “wild horse,” potentially sexually free, to one who is bound and subservient to a man.

It is common to interpret such myths as a reflection of the conquest of goddess-worshiping peoples by the Indo-Europeans. The goddess worship aspect of the pre-Indo-Europeans has been greatly exaggerated, though, and there are other myths in which the pre-Indo-European goddesses are assimilated peacefully. Perhaps the rape versions arose in areas where the Indo-European migrations were particularly violent, or were invented later to support patriarchal institutions. The story of Mādhavī makes me think that it was the latter; in her story we see a transition from a woman who chooses her own husband to one who is treated as property to be traded for horses. Whatever the reason for it, the rape myth adds emphasis to Ɂéḱwonā’s insistence that sex will always be on her terms, making her a deity to pray to for defending against or punishing sexual abuse of any kind.

The Demeter/Poseidon connection illustrates another association, with the sea. Waves are called "horses" throughout Europe, one of the Irish Machas is daughter of Sainrith mac Imbaith, "Nature of the Sea," and Rhiannon is married to Manawydan, the Welsh version of the Irish sea god Manannan. India, as usual, has developed the connection into a complex image, involving a fiery mare that must be kept submerged lest she destroy the world. Eventually, she will do just that.

Because of her immense power and ambiguity of motivation, Ɂéḱwonā is not a "fun" goddess, and is not one to be lightly approached. Her approval is vital in inauguration rituals, but in general she is better propitiated than invoked.

Ɂéḱwonā, great and powerful,
Wielder of power great and dangerous,
Giver of gifts, giver of kingship,
Provide the power to protect the just.

Bremmer, Jan N. Greek Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Bromwich, Rachel (ed. and tr). Trioedd Ynys Prydein (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978).

Dexter, Miriam Robbins. The Hippomorphic Goddess and her Offspring. Journal of Indo-European Studies 18:3-4 Fall/Winter, 1990), pp. 285 - 307.

Dumézil, Georges. The Destiny of a King. tr. Alf Hiltebeitel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Enright, Michael J. Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age. Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 1996.

Ford, Patrick K. (ed. and tr.) The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977.

Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis). The History and Topography of Ireland. tr. John O'Meara.Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1982 (1951).

Grottaneli, Christiano. Yoked Horses, Twins, and the Powerful Lady: India, Greece, Ireland, and Elsewhere. Journal of Indo-European Studies 14: 1 - 2 (Spring/Summer, 1975), pp. 125 - 152.

Herbert, Maire. Goddess and King: The Sacred Marriage in Early Ireland. Cosmos 7 (1992), pp. 264 - 275.

Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Jufer, Nicole, and Thierry Lugingb&252;hl. Répertoire des deiux gaulois: Les noms des divinitès celtiques. Paris: Editions Errance, 2001.

Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Muhr, Kay. Water Imagery in Early Irish. Celtica 23 (1999), pp. 193-210.

O Maille, Tomas. Medb Cruachna. Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 17 (1978), pp. 129 - 146.

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. tr. Horace Gregory. New York: Penguin Books, 1960.

Pausanias. Description of Greece. tr. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.

Pindar. The Complete Odes. tr. Anthony Verity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Puhvel, Jaan. Vedic Asvamedha- and Gaulish IIPOMIIDVOS. Language 31:2 (1955), pp. 353 - 354.

--Aspects of Equine Functionality. In Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans. ed. Jaan Puhvel. Berkeley,CA: University of California Press, 1970.

--Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1987.

Sophocles. The Complete Plays of Sophocles. ed. Moses Hadas. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.

Webster, Graham. Celtic Religion in Roman Britain. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1986.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.



Gʷouwindā
It should come as no surprise that the Proto-Indo-Europeans, herders of cattle, should have a cow deity. A possible name for her, Gʷouwindā (reconstructed from Irish Boand and Indic govinda-, in Campanile, 1985), means either "White Cow" or "She Who Provides Cows" (Campanile, 1985) ), or “With the Appearance of a Cow" (Olsen, 2020, 398). There was likely more than one Proto-Indo-European goddess who could be categorized as cow goddesses.

The Cow Goddess is a completely benevolent character. Like the Mare Goddess, she is a highly important deity; unlike her, her sexuality is dedicated to the maintenance of the social order. Gʷouwindā is wife and mother, and directs her sexual energy in those directions. She grants the wishes of her worshipers; in the Irish, Norse, Iranian, and Indian cultures there are stories of magic cows that grant wishes.

Cow goddesses are scattered throughout the Indo-European world. Perhaps the most famous is "cow-eyed Hera," from Greece (Burkert, 1985, 131). There were cow herds dedicated to her at Argos and Croton (Parker, 2011, 89, n. 65). Other than Hephaestus and Ares she’s not the mother of any important deities (Burkert, 1985, 133), but she does produce those gods parthenogenically, which gives her a unique power of motherhood. She is called the origin of all (panton genethla) by Alcaeus of Mythilene (Burkert, 1985, 133). In Ovid’s story of the battle with Typhon in Metamorphoses, when the gods turn themselves into animals and flee, Juno turns herself into a cow. She is further honored as a mother. In a trifunctional form, in Rome the goddess Juno Seispes Mater Regina (“Savior Mother Queen,” i.e., third, second, and third functions (Puhvel, 1978, 357-8)) she was invoked by women about to give birth. In Noricum a statue of her (or perhaps a Celtic goddess under that name) was carried on a wagon pulled by cows (Kos, 2008, 13). The name of the Gaulish spring and healing goddess Damona means “Divine or Great Cow” (Green, 1996, 32).

It is at the ends of the Indo-European world, where the old cattle herding days were preserved the longest, that the best examples are found. Ireland, land of cattle raids, gives us Boand and Brigid. We have heard Boand’s story already; how she committed adultery with the Dagda and was destroyed by a fiery liquid, creating the river Boyne in the process. The pairing with the Dagda pairs her also with his other mistress, the Morrígain. In this myth we see a cow goddess acting like a horse goddess and being punished for it.

The fire and water mixture appears with Brigid as well. Her water connection comes through in the many healing wells associated with her. Since she is primarily a hearth goddess, she will be dealt with in full later. As a “house and home” goddess, however, it’s understandable that she would have cow connections. She travels with a white, red-eared cow, causes cows to give milk three times a day, and is given offerings of milk. Although a virgin, she serves, in later Gaelic folklore, as the foster mother of Jesus.

The goddess Verbeia, from Wharfedale in Yorkshire, may be a cow goddess, if her name is related to Irish ferb, “cattle” (Ross, 1967, 217). The river name “Wharfe” may come from her name (Ross, 1967, 21); as a river goddess, she would be connected with fertility. Compare her here with the cow and river goddess Boand.

At the other end of the Indo-European world, India gives us an embarrassment of cow goddesses. The most striking is Sarasvatī, goddess of a sacred river whose actual geographical identity has been unfortunately forgotten. Perhaps it doesn't really matter; her river comes from heavenly sources.

There is much maternal and cow imagery about Sarasvatī. She is prayed to for children (RV 2.4.17), she pours forth milk and ghee (a form of clarified butter) (RV 1.164.49), she is prayed to for a safe pregnancy (RV 10.184.2). Throughout the Rig Veda, waters are described as cows. Sarasvatī is portrayed as white and dressed in white garments, white being the color of sacred cows. In most descriptions, she is calm and peaceful, although she can show a dangerous side if necessary to protect her worshipers.

Sarasvatī is trifunctional; a goddess of purity (her white garments again are symbolic of purity) who inspires speech, a consort of heroes, and a giver of gifts, fertility, and healing. She causes the success of all prayers (RV 6.3.8), defeats enemies (RV 6.61.7), and is the best of mothers (RV 2.41.16).

Another Vedic cow goddess is Dānu. She will be discussed in greater depth later. For now it is enough that she is described as laying down with her son like a cow with her calf (RV 1.32.9).

In the nearby Iranian field we find Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā - “Moist, Heroic, Immaculate” - clearly a trifunctional goddess. (“Anāhitā” has also been translated as “unbound [to anything]” (Johannes Hertel, in Saadi-nejad , 2013, 4), “Unattached” (Skjærvø, 2002, 400).) She makes milk flow (Boyce, 1975, 72). She may have had a sovereignty role, however, as the last Sassanid king, Yazdakart III, was inaugurated at her temple at Istaxr (Duschesne-Guillemin, 1969, 330), and is also a goddess of war, so if she is a reflex of Gʷouwindā she is far more than that.

Although connected with all three functions, Gʷouwindā operates mainly in the third (giver of fertility, prosperity, and healing). She is associated with purity, including sexual purity. This led to the magnitude of Boand's transgression. Gʷouwindā is, in fact, the image of the perfect wife and mother, loyal to both husband and children.

There are enough cow goddesses to raise doubt that there was one Proto-Indo-European cow goddess. It is quite likely that the cow goddess is a classification rather than an individual deity. Even if this is so, however, she may be treated as an individual goddess by the principle of the deification of abstractions.

Pray to Gʷouwindā for protection and for blessings, then. Approach her as you would a beneficent mother. Ask her to pour out her blessings.

Mother of Cows, Mother of People,
whose stream of blessings is everflowing,
whose shining body delights the eyes,
whose holy purity blesses all:
Praise to you, honor to you, love to you.

Boyce, Mary. A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (1977).

Campanile, Enrico. Old Irish Boand. Journal of Indo-European Studies 13:3 & 4Fall/Winter, 1985), pp. 477 - 479.

Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. The Religion of Ancient Iran. In Historia Religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions. ed. C. Jouco Bleeker. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.

Green, Miranda J. The Celtic Goddess as Healer. In Billington, Sandra; Miranda Jane Aldhouse-Green (ed.). The Concept of the Goddess. New York: Routledge, 1996, 26-40.

Kos, Marjeta Šašel. The Story of the Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography. Studia Mythologica Slavica 11 (Sep. 24, 2008), 9-24.

Olsen, Birgit Anette. Father Sky and the Wide-Eyed Cow. Journal of Indo-European Studies 48: 3 & 4 (Fall/Winter, 2020), 389-415.

Parker, Robert. On Greek Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Puhvel, Jaan. Victimal Hierarchies in Indo-European Animal Sacrifice. American Journal of Philology 99:3 (1978b), 354-362.

Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967.


Xáusōs
Xáusōs, "Rising," the goddess of the dawn, is the most confidently reconstructed of the Proto-Indo-European goddesses, both by name and by function. This is no surprise; dawn, after all, travels with the tribe. Her name (*H2éusōs, is the source of the Greek Eōs, Roman Aurora, Vedic Uṣas, Avestan Ušā, Latvian Auseklis, Lithuanian Aušrinė and Ausra, Old Prussian Ausca, (Dexter, 1996, 228), and Germanic Ēostre (Friedrich, 1979, 291-2) (although it has been argued that Ēostre was a name for Easter first, and that Bede created a goddess from the name (Polomé, 1989, 57). Simek (1993, 74) thinks that we should take the evidence seriously, but postulates a spring goddess rather than a goddess of dawn. He also gives the possibility, following Jakob Grimm, of a OHG goddess Ostara. (264). A possible reconstruction of the Proto-Germanic form of this goddess' name is *Austrōn (Friedrich, 1979, 292). Johann Grimm (in Simek, 1993, 74) reconstructed a corresponding continental Germanic goddess *Ôstara (< Proto-Germanic *Austrō). Rudolph Simek (1993, 74), who gives the form Ēostra or perhaps Ēastre, doubts that she would have been a dawn goddess, seeing in her only a “spring-like-fertility goddess.” However, a semantic shift from “dawn” to “spring” doesn’t seem improbable, and based on the other Indo-European cognates and the Proto-Indo-European etymology, I think this is what happened. Matasovič (2009, 122) reconstructs Xáusōs from *H2ues- “kindle,” which would make her the kindler of the light of the sun.

Xáusōs' importance is reflected in Uṣas by her being the most-invoked goddess in the Rig Veda (Dexter, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 148). Uṣas is often invoked in the plural (Puhvel, 1987, 60), as if it were the dawns of ever day that were being described; Friedrich (1979, 296) suggests that this might refer to Dawn and her maidens. This especially clear in the Rig Veda, as in 1.92.1, “the Dawns have made their bright appearance” (Panikkar, 1997). West (2007, 224) suggests that the 350 cows and 350 sheep of the god Helios in the Odyssey were the days and nights of the year. Uṣas (and only Uṣas) is called duhitā divas, “daughter of Dyaus” (RV 1.92.7; Matasovic, 1996, 32; Nagy, 1973, 165). Helen is also called this (of “Zeus,” of course) (Nagy, 1973, 162), although Artemis; Athene; the Muse of the Odyssey, Ate; Persephone; and Helen are called this as well (Edmunds, 10.2, 5; Nagy, 1973, 165). In Greece, Eōs was the sister of other celestial objects: Helios (the Sun) and Selene (the Moon) (Apollodorus, 1.2), or Night (Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"). Among the Balts, Greeks, and Indo-Iranians, Dawn was called “the daughter of heaven” (PIE *dhugH2tḗr diwós) (Dexter, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 149). Uṣas is also the sister of the Aśvins (Ward, 1968, 11) (i.e., of the Sons of Dyaus). Being the sister of the Diwós Sūnú results in a connection with horses; the Sanskrit bradhná-, a term for the color of horses’ coats which are pale red, red, yellowish, or reddish-yellow, is connected with dawn (Kulikov, 2009, 149).

As we have seen in the discussion of the Diwós Sunú, Xáusōs overlaps somewhat with Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr. In the RV, Uṣas sometimes appears as the daughter of the sun god Sūrya (Jamison, 1991, 294), and is given the title sū́ryasya duhitár- (Jamison, 1991, 294). Given the close connection between the sun and the sky god (Dyḗus Ptḗr), with the sun being the eye of Dyḗus Ptḗr, this is no surprise.

Although a beautiful maiden, Xáusōs is not all sweetness and light. Dawn is ambivalent. It is neither night nor day. The dark has been safely navigated, but the light is not yet here. And it might not come. Xáusōs is the keeper of the gates of dawn. Will she open them? There is always the chance that she might not. Indeed, she is often late, with various reasons attributed to her (Dexter, 1996, 228). The Lithuanian dainas often talk of how Aušrine is reluctant to get up in the morning, asking where she is (Dexter, 1996). Eōs also doesn’t want to leave her lover Tithonos in the morning (Propertius 2.18A.7ff., in Dexter, 1996, 232) (although in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 230 she avoids him once he begins to be old).

And even when she does come, her gift is ambivalent. Each day brings us closer to death. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 218-38 gives a poignant example. Eōs asks for eternal life for her lover Tithonos, and Zeus grants it. Unfortunately, she has forgotten to ask that he be given eternal youth, so he grows older and older, shut up in a room where he "babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as he once had in his supple limbs." Less poignant, but more direct are RV 1.92.10: "The ancient goddess, born again and again, dressed in the same color, causes the mortal to age and wears away his life-span, as a cunning gambler carries off the stakes" (O'Flaherty, 1980, 136), and TS 4.3.11.5: "Bringing old age, thou hast come, O unageing Dawn … Unageing, thou dost make to age all else" (West, 2007, 225). Xáusōs is therefore a goddess to be welcomed, but with care.

The ambiguity has another source. Since dawn is neither night nor day, it's between one thing and another. It doesn't really belong; despite taking part in the Xártus, and even being an important part of its operation, it doesn't really belong to the Xártus, because it doesn't have a definite identity. It thus shares in both the promise and danger of Chaos. As a result, dawn rituals express some hopeful thinking and try to work a little magic. Through them it will be the promise we get, not the danger.

Even with the ambiguity, Xáusōs is an upholder of order, of the Xártus. Uṣas (together with her sister, Night) is a "shining mother of order" (RV. 1.142.7; in Macdonell, 1897, 129). The sun does rise, and as long as we continue our own proper behavior it will continue to do so.

There is still doubt, however. Dexter (1998) shows evidence from Greece, the Baltic regions, and India that Dawn is reluctant to leave her bed, to the point that in RV 4.30.8 Indra has to punish her.

Xausós is connected with birch trees. The birch is one of the first trees to reawaken in the spring, and thus an apt symbol for a dawn and spring goddess. Its white bark connects it with purity (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 522-3). According to Paul Friedrich (in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 65), "The birch was a symbol for the feminine and specifically for young, virginal femininity in PIE times." He also suggests that PIE *bherHxgyos "birch" might have been formed from a root meaning "bright," or that the two might have become connected via folk etymology (Friedrich, 1970, p. 27). The Hittite parku "ritually pure; innocent" comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for birch, and in the Baltic languages "birch" has connections with purity and innocence (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 532-3).

As the bringer of light, it is possible to see Xausós as a birth goddess, as was Lucina, the Italic “goddess of light” (Salmon, 1967, 153) Uṣas was transfunctional; she was "endowed with knowledge," "strong with strength," and "bestowing all treasures" (Robbins, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 149).

Hillebrandt (1980,I: 24) points out that RV 10.29.2 refers to the dance of Uṣas, and West (2007, 221) relates that Uṣas was described as "like a dancer" (RV 1.92.4), Eos has dancing places (Odyssey 12.4), and the Baltic Saule is described as a dancer. This may be connected with descriptions of the sun dancing on the horizon. Dances might therefore be something good to include in rituals in her honor.

This comparison of dawn with cows is widespread. For instance, “[Uṣas] uncovers her breast as a cow her udder” (RV 1.92.4) (West, 2007, 224). In the myths surrounding the demonic Paṇis and Vala, both dawn and cows are among the treasures rescued by the gods (Srinivasan, 1973). In that myth, “cow” might refer to Uṣas’ rays (Srinivasan, 1973, 53). Horses are also rescued, and we have seen from earlier that cows and horse are complementary opposites in Indo-European thought. Again we see the ambiguity of Dawn. Of the two, however, in this case it is the cow that Uṣas is identified with; Dawn is described as coming as a cow, not a mare.

Among the Slavs and the Vedics there was a goddess associated with the evening twilight as well. The Vedic Rātrī, Night, is the sister of Uṣas (Macdonell, 1897 (1974) 124); together they nurse Rātrī’s son, Agni (RV 1.96.5). The Slavs had two goddesses with the same name, the Zoryas (Zaroff, 1999, 54). This doesn’t seem to have been the Proto-Indo-European pattern, however, with the dawn and dusk pattern being filled by the Diwós Sunú.

Shining and young, she appears on the horizon.
Baring her breasts, she spreads her light.
With singing maidens, with streaming cows,
she dances over the earth disk's edge.
You who precede the shining wheel,
perform great deeds according to the Xártus.

Dexter, Mirriam Robbins. Dawn-Maid and Sun-Maid: Celestial Goddesses Among the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Indo-Europeanization of Northern Europe: Papers presented at the International Conference held at the University of Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph, 17. 1996, 228-46.

——Dawn Goddess. In Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

——Dawn and Sun in Indo-European Myth: Gender and Geography. Studia Indogermanica Lodziensia 2 (1998), 103-22.

Friedrich, Paul. Proto-Indo-European Trees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

——The Proto-Indo-European Goddess of Dawn: awsos. In Language, Context, and the Imagination: Essays by Paul Friedrich. ed. Anwar S. Dil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1979, 291-7.

Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, Vjačeslav V. Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. tr. Johanna Nichols. New York: Mounton de Gruyter, 1995.

Jamison, Stephanie W. The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.

Mallory, J. P., and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Matasovič, Ranko. "Sky" and "Moon" in Celtic and Indo-European. Celto-Slavica 2 (2009), 154-162. (Differently paginated on-line, from 121-27).

——A Theory of Textual Reconstruction in Indo-European Linguistics. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.

O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Panikkar, Raimundo. The Vedic Experience. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977.

Polomé, Edgar C. Divine Names in Indo-European. Essays on Germanic Religion (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph 6). Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 1989, 55-67.

Puhvel. Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1987.

Salmon, E. T. Samnium and the Samnites Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology, tr. Angela Hall. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 1984, 1993.

Ward, Donald. The Divine Twins: An Indo-European Myth in Germanic Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.


Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr
"Daughter of the Sun" - yes, the figure connected with the Indo-European sun is female. She is not necessarily the sun herself, though, but rather the daughter of the sun as a symbol of Dyḗus Ptḗr, or a maiden who conducts the sun through the sky. Her name has survived as Greek Helen, Vedic Sūryā, Lithuanian Sáulės dukrýtė, and Latvian Saules meita ("Sun's Girl," which West, 2007, 228, suggests comes from an older *Saulēs duktē).

There is no evidence of a solar cult in Ireland or Wales (Mac Cana, 1970, 32). The Irish literary character Gráinne, whose name does mean “sun,” isn’t a goddess, although some (especially Neo-Pagans) have held her to be. The best evidence for this is that she is betrothed to Fionn Mac Cumaill, who may be a reflex of the god Lug. It’s relevant, however, that the Irish word for “sun” is female.

In Nordic mythology, the sun is the goddess Sól, and in the Second Merseburg Charm (Old High German), she is Sunna (Simek, 1993, 297), both goddesses (although the word “Sunna” can be either feminine or neuter (Dexter, 1998, 116)). She is also found as Sunna in Snorri’s Prose Edda (Gylfaginning 36) as “named among the goddesses.” She is also found as Sunna in Snorri’s Prose Edda (Gylfaginning 36), where he also quotes (8) the Poetic Edda’s “Voluspa,” referring to the moon as not knowing “her halls” (in Dexter, 1998, 117). There are many sun symbols from the Nordic world, starting in the Bronze Age. Despite this evidence, Simek (1993, 297) takes the position, which I think extremely unlikely, that solar symbols in, for instance, rock carvings, refer to cult of a fertility god, such as Njǫrðr or Freyr. Simek (1993, 303) doesn’t think either of them was a goddess, merely a literary creation.

The Greek Helen is not usually thought of as a goddess, despite being the sister of gods and the daughter of Zeus. However, she was worshipped at Laconia and at Rhodes (Dexter, 1984, 139; West, 2007, 230). Rhodes is particularly significant, since Helios was the patron deity there. Her name most likely meant "Sun Goddess" (< *Sweléna < *Swel-nā "Sun Goddess") (West, 2007, 231). (Miriam Robbins, 1980, 21, traces the name of Helen back to *swel- "burn," but this is a minority view that even so does not disconnect Helen from the sun. Skutsch (1987, 189) relates it to the Vedic figure Saraṇyu < saraṇa "swift." Saraṇyu is the mother of the Aśvins.)

Helen's father, Zeus, was the Greek form of Dyḗus Ptḗr, whose eye is the sun. The Dioskouroi (i.e., the Diwós Sūnú) were Helen's brothers (Apollodorus 3.10.7; Dexter, 1984, 139). In Thorikos, Helen and the Dioskouroi both received full-grown animals (Parker, 2011, 112). In some of the descendant traditions she has merged with Ɂéḱwonā and become their mother. The merger may have occurred because Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr is closely connected with horses. It is most likely to be seen as describing the sun as either a horse in itself, carried on the back of a horse, or pulled in a chariot by a horse (or by two, who are the Twins).

In Slavic myths, sometimes the sun, Solntse, is female and the moon male, and sometimes the other way round (Dexter, 1998, 116, n. 53). A female figure surrounded or surmounted by solar disks is sometimes found in Slavic embroidery and jewelry (Dexter, 1998, 117).

Sūryā is the daughter of Sūrya, "Sun." She is also sometimes the daughter of Savitṛ, who is in part a solar deity (Dexter, 1984, 137).

As well as the Twins' sister, she is the wife or lover of one or both of them. Thus in Wales we have Cigfa, daughter of "Fair Shining One," married to Pryderi (who was twinned with a horse), the Baltic Saules Meita being wooed by the Sons of Dievas (Dexter, 1984, 138), and the Vedic Aśvins as the husbands of Sūryā (Walker, 2015, 50), and .

As all this suggests, her married life is not the most conventional. Everyone knows the story of Helen of Troy. Although Menelaus was not twinned with Paris, Helen was "married" to them both at the same time. "Menelaus" may be connected with a word for "moon," however (Dexter, 1984, 142). Sūryā is, in some hymns (e.g. RV 10.85) married to the moon, Soma, rather than the Aśvins. Saule has a love/hate relationship with the moon, Mēnesis, as well (West, 2007, 228-9). The moon might even be her father (Dexter, 1984, 142). Even Cigfa is involved in a difficult marriage situation; when her husband and mother-in-law Rhiannon are magically kidnapped, she is left in an land empty of people with Rhiannon's husband, Manawydan. She's concerned that he might take advantage of her, but he reassures her he will remain as a true friend to Pryderi (Ford, 1977, 81.)

Perhaps because of this, Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr is connected with marriage. RV 10.85 is a marriage hymn, and hymns to Saule were sung at weddings. Among the southern Slavs, marriage hymns concerned the wedding of the Sun and the Morning Star (West, 2007, 229). Her marriages were far from successful, however. That of Helen is well-known, and that of the Dioskouroi with Phoibe ("Shining") and Hilaeira ("Genial") began with the wives' abduction from their wedding feast (West, 2007, 232). Pryderi is separated from Cigfa soon after her wedding, leaving his wife in a pseudo-marriage relationship with Manawydan. Under the circumstances, it seems odd to me that she was celebrated at weddings.

Wendy Doniger (1997, 29) sees an equine aspect of Helen in her talking to the Greeks she (rightly) suspected were hiding in the Trojan horse. I think Doniger is going too far here. However, with her connection with marriage it may be signifi-cant that she tries to trick them by impersonating their wives’ voices. Not only does she identify herself with wives, but in a way that could bring harm to the husbands.

There is some overlap with or relationship to Xáusōs. The Baltic Dawn is, in some songs, the grandmother of Saules Meita, and in others is her mother-in-law (Dexter, 1984, 142).

We can see in the stories surrounding Helen, and perhaps Suraṇyū, the confusion among Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr, Xáusōs, and Ɂeḱwonā. All are connected with horses, and all are involved in irregular marriages and/or love affairs. The self-determined sexuality of them is seen in Helen’s going away with Paris; although the match was arranged by Aphrodite, she seems to have gone willingly – a Persian tradition reported by Herodotus (and it is interesting that the Persians would have had a tradition regarding Helen to begin with) held that she would never have left Menelaus unwillingly (Herodotus 1.1, in Doniger, 1997, 30). Euripides, in his play Helen, however, holds forth that she was replaced by a phantom double who was the woman who went to Troy, and that happened precisely because Helen wanted to avoid being carried away (Doniger, 1997, 32). This is a tradition considerably later than Homer, however, and smacks of an attempt to rescue the honor not only of Helen, but of Menelaus, who by this device isn’t really cuckolded.

In Lithuania, however, the Sun and Dawn are distinguished. In some songs, the Sun is delayed because she’s been watching the birth of a maiden more beautiful than her, who is clearly the Dawn (Tumėnas, 2018, 374). Of course, there is still the confusion here with the Sun being delayed, just as the Dawn goddess is.

The sun itself is not an important deity in Indo-European religion. The identification of Apollo with the sun is late, and worship of the sun was not important at an earlier time (Parker, 2011, 77). Helios, although the patron of the city of Rhodes, didn't form a large part of the cult of the other Greeks (Larson, 2010, 68), there is no Celtic deity we can unequivocably identify with the sun, and even though there is a Vedic sun god, Sūrya, many other gods are identified with the sun to the point where we can't say there is a single sun god. It is as the eye of the Sky God that he finds his place.

A phrase *swens kʷekʷlos, "wheel of the sun," is reconstructible from Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Slavic, and Sanskrit, (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, 1995, 624; Orel, 1995, 118; Vytkovskaya, 1992, 105 ). A common symbol of the sun (not confined to the Indo-European traditions) is a circle usually with rays, and sometimes with an equal-armed cross (or more spokes) inside it. This was commonly put in graves (Jones-Bley, 1993, 432), perhaps representing a hope that as the sun emerged from darkness so would the dead person. It was often drawn on the dead in ochre, which would have been put on as a paste. As a red wet substance, the ochre probably signified blood, connecting the return of the sun with a desire for the dead person's return to life (or a magical means of assuring that). This does not necessarily imply a belief in reincarnation, since the rebirth could have been in the land of the dead, but it does suggest that Sawélyosyo Dhugətḗr was a helper to the dead.

Bright One, who shines in the midst of the dark,
Helper of those on life's final journey:
Watch over those who give you worship.

Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Proto-Indo-European Sun Maidens and Gods of the Moon. Mankind Quarterly 25:1 & 2 (Fall/Winter, 1984), pp. 137 - 144.

-----Dawn and Sun in Indo-European Myth: Gender and Geography. Studia Indogermanica Lodziensia 2 (1998), 103-22.

Doniger, Wendy. Sita and Helen, Ahalya and Alcmena: A Comparative Study. History of Religions 37:1 (Aug., 1997), 21-49.

Ford, Patrick K. (ed. and tr.) The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.

Larson, Jennifer. A Land Full of Gods: Nature Deities in Greek Religion. In Ogden, Daniel. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 56-70.

Mac Cana, Proinsias. Celtic Mythology. New York: Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1970.

Parker, Robert. On Greek Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Robbins, Miriam. The Assimilation of Pre-Indo-European Goddesses into Indo-European Society. Journal of Indo-European Studies 8:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1980), 19-29.

Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. tr. Angela Hall. Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 1993.

Skutsch, Otto. Helen, her Name and Nature. Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987), 188-193.

Snorri Sturluson. Edda. tr. Anthony Faulkes. Rutland, VT: Charles F. Tuttle, 1987.

Tumėnas, Vytautas. The Common Attributes Between the Baltic God Perkūnas and his Antique Equivalents Jupiter and Zeus. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 16:4 (2016), 359-67.

Walker, Henry John. The Twin Horse Gods: The Dioskouroi in Mythologies of the Ancient World. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2015.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.


Donu
Donu is the special case. According to Miriam Robbins Dexter (1990), she seems to be a non-Indo-European river and earth goddess who was adopted at an early stage of Proto-Indo-European religion. This makes her Proto-Indo-European enough for our purposes, though. She is found throughout the Indo-European domains, from the Irish goddess Danu to the Vedic Danu to the Danube, Don, Dniester, Donets, and Dniepr rivers. The Greeks were called the Danaans, and the Danes are descended from Dana. She is not found among the Hittites, which may be evidence that she is late Proto-Indo-European, but even to the Hittites the deities of rivers and springs were female.

As a river goddess, Donu is the giver of fertility to the land. "Donu" may have been carried along with the Indo-Europeans as a title rather than a personality, being applied to a river or earth goddess in each new land. She may be worshiped effectively at local rivers, especially the major river in a watershed, and especially at that river's source. The local goddess may be worshiped under her own name, or called "Donu," or even "the Donu" as a title or name. Or she may be called by a combination of names; the Charles river here in Massachusetts, called Wampanoags by the Indians, may be the abode of Donu Quinobequin.

Pure stream, water clearly flowing,
source of life and source of power,
Donu, queen of land extending,
lady of both earth and river:
Here for you this sweet libation,
Here for you our glad oblation,
Back to you our gift is flowing.

Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Reflections on the Goddess *Donu. Mankind Quarterly 31:1 & 2 (Fall/Winter, 1990), pp. 45 - 57


Westyā
"She of the Household" (from *H2ues-, "to dwell" with an extension *-t- and the feminine ending *-yā (< *-iH2) (Emile Benveniste, in Dumézil, 1970, 322)), or perhaps “Burning One” (from *H1ues; Nagy, 1974, 73) is the goddess of the hearth. She is the very basis of the family, its sacred source – the hearth fire is the heart of the house. Her reflexes include Brigid (Ireland), Vesta (Rome), Hestia (Greece), Gabija (Baltic), Tabiti (Scythia; Herodotus, 4.59), and Nëna e vatrës (Albania, “Mother of the Hearth;” Poghirc, 1987, 179). Miriam Robbins (1980, 21) considers her a “late phenomenon,” by which I presume she means a goddess from after the Indo-European breakup. She bases this on the inability of a reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European name for her. However, as we will see there are such some strong similarities among the hearth goddesses that even without cognate names we can assume her to have existed.

For the Indics and Iranians other than among the Scythians she has been replaced by a male deity, who nevertheless retains many of the characteristics of the hearth goddess, as we will see. Among these is the Vedic Agni’s title gṛhapati, “lord of the house” (Knipe, 1975, 94-5).

Wéstyā is the least personified of the Proto-Indo-European deities, being actually present in the flame on the hearth and therefore having little need of personification. For example in Rome, statues of Vesta were rare and late. The fire in her shrine stood in the location that would ordinarily have been occupied by the cult statue (Beard, 1980, 25). Hestia had no myths told about her, and statues of her were, as Nilsson (1940, 75) pointed out, “artistic inventions, not cult statues;” she was the “least anthropomorphized” of the Olympians (Palaima, 1995, 126, n. 23). (There was, however a statue of her in the prytaneion at Athens (Maringer, 1976, 162).) Hestia did have temples, though, for instance in Sparta (Pausanias 3.11.11). Burkert (1985, 170) attributes Hestia’s lack of myths to the hearth’s immobility; if Hestia is the hearth, then she can’t move about and have adventures.

The identification with the flame resulted in her being given titles that referred to the fire – Tabiti, "The Warming/Burning One" (Herodotus 4.59; Raevskii, 1987, 146. West (2007, 267) considers this a Hellenized version of an Indo-Iranian Tapatī), Baltic Gabija, "Little Fire" – without any of them being thought of as a “name.” Rather, new titles were formed separately in the descendant traditions, with the result that we don't know what name the Proto-Indo-Europeans would have called her. Following this practice, I have constructed "Wéstyā," using the same root as "Vesta," the best-known of the Indo-European hearth goddesses. (Both Vesta and Hestia may be from *H1u-eus- < *H1eus “burn” (Mallory, in Mallory and Adams, 1997, 203) or they may be unrelated). Alternate names would be "Xā́sānoyā" (*xā́sā, "hearth" + *-no-, a deity name suffix, + *-ya) or "Dṃzpotnī," "Lady of the Household."

West (2007, 145) will only allow a hearth goddess cult for south central Europe; however, the Irish, Baltic and Scythian evidence argues against this. Even in Zoroastrianism, fire serves a female role in myth, in that Zarathustra is found in fire (Maringer, 1976, 191), as if the fire has given birth to him.

Fire is exceptionally holy, the most holy thing in our world. In some myths it comes down from the heavens, either as lightning or from the sun. In others its origin is from under the waters, the mystery expressed in Xápōm Népōts.

As holy, it is also pure. It is possible that one of the words for fire, *péH2ur, is related to *peuHx- “purify” (Polomé, 1991, 77). Latin “pūrgō, purify,” may be from *pūr agō, “do fire” (Nagy, 2007, 153). This may be either fire as the means of purification, or as an expression of the purity of Wéstyā. Hesiod (Works and Days, 733-4) tells us not to expose oneself to the fire after having made love; i.e., in a state of ritual impurity. Servius (I.6) tells us that lustrare can mean either “illumine” or “purify” (McDonough, 2004, 4-55). Plutarch (Roman Questions 1) gives as one explanation for the use of fire and water in ritual that fire purifies and water cleanses (in Babbitt’s translation, but Rose translates the other way around; the words used are ambiguous. The confusion itself shows the overlap between the idea of fire and purity by identifying its function with that of water.) One of the functions of Agni (although by no means the only one) is to purify from sin (Macdonell, 1897, 18), and he is therefore called “purifying” (RV 5.26.1, in Gonda, 1979, 147). He is often referred to as “pure” (Gonda, 1981, 86, 87; Knipe, 1975, 99), and even impossible to make impure (Knipe, 1975, 99).

However, it is possible for Indo-European fires to become impure. The fire in which someone died in Greece became impure as a result, and had to be extinguished and then, after a suitable period and set of rituals, relit from another, pure fire (Plutarch, Greek Questions 24). The presence of the enemy at the battle of Plataia polluted the fires in the region, so that they had to be extinguished and relit from the fire at Delphi (Plutarch, Lives, Aristides 20.4-5). For the Vedics the cremation fire is impure, and any fire which comes in contact with it also becomes impure. There is a rite with which you can purify it, though, using RV 8.44.17, 21 (Gonda, 1979, 144). That fire can become impure simply emphasizes that it ordinarily is, although that purity is not inviolable.

The character and life events of the Irish saint Brigid are likely a conflation between those of an actual woman who was abbess at Kildare, and a goddess of the same name who preceded her. (Alternatively, the saint could merely be a euhemerized version of the goddess (Bray, 1992, 106).) Many of the miracles surrounding the saint are connected with fire; there is, for instance, one that occurred when she was a baby, and the house burst into flames around her. She was later discovered unharmed (Bray, 1992, 105). I will discuss the details of the fire cult at her convent later.

Hestia is extremely important, to the point where Pindar (Nemean 11) can call her “first among the gods.” According to Apollodorus (1.1.5), she was the first born of Cronos. She was offered to first in sacrifice (Nilsson, 1940, 75), to the point where “Begin with Hestia” became a saying for “first things first” (Burkert, 1985, 170; Nilsson, 1940, 75). The Vedic god of fire, Agni, although male, still receives the first offering. Vesta, on the other hand, received the last prayers (Burchett, 1912, 10).

Oaths were sworn by Hestia (Nilsson, 1940, 73); in the Odyssey 20.252, an oath is sworn both by Zeus and the king’s hearthstone. It was specifically the king’s hearth by which the Persians also swore oaths (Herodotus, 7.43).

“Hearth” and “family” become identified poetically. Herodotus counts hearths when he counts families (Nilsson, 1940, 73), and uses epistion, “those around the domestic fire” for “family” (History 1.176, 5.73, in Sokol, 2010, 338, n.9). A poignant reminder is the prayer of Alcestis in Euripides (163). As she dies, she asks that Hestia be the mother to her children, and to procure for them good marriages. Den Boer (1973, 5), writes, “The goddess to whom she prays is Hestia, the hearth; with a capital letter or not? The commentators hesitate, and I with them.” In Greece, the concept “hearth and home” was carried through to the point where Hestia invented the home (Diodorus, Library of History,5.68.1; in Rice and Stambaugh, 1979, 143). A wonderful Greek term for those who eat together was homokapoi, "those who breathe the same smoke" (Robert, 1996, 3). Aristotle (in Sokol, 2010, 389) says that an Athenian citizen is someone who has a grave (for cult), fire, and water. According to him, then, a hearth is necessary to be a full member of society. To the southeast, in Albania, it is the fire on the hearth that confirms the existence of the family through the generations (Poghirc, 1987, 179).

If hearth and home are to be identified, it should come as no surprise that Brigid was connected strongly with cattle, especially cows (Ó Catháin, 1999). Cows were blessed by her, and many of her miracles involved cows or milk. (In fact, she has more dairy miracles than any other Irish saint (Torma, 2004).) She is accompanied by a white cow (Ó Catháin, 1999, 238), and she can milk her cows three times a day (Bray, 1992, 108). She is also connected with miracles of hospitality (Bray, 1992, 108) and provision (Bray, 1992, 109), both domestic-related areas.

A hearth, like a temple, with whom it shares the concept of fire, was a place of refuge in Greece. In Palaephatus (On Unbelievable Things, 40), Admetos cannot turn someone over to her pursuer because she had sat on his hearth (in Trzaskoma and Brunet, 2004, 337). Odysseus also seeks refuge at the hearth of the Phaeacians (Odyssey, Book 7; it is significant that in Book 9 he tells the Phaeacians the tale of Polyphemos’ violation of hospitality). Christoph Auffarth (1992, 200) argues that it was his clutching at the knees of the queen that actually saved him, but since he also points out that the reason is that women can give asylum in their own homes, there’s not much difference between the two.

Fire is the means by which natural items are transformed into food. This is true both of our own food and that which we give to the gods – the sacrifice. Fire is a doorway between our world and the next; that which is burned in it goes up to the celestial gods, up the pillar of smoke as if up the axis mundi.

Wéstyā incorporates all of these themes. She is that without which we cannot worship the gods, cannot even live in our homes. Without her we have no right to live on our land.

We can see this in some Indo-European laws. In Wales, for instance, a squatter gained possession of land only when a fire had been lit on his hearth and smoke had come from the chimney (Owen, 1978, 1980, 339). The association between ownership and the fire was so strong that the right of a Welsh heir to occupy his father's land was called "the right to uncover the fire" (Rees & Rees, 1961:157). The stone that was placed at the back of the hearth was left behind even after the home had been deserted, to show that the place had once been occupied (Owen, 1978, 339). We might compare this to the Roman laws against the moving of boundary stones, and the refusal of the boundary god Terminus to allow his stone to be removed from the Capitoline hill when a temple to Jupiter was being built there; a location is defined by either (or both of) its center and its edge. On Lewis families were evicted by their fires being extinguished (Banks, 1947, 303-4). In the story of the founding of Cashel, Corc becomes king by lighting a fire in a particular place (Sproule, 1985, 23); St. Molaise gains ownership of Devenish in the same way (O’Grady, 1892, 24-5). At the far eastern end of the Indo-European realm, under Vedic law new territory is legally incorporated with the construction of an altar to the fire god Agni. A new Vedic domestic fire is lit when a man sets up a household, either after marriage, or after taking over a home upon the death of his father; Smith (1986, 82-3) refers to this as the establishment of “status of lordship over some domain, limited though it may be.” The intent is the same; a place belongs to those whose fire burns in it. Archaeological evidence from the Romanian Celts hints at a similar belief. Some houses excavated there appear to have been abandoned voluntarily. Their hearths, which were in the center of the room, had been deliberately and ritually dismantled (Zirra, 1976:16-17).

In Greece, a fire of Hestia burned in a public building, the prytaneion (<*péH2ur). This was the cultural and religious center of the city (Burkert, 1985, 170). As the state hearth, it had a dining room where important visitors were fed (Mikalson, 2005, 160); it was therefore the center of Athens’ hospitality. When a new colony was founded, its Hestia fire was lit from the prytaneion of the founding-city; this not only provided continuity, but justified the existence of the colony (Nilsson, 1940, 75; Sourvinou-Inwood, 1990, 308). A similar practice was found in Wales, where when a family moved the hearth of a new home was lit from an ember taken from the hearth in the old one (Owen, 1979, 1980, 339). When he settled in Iceland, Saemund carried fire to his new land, “in accordance with the old custom” (The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, 10, in Wawn, 1997).

This principle sheds light on the most famous fire, that of the Vestal Virgins at Rome. In their round temple (Roman temples were generally rectangular) burned a fire that was not allowed to go out. It was tended by the Vestal Virgins, who were buried alive if they lost their virginity (Plutarch, Roman Questions 96). If the fire went out, they were scourged by the pontifex maximus, and then relit the fire through friction.

The fire of Vesta was the hearth of Rome, and therefore gave the Romans the right to occupy their land so long as it burnt. The mother of Romulus, who founded Rome, was a Vestal (Dumézil, 1970, 312), which leads to two things. First, the founder of Rome, and therefore Rome itself, has its origin in the establishment of the Vestal fire. Second, the fire predates Rome, and thus is associated with the very land on which Rome was founded. The Vestal Virgins were the "brides of Rome," even wearing bridal dress (the dress of a married woman, and the veil of a bride (Scheid, 2003, 132)). Similarly, in Greece the eternal fires of Hestia in her round temples were tended by women past the age of marriage (Plutarch, Numa, IX), i.e., by unmarried women. Pausanias (8.5.12) tells us of a case in which a priesthood held by a virgin was replaced by one held by “a woman who has had enough of intercourse with men.” The two states, virginity and post-menopausal, were therefore equated.

The famous fire of Brigid at Kildare in Ireland, described by Gerald of Wales (81-2, ¶ 67-69; 88, ¶ 77) in the 12th century, is one more example of a non-extinguished virgin-tended hearth, this time outside but within a circular hedge. By the time the existence of the fire is recorded the virgins are nuns ("brides of Christ") and Brigid is a saint. Just as at the temple of Vesta, men were excluded from the sacred area.

There were sacred fires in Baltic groves in the 19th century that were tended by “competent girls” (Vaitkevičius, 2009, 86). Vaitkevičius warns against projecting this into the past, since it could have been “created or re-created during the 19th” century, a noble concern, but one which I believe unfounded.

That these fires are all tended by unmarried women is a natural result of the principle that territory belongs to the person whose fire burns on it. Because the Proto-Indo-Europeans were patriarchal, that meant that it belonged to the husband of the woman or women who tended that fire. The punishment of straying Vestal Virgins is therefore not excessive in Indo-European terms; a man who takes possession of one of the women who tend the hearth of Rome by having sex with her is taking possession of Rome itself. The straying virgin, and the man who has seduced her, are executed for treason. Non-straying virgins weren’t separated from the city even in death – they were one of only two groups of people allowed in the early days of Rome to be buried in the city (the other was that of generals who had celebrated a triumph (Plutarch, Roman Questions, 79)) (Rüpke, 2006, 272). I said earlier that they were the “brides of Rome.” This is so in the most literal of sense; they aren’t the wives of Rome (as the Irish “brides of Christ” were his wives), but brides. That is, they are eternally in the status of being on their wedding day. This is because in Rome a woman was never free; she was under the manus, the “hand,” of her father before marriage, and of her husband once she was. But a bride wasn’t under the manus of anyone (Beard, 1980, 21) since she was in a transition from one man’s control to another. She was therefore the only sort of person who could tend the fire that could not be under the control of just one man. The Vestal’s independence was further emphasized by their being exempt from guardianship (Dumézil, 1970, 587). A remainder of the Vestals’ regal connection survived in their yearly address to the rex sacrorum: “Are you vigilant, king? Be vigilant!” (Dumézil, 1970, 111).

Thrace gives us a variation of this theme. In the royal palace of 3rd-4th century BCE Seuthopolis was a main hall with a raised hearth in its center. The hearth was square, with a circular depression in its center. There were three snakes coming up from the center, probably with the same purpose as the snakes on the lararium from Pompeii, i.e., they were the spirits of the spot. This is good evidence that this hearth was considered to be an establishment of place. That this hearth was equivalent to the fires of Hestia and Vesta, the common hearth of the people, is shown by the presence of another hearth altar in another room of the palace (the royal family's domestic hearth), and smaller hearth altars in many of the city's houses (Maringer, 1976, 178-180). The hearth of the people was in the home of the king, where it was presumably tended by his wife and/or daughters. There would be no concern about divided loyalties. The king was the embodiment of the people; loyalty to him was loyalty to everyone, and his fire was the people's fire. The same principle might explain the Zoroastrian use of round fire vases inside square enclosures; earlier, outdoor, fire altars were simply square (Stronach, 1966).

In Tegea there was a “Common Hearth of the Arcadians.” On the hill on which it was were found “most of the altars of the Tegeans” (Pausanias 8.53.9). We do not know by whom it was tended, or whether it was perpetual, but it is clearly the center of cult for the region.

In the Vedic rituals of India, there are several fires, among them a round one, the gārhapatyagni, which is tended by the wife of the person the sacrifice is being performed for. There’s no conflict there; it is his sacrifice, so it should be his hearth, tended by his wife. It is from the gārhapatyagni that the other Vedic ritual's fires are lit, and that from which they can be relit if they go out during the ritual. Like Wéstyā, the gārhapatyagni is the point of origin.

Wéstyā is the holy center of the home, its inside. She is especially connected with women. This is not only because she is a goddess. She, like women, is a source of holy power. She is also identified with the house as a whole. (As an aside, it’s good to continue the traditional rule that women may wear hats indoors but men may not. For a man to wear a hat indoors is to offend the house spirits, as if the house alone was not enough protection. But a woman is identified with the home, and therefore cannot offend it.)

We have seen how a continuing fire is characteristic of the cult of the Indo-European hearth goddess. The fire of Brigid never went out, nor did that of Hestia. Even into the twentieth century there were hearth fires in Wales that were said to have been burning for hundreds of years (Owen, 1978, 339). The Vestal fire was only extinguished once a year, and any Vestal virgin who allowed it to go out at any other time was severely punished. This concern with an eternal flame makes a lot of sense in the ancient world from a practical point of view; in any culture without matches lighting a new fire would be a very big deal. Religiously, the extinction of a hearth can be seen as the extinction of the family it supports. In Greece (Argos), for instance, domestic fires were extinguished when a family member died, and then rekindled from fire taken from the state hearth, which was sacred to Hestia (Burkert, 1985, 61); this relighting was accompanied by a sacrifice.

We can’t say that eternal flames were dedicated only to hearth goddesses, however. There were eternal fires (of oak) dedicated to Perúnъ at Novgorod; if any of their slave tenders allowed them to go out, the penalty was death (Simonou, 1997, 106). Several temples to Apollo, including at Delphi (Burkert, 1985, 170) and Athens, had them; one dedicated to Athena went out before Sulla sacked Athens (Burkert, 1985, 61). Another was found at Lycosura, in a temple to Pan and the nymph Erato (Pausanias 8.37.11, in Larson, 2010, 64), and Pan also had one at Olympus (Pausanias 5.15.9), some of the ashes of which went into the ash altar of Zeus. There was one at a temple of Demeter and Persephone at Mantineia (Pausanias 8.9.2) and one for Apollo Lykeios in Argos (Pausanias 2.19.5). In a Russian healing spell the fire is addressed as “Tsar-Fire” (Zaroff, 1999, 55). The Iranian temple fires are dedicated to Ahura Mazda or to Aša. Vedic eternal hearth fires are for Agni. We’ve seen how Zarathustra was born from fire and how the modern fire vase in Zoroastrian temples is round, however, and in India the round fire in the ritual space, the gārhapatyagni, was tended by the wife of the sacrificer. This suggests that the maleness of the fire is a later, Indo-Iranian, thing, perhaps influenced by the fact that *ʔṇ́gʷnis, the animate word for fire, is masculine in gender. When Proto-Indo-European developed the three genders from the earlier distinction between animate and inanimate, the animate nouns became masculine. An animate fire which was female would have become masculine in gender, leading some dialect areas to come up with new names for her and others to switch her gender to male. The maleness of the Slavic fire could be one of the many Iranian elements in Slavic Paganism.



It is certain, however, that eternal fires are connected with hearth goddesses in a very special way. The fire of Brigid is tended by Brigid herself, the fire of Vesta has high-ranking priestesses in a culture in which women had low status and who were under very strict guard, and the fire of Hestia was the common hearth of the city rather than a sacrificial fire.

That the hearth is ever-burning guarantees Wéstyā's constant and continuing presence in the center of the home, just as it does in a temple. Because houses are the center of people's lives, Wéstyā is the sacred center around which life, including ritual, turns. There, in the home, she rules over the other domestic spirits. She is found there identified with the women of the household. (Even in India, where it's supposed to be performed by father of the household, it's often actually conducted by the mother.)

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Not really a guest in my home, little flame on the hearth,
I give you the offerings due a guest.
Not really a guest in my home, Household's Queen:
I am a guest in yours.


Dhéǵhōm Mā́tr
The “Earth Mother” was probably not a purely Proto-Indo-European deity. Her name does appear in the Balkans (Thracian Zemelā, surviving in the name Semele, the mother of Dionysos (West, 2007, 175)), among the Phrygians, where θεος ζεηλος κε may refer to celestial and terrestrial deities (Willi, 2007, 171), the Baltic lands (Lithuanian Žemȳ́na or Žemėpata (Zaroff, 2019, 204), Latvian Zemes Mātē), and perhaps among the Slavs as Mati Syra Zemlja (“Moist Mother Earth”) (Gimbutas, 1971, 169; Robbins, 1980, 20) (also called Mokoš (< mok- “damp” (Kropej, 2003, 130))). *Dhéǵhōm survives as such in Hittite, where it appears as Daganzipas, “Earth-Spirit” (West, 2007, 174). In both Greek and Hittite the first two consonants have undergone metathesis, to *ghdh-, with the *dh- undergoing subsequent change into a thorn [þ]; thus Greek χθών (as in English "chthonic") (Wili, 2007, 180; West, 2007, 174). Although the Vedic Earth deity is not usually called by a reflex of this name, she does appear in the dvandva dyā́vākṣā́mā "heaven and earth" (West, 2007, 174).

The Iranian Armaiti may have been an Earth goddess (Duschesne-Guillemin, 1969, 336).

A famous Earth goddess is the Germanic Nerthus. According to Tacitus (Germania 40), she has a festival in which her image, or something else embodying her, is drawn among men in a cart pulled by cows. For the period of the festival, peace reigns. When it is over, the image and chariot are washed in a sacred lake, and then the slaves who had done the washing are drowned, presumably to protect the sanctity of the goddess. Motz (1992) argues that she is not an Earth Mother per se, because it would be odd for an image of the Earth to be hidden.

Tacitus also records a “Mother of all gods” worshiped by the Aestii, whose symbol is a boar (Germania, 45). Since he describes the language of this tribe as more like that of the British than the Germans, they may have been Celts. Zaroff (2019, 203) suggests instead the Balts, based in large part on Tacitus saying that they collect amber on the beach, which seems to place them along the Baltic sea.

The Roman Terra [Mater] was the chthonic earth, not the agricultural one; it is possible that she might not have been an originally Roman goddess (Motz, 1992, 6).

The Earth Mother was most likely either part of the Proto-Indo-European women's cult (with her name thus often replaced when the Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated) or a goddess worshiped by the non-Indo-Europeans among whom the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived, given a name associated with the earth by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. On the other hand, like fire, she wasn’t personified much, and it was therefore easy for her name to be re-formed from time to time. In many of the cultures she wasn’t a very prominent goddess. In a list of the prices of priesthoods at Erythrae, the priesthood of Hermes Agoraios cost 4,610 drachmas, while the priesthood of Earth went for only 10 drachmas (Parker, 2011, 99). The Earth goddess Gaia was only lightly personified (Walker, 2015, 160; Willi, 2007, 174) and the object of little cult (Burkert, 1985, 175).

Jackson (2002:80-81) suggests the name “Pḷtəwī” (his actual form is *plth2wih2-), “broad one” (or "far-extending one") as a title. This is found in Greece (Plataia, where she was worshiped (Burkert, 1985, 17)), India (Pṛthivī), and perhaps Gaul (Litavi) (West, 2007, 174, 175, 177). Pausanias (7.25.13) describes a sanctuary where the Earth is given the title “Broadbosomed.” An extended form, *dhéǵhōm pḷtu- “wide earth” is found in Old Norse, Avestan, and Sanskrit (Orel, 1995, 119).

In Greece, the Homeric Hymns (XXX) call her the Mother of All, as does Hesiod (Works and Days, 563), and in India she was the womb of all. She is not the only goddess referred to as “mother” – any Iranian goddess might be called that (West, 2007, 140) – so we have to be careful against identifying any “mother goddess” as Dhéǵhōm Mā́tṛ. It must be remembered that just because a goddess is a mother that does not mean she is the Earth Mother. The “Mothers” of Gaul (the Matronae; literally “Mother goddesses”) were mothers of the tribe rather than of the earth. The second half of Demeter’s name is definitely mother, but although her cult is essentially that of an Earth Mother, the first syllable may not mean “Earth,” although some, such as Willi (2007, 172) argue that it does. As well as Žemes Mātē, the Latvians worshiped mothers of cattle (Lopemat), gardens (Darzamat), the fields (Laukamat), the sea (Jurasmat), the wind (Vejamat), and the woods Mezamat (Boyer, 1991a, 306).

One Vedic earth goddess, Aditi, provides a “firm foundation” for the sacrificer (Bhāradvāja Ŝrautasutra 5.15.1, quoted in Gonda, 1981, 87).

In the Vedas, Earth and Sky are mentioned almost solely in the dvandva Dyavapṛthivi. The Greek Zeus and Gaea are often paired as well (Larson, 2010, 67), although they are not seen as mates.

Dhéǵhōm Mā́tṛ is a cow goddess, and similar in many respects to Donu: the giver of fertility, the source of power.

The animal most often connected with her, both as an emblem and as a sacrificial victim, is a sow. One of Freyja’s names was Syr, “sow”(Marjanić,2003, 195), and she rode one, “Gullinbusti … that battle-swine” (“Vlöuspa en skamma” 7: Crawford, 2015, 157-8). Tacitus (Germania 45) says that the emblem of the Mother of the Gods worshiped by the Aestii was a boar; the difference in sex is likely due to it being the emblem of the tribe, not the goddess, a tribe wanting a more warlike emblem. Cornelius Labeo (in Macrobius 1.12.20) argues that Maia was the earth based on her receiving this animal in sacrifice. Pigs were frequent offerings for Tellus and Ceres (Whatmough, 1931, 178). Demeter receives a pregnant sow (Grant, 1953, 31; Macrobius 3.11.10); in fact she was the only Greek goddess who routinely received pigs in sacrifice (Groot, 2014, 27). The Lithuanian earth goddess Žemina received sows in sacrifice (Marjanic, 2003, 192). The connection here is most likely because pigs give birth to a relatively large number of piglets, and are therefore good animals to represent fertility. On the other hand, the Greek Erchian calendar prescribes a pregnant sheep for Gaea, and in the Tetrapolis calendar, she is given a pregnant cow and a black ram (Larson, 2010, 67). In the Iliad (3.103), Gaia receives a black female lamb. The use of a pregnant animal or a young animal for the Earth is no surprise; the blackness of the ram and lamb is no doubt because chthonic deities were often give dark animals (in Greece, Bremmer, 2010, 134).

Oaths may be sworn to the Earth. In his 1547 i>The Simple Words of Catechism, Martynas Mažvydas mentions that oaths were made to Žemepata (Zaroff, 2019, 204). In an oath in Macrobius (3.9.9-13), both Jupiter and Earth (Tellus) are called upon as witnesses. Similarly, in Plutarch, Life of Dion 56.3, Callippus swears “the great oath” to Demeter and Persephone; when Hippolytus, in Euripides, swears by Zeus, he adds the earth. This is paralleled by a Slavic oath, “I swear by the Sky and by the Earth!” (Marjanić, 2003, 189). Among the Slavs she was called to witness in land disputes (Gimbutas, 1971, 169; West, 2007, 175). Probably this is as if "on my mother's womb" or perhaps because, like the Sun, she was always present. This may be why in Aoidhe Chloinne Tuireann, the earth tells Lug the names of his father’s killers (Gray, 1989/90, 46).

Boyer, Régis. Baltic Myths and Religious Categories. In A Restructured Translation of Mythologies (2 vol.). ed. Yves Bonefoy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 305-6.

Bremmer, Jan M. Greek Normative Animal Sacrifice. In A Companion to Greek Religion. ed. Daniel Ogden. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 132-44.

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Gimbutas, Marija. The Slavs. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971.

Gonda, 1981 Grant, Frederick C. (ed.) Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1953.

Groot, Maaike. Burned Offerings and Sacrificial Meals in Geometric and Archaic Karystos. Faunal Remains from Plakari (2011-2012). Pharos 20:2 (2014), 25-52.

Gray, Elizabeth A. Lug and Cú Chulainn: King and Warrior, God and Man. Studia Celtica 24/25 (1989/90), 38-51.

Hesiod. Works and DaysHesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Jackson, Peter. Light from Distant Asterisks: Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage. Numen 49 (2002), 61-101.

Larson, Jennifer. A Land Full of Gods: Nature Deities in Greek Religion. In Ogden, Daniel. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 56-70.

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Marjanić, Suzana. The Dyadic Goddess and Duotheism in Nodil’s The Ancient Faith of the Serbs and the Croats. Studia Mythologica Slavica 6 (2003), 181-204.

Motz, Lotte. The Goddess Nerthus: A New Approach. Amsterdamer Beitrage für Alteren Germanistik 36 (1992), 1-19.

Orel, Vladimir. Indo-European Notes. Indogermanische Forschungen 100 (1995), 116-128.

Parker, Robert. On Greek Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Pausanias. Description of Greece. tr. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.

Robbins, Miriam. The Assimilation of Pre-Indo-European Goddesses into Indo-European Society. Journal of Indo-European Studies 8:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1980), 19-29.

Tacitus. Agricola and the Germania. tr. Harold Mattingly. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1970.

Walker, Henry John. The Twin Horse Gods: The Dioskouroi in Mythologies of the Ancient World. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2015.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Whatmough, Joshua. The Calendar in Ancient Italy Outside Rome. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 42 (1931), 157-79.

Willi, Andreas. Demeter, Gê, and the Indo-European word(s) for ‘earth.’ Historische Sprachforschung/Historical Linguistics, 120 (2007), 169-94.

Zaroff, Roman. Some Aspects of Pre-Christian Baltic Religion. In New Researches on the Religion and Mythology of the Pagan Slavs, ed. Patrice Lajoye. Lisieux, France: Lingva, 2019, 183-219.


Kolyos
“The Coverer” - the goddess of death. Her name survived into the Norse Hel, Greek Kalypso, and Hindi Sarva (Lincoln, 1991, p. 78). We have seen that the land of the dead has a god; Kolyos, on the other hand, is death itself. She drags people down into death with a noose or a snare. She is not a goddess to be friends with, then, but not one to make an enemy of either. Sacrifices to the dead involve a separation, while at the same time honoring; this sort of ritual is definitely appropriate for Kolyos. She is best offered a pig, which is not shared with her worshipers.

Keep far from us your snare,
You who lie in wait for us.
Keep far from us the time
when you will be our Coverer.
We honor you, we acknowledge your power,
but we do not desire your presence.
Take what we give you and do not return.



Lincoln, Bruce. Death, War, and Sacrifice. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991.


There are some possible deities, ones that I don't consider as strongly reconstructed as the ones above, that you might find interesting and useful in your spiritual work. Because I'm not secure in their reconstruction, I didn't include them in Deep Ancestors, but I thought I'd include them here for your consideration.


Bhṛǵṇtyā́

*BhṛǵṇtiH2- (gen. BhṛǵṇtíH2) “Exalted, High One” (Mallory and Adams, 1997, 269). This is a title of Uṣas (bṝhati) (RV 5.80.1, 5.80.2; in Matasović, 1996, 167), and is the source of the Irish Brigid (< *bherḡh- “high, hill, mountain”). It has therefore been suggested (Matasović, 1996, 167) that there was a Proto-Indo-European goddess of poetry, Bhṛǵṇtyā. Hamp (1986, 50), on the other hand, would see the word as reflecting “the concretized social institutional value of an ethnic unit.” Mallory and Adams, however, write, “there is no corresponding myth concerning an Indic bṝhatī́ on which to sustain a mythological comparison” (1997, 269). The evidence is a little thin on the ground for a goddess, then, but she would be worth experimenting with.

Adams, D. Q. and J. P. Mallory. High-One. In Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. ed. D. Q. Adams and J. P. Mallory. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, 273-9.

Hamp, Eric P. *brigantinos. Études Celtique 23 (1986), 50-1.

Matasović, Ranko. A Theory of Textual Reconstruction in Indo-European Linguistics. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.


Priyā

The name would mean “dear one.” It is the source of the name of the Norse goddess Frigga (proto-Germanic *Friyō) (West, 2007, 144). She would perhaps be a goddess of love, as she was equated with Venus in the interpretatio Romana of the days of the week; Latin dies Veneris, “day of Venus,” becoming Old High German frîatac, “Frigg’s Day” (Simek, 1993, 94); compare modern English “Friday” with French Vendedri. RV 1.46.1 calls Uṣas the priyā́ Diváḥ, “beloved (presumably daughter) of Dyaus” (West, 2007). Venus herself, however, was not identified with Aphrodite (and thus as a deity of love) before the 3rd century BCE (Pinsent, 1986, 183), and thus was not originally a goddess of love, so she can’t be considered a cognate. She was likely a spirit of vegetable growth in origin (Lloyd-Morgan, 1986, 179; Pinsent, 1986, 183). Her name may be from *wén-e/os-, “what conquers” (Haudry, 1982, 19) (or perhaps “what conquers itself”), but is more likely from *wenHx-, “desire.” Aphrodite herself doesn’t count as a cognate either, since she was almost certainly adopted from the Near Eastern Ishtar/Astarte (Burkert, 1985 (1977), 152-3), her name likely a Greek pronunciation of the Phoenician version of the name, Ashtoreth (Dowden, 2010, 48).

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (1977).

Dowden, Ken. Olympian Gods, Olympian Pantheon. In Ogden, Daniel. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 41-55.

Haudry, Jean. Comparative Mythology and Comparative Philology. In Homage to Georges Dumézil (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph 3). ed. Edgar C. Polomé. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 1982, 17-23.

Lloyd-Morgan, G. Roman Venus: Public Worship and Private Rites. In Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire. ed. Martin Henig and Anthony King. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1986, 179-88.

Pinsent, John. Roman Spirituality. In Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman. ed. A. H. Armstrong. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1986, 154-94.

Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology, tr. Angela Hall. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 1984, 1993.

West, M. L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.



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