Perun: Encyclopedia II - Perun - Myth

Perun - Myth

In Russia, Perun was represented with silver hair and golden moustaches. His bolts of lightning were said to be stones and stone arrows. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites and belemnites and sometimes even archaic tools are these stone weapons' remains. Various Slavic countries also call these deposits "Perun's stones", "thunderbolt stones", "thunderbolt wedges" and "Perun's arrow"; other unrelated names for these include "devil's finger", "God's finger", and "Mother of God finger", and in Lithuania, "Berkun's finger". These thunderbolt stones were sometimes said to be transferred back to the sky by the wind. The weapons of Perun protected against bad luck, evil magic, disease, and - naturally enough - lightning itself.

In the classification scheme of Georges Dumézil he was the god of the second function (physical and military power). The Pagan Slavs swore on his name.

Like Thor, Perun's vegetative hypostasis was the oak, especially a particularly distinctive or prominent one. Underneath this oak would be a general place of worship and holding of sacrifices (with a bull, an ox, a ram, and eggs). In Southern Slavic traditions, marked oaks stood on country borders; communities at these positions were visited during village holidays in the late spring and during the summer. Perun is also connected with the plants perunika and perin in Serbian and Russian traditions.

Strong correlation with the near-identical Perkunas from Lithuanian mythology and Perkons from Latvian mythology suggests the close affiliation between, and common origin of, the Balto-Slavic tribes. His name may be cognate with those of the Vedic gods Varuna and Parjanya. The similarities between Perun and the god Thor in Norse mythology caused an amalgamation of the two gods in Kievan Rus. Perun may also be compared to Iupiter Quernus.

In Wendish mythology Perun was known as Percunust, an evil thundergod.

Christianity replaced Perun with Saint Elijah the Thunderer.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Myth", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki