Other hammer-gods include the Aryo-Indian Indra, who builds the world house; the Anatolian Tarku, the Mesopotamian Rammon or Adad, the northern European Thor. The hammer is apparently identical with adze and axe, and in Egypt the axe is an exceedingly ancient symbol of a deity; in Crete the double axe has a similar significance. In Scotland the hammer is carried by the Cailleach (Old Wife) in her character as Queen of Winter; she shapes the mountains with it, and causes the ground to freeze hard when she beats it. The hammer-god is in many countries a thunderer; to the modern Greeks lightning [[263]]flashes are caused by blows of the “sky-axe” (astro-peléki); in Scottish Gaelic mention is made of the “thunder-ball” (peleir-tarnainach). A thunder-ball is carried by the Japanese thunder-god, but it is often replaced by the thunder-drum.
Pʼan Ku plays no conspicuous part in Chinese mythology; he is evidently an importation. In his character as a world-god he resembles the primeval giant Ymir of Norse-Icelandic myth, who was similarly cut up or ground in the “World Mill”, so that the universe might be set in order.
From the flesh of Ymir the world was formed,
From his blood the billows of the sea,
The hills from his bones, the trees from his hair,
The sphere of heaven from his skull.
Out of his brows the blithe powers made
Midgarth for sons of men,
And out of his brains were the angry clouds
All shaped above in the sky.[4]