|The Greek kings personified Zeus, as the Italian kings personified Jupiter.| Thus when ancient Greek kings claimed to be descended from Zeus, and even to bear his name,[[1177]] we may reasonably suppose that they also attempted to exercise his divine functions by making thunder and rain for the good of their people or the terror and confusion of their foes. In this respect the legend of Salmoneus[[1178]] probably reflects the pretensions of a whole class of petty sovereigns who reigned of old, each over his little canton, in the oak-clad highlands of Greece. Like their kinsmen the Irish kings, they were expected to be a source of fertility to the land and of fecundity to the cattle;[[1179]] and how could they fulfil these expectations better than by acting the part of their kinsman Zeus, the great god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain? They personified him, apparently, just as the Italian kings personified Jupiter.[[1180]]
|Jupiter in Italy as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain.| In ancient Italy every oak was sacred to Jupiter, the Italian counterpart of Zeus;[[1181]] and on the Capitol at Rome the god was worshipped as the deity not merely of the oak, but of the rain and the thunder.[[1182]] Contrasting the piety of the good old times with the scepticism of an age when nobody thought that heaven was heaven, or cared a fig for Jupiter, a Roman writer tells us that in former days noble matrons used to go with bare feet, streaming hair, and pure minds, up the long Capitoline slope, praying to Jupiter for rain. And straightway, he goes on, it rained bucketsful, then or never, and everybody returned dripping like drowned rats. “But nowadays,” says he, “we are no longer religious, so the fields lie baking.”[[1183]] And as Jupiter conjured up the clouds and caused them to discharge their genial burden on the earth, so he drove them away and brought the bright Italian sky back once more. Hence he was worshipped under the titles of the Serene, he who restores serenity.[[1184]] Lastly, as god of the fertilising showers |Jupiter as the god of fertility.| he made the earth to bring forth; so people called him the Fruitful One.[[1185]]
|The god of the oak and the thunder among the northern Aryans.| When we pass from southern to central Europe we still meet with the great god of the oak and the thunder among the barbarous Aryans who dwelt in the vast primaeval forests.[[1186]] Thus among the Celts of Gaul the Druids esteemed nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the oak on which it grew; they chose groves of oaks for the scene of their solemn service, and they performed none of their rites without oak leaves.[[1187]] “The Celts,” says a Greek writer, “worship |Celtic worship of the oak.| Zeus, and the Celtic image of Zeus is a tall oak.”[[1188]] The Celtic conquerors who settled in Asia in the third century before our era appear to have carried the worship of the oak with them to their new home; for in the heart of Asia Minor the Galatian senate met in a place which bore the pure Celtic name of Drynemetum, “the sacred oak grove” or “the temple of the oak.”[[1189]] Indeed the very name of Druids is believed by good authorities to mean no more than “oak men.”[[1190]] When Christianity displaced Druidism in Ireland, the churches and monasteries were sometimes built in oak groves or under solitary oaks,[[1191]] the choice of the site |Traces of sacred oaks in Ireland.| being perhaps determined by the immemorial sanctity of the trees, which might predispose the minds of the converts to receive with less reluctance the teaching of the new faith.[[1192]] But there is no positive evidence that the Irish Druids performed their rites, like their Gallic brethren, in oak groves,[[1193]] so that the inference from the churches of Kildare, Derry, and the rest is merely a conjecture based on analogy.
In the religion of the ancient Germans the veneration for sacred groves seems to have held the foremost place,[[1194]] and according to Grimm the chief of their holy trees was the oak.[[1195]] It appears to have been especially dedicated to the |The Teutonic god of the oak and the thunder.| god of thunder, Donar or Thunar, the equivalent of the Norse Thor; for a sacred oak near Geismar, in Hesse, which Boniface cut down in the eighth century, went among the heathen by the name of Jupiter’s oak (robur Jovis), which in old German would be Donares eih, “the oak of Donar.”[[1196]] That the Teutonic thunder god Donar, Thunar, Thor was identified with the Italian thunder god Jupiter appears from our word Thursday, Thunar’s day, which is merely a rendering of the Latin dies Jovis.[[1197]] Thus among the ancient Teutons, as among the Greeks and Italians, the god of the oak was also the god of the thunder. Moreover, he was regarded as the great fertilising power, who sent rain and caused the earth to bear fruit; for Adam of Bremen tells us that “Thor presides in the air; he it is who rules thunder and lightning, wind and rains, fine weather and crops.”[[1198]] In these respects, therefore, the Teutonic thunder god again resembled his southern counterparts Zeus and Jupiter. And like them Thor appears to have been the chief god of the pantheon; for in the great temple at Upsala his image |The worship of Thor at Upsala.| occupied the middle place between the images of Odin and Frey,[[1199]] and in oaths by this or other Norse trinities he was always the principal deity invoked.[[1200]] Beside the temple at Upsala there was a sacred grove, but the kinds of trees which grew in it are not known. Only of one tree are we told that it was of mighty size, with great spreading branches, and that it remained green winter and summer alike. Here too was a spring where sacrifices were offered. They used to plunge a living man into the water, and if he disappeared they drew a favourable omen. Every nine years, at the spring equinox, a great festival was held at Upsala in honour of Thor, the god of thunder, Odin, the god of war, and Frey, the god of peace and pleasure. The ceremonies lasted nine days. Nine male animals of every sort were sacrificed, that their blood might appease the gods. Each day six victims were slaughtered, of whom one was a man. Their bodies were fastened to the trees of the grove, where dogs and horses might be seen hanging beside men.[[1201]]
|Perun, the god of the oak and the thunder among the Slavs.| Amongst the Slavs also the oak appears to have been the sacred tree of the thunder god Perun, the counterpart of Zeus and Jupiter.[[1202]] It is said that at Novgorod there used to stand an image of Perun in the likeness of a man with a thunder-stone in his hand. A fire of oak wood burned day and night in his honour; and if ever it went out the attendants paid for their negligence with their lives.[[1203]] Perun seems, like Zeus and Jupiter, to have been the chief god of his people; for Procopius tells us that the Slavs “believe that one god, the maker of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him oxen and every victim.”[[1204]]
|Perkunas, the chief Lithuanian god.| The chief deity of the Lithuanians was Perkunas or Perkuns, the god of thunder and lightning, whose resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter has often been pointed out.[[1205]] Oaks were sacred to him, and when they were cut down by the Christian missionaries, the people loudly complained that their sylvan deities were destroyed.[[1206]] Perpetual fires, kindled with the wood of certain oak-trees, were kept up in honour of Perkunas; if such a fire went out, it was lighted again by friction of the sacred wood.[[1207]] Men sacrificed to oak-trees for good crops, while women did the same to lime-trees; from which we may infer that they regarded oaks as male and lime-trees as female.[[1208]] And in time of drought, when they wanted rain, they used to sacrifice a black heifer, a black he-goat, and a black cock to the thunder-god in the depths of the woods. On such occasions the people assembled in great numbers from the country round about, ate and drank, and called upon Perkunas. They carried a bowl of beer thrice round the fire, then poured the liquor on the flames, while they prayed to the god to send showers.[[1209]] Thus the chief Lithuanian deity presents a close resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter, since he was the god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain.[[1210]]
|The god of the oak and the thunder among the Esthonians.| Wedged in between the Lithuanians and the Slavs are the Esthonians, a people who do not belong to the Aryan family. But they also shared the reverence for the oak, and associated the tree with their thunder-god Taara, the deity of their pantheon, whom they called “Old Father,” or “Father of Heaven.”[[1211]] It is said that down to the beginning of the nineteenth century Esthonians used to smear the holy oaks, lime-trees, and ash-trees with the fresh blood of animals at least once a year.[[1212]] The following prayer to thunder is instructive, because it shews how easily thunder, through its association with rain, may appear to the rustic mind in the character of a beneficent and fertilising power. It was taken down from the lips of an Esthonian peasant |Esthonian prayer to thunder.| in the seventeenth century. “Dear Thunder,” he prayed, “we sacrifice to thee an ox, which has two horns and four claws, and we would beseech thee for the sake of our ploughing and sowing, that our straw may be red as copper, and our corn yellow as gold. Drive somewhere else all black, thick clouds over great marshes, high woods, and wide wastes. But to us ploughmen and sowers give a fruitful time and sweet rain. Holy Thunder, guard our fields, that they may bear good straw below, good ears above, and good grain within.”[[1213]] Sometimes in time of great drought an Esthonian farmer would carry beer thrice round a sacrificial fire, then pour it on the flames with a prayer that the thunder-god would be pleased to send rain.[[1214]]
|Parjanya, the old Indian god of thunder, rain, and fertility.| In like manner, Parjanya, the old Indian god of thunder and rain, whose name is by some scholars identified with the Lithuanian Perkunas,[[1215]] was conceived as a deity of fertility, who not only made plants to germinate, but caused cows, mares, and women to conceive. As the power who impregnated all things, he was compared to a bull, an animal which to the primitive herdsman is the most natural type of the procreative energies. Thus in a hymn of the Rigveda it is said of him:—
“The Bull, loud roaring, swift to send his bounty, lays in the plants the seed for germination.
He smites the trees apart, he slays the demons: all life fears him who wields the mighty weapon.