v_public_adversarial_beings: 7
This data as json
| rowid | entity_id | canonical_name | tradition | category | primary_domains | short_note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | ENT_BALT_PERKUNAS | Perkūnas | Baltic | Thunder Deity | thunder; lightning; storm; order; battle against chaos | Thunder deity; Lithuanian Perkūnas, Latvian Pērkons, Old Prussian Percunis. Name from Baltic *Perkūnas, cognate with Sanskrit Parjanya, Old Norse Fjörgyn (earth, mother of Thor), and ultimately PIE *perkʷ- (oak, thunder). Perkūnas is the great storm deity who drives away Velnias (the chthonic serpentine deity), often depicted as Velnias hiding under trees, in cattle, in humans — and Perkūnas shattering the hiding place with lightning. This Perkūnas-vs.-Velnias myth is one of the best-attested Baltic mythological narratives, preserved in folk songs and converging with Vedic Indra-vs.-Vrtra and Slavic Perun-vs.-Veles. First attested as "Percunis" in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle (c. 1290 CE). Gimbutas (1963) pp. 199-200; Greimas (1992) pp. 77-120. |