Names of Zeus: Perkūnas

Perkūnas, known as Pērkons in Latvian and Perkuns in Old Prussian, is the Baltic variation of Zeus. The worship of this form of Zeus persisted the longest in Europe, as the Latvians, Lithuanians and Old Prussians were possibly the last group to Christianize of all, lasting strongly into the mid-17th century and possibly beyond. Perkūnas is identified with Zeus directly in the Synodal Constitutions, making him a direct parallel with the God of Gods.

BALTIC PAGANISM

Baltic paganism persisted the longest in Europe, other than perhaps the Ossetian variety in the Caucasus. The adherence to the Old Gods was the hallmark of a very powerful state, medieval Lithuania, which was constantly at war with German settlers, the Poles and the Rus on its borders. From 1199, the Roman Catholic Church began to preach crusades against the pagans along the Baltic Sea.

In 1251, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Mindaugas, was baptized for broadly political reasons. Despite his baptism, the Hypatia Chronicle mentions that he did not abandon the worship of "pagan Gods". He worshipped the Supreme God, Perkūnas , Teliavelis (the God of blacksmiths), and Žvorūna (the Goddess of forests and hunters). In 1261, Mindaugas officially renounced Christianity. Despite constant attacks by the Teutonic Knights, during the Grand Duke's reign, the Lithuanian state expanded and formed a large Empire of the Gods.

The Chronicon terrae Prussiae mentions Prussian religion and the center of Baltic religion as being the Sanctuary of Romuva, where the Kriwe-Kriwajto lived as a powerful priest who was held in high regard by the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Balts of Livonia. The priest was regarded as the highest judge and wielded a serpentine staff named the krywule. They were known to be mediums and commanded ultimate respect.

A significant gloss note on an edition of The Chronicle of John Malalas attributes the worship of ‘demons’ to the founder of the Baltic peoples, Sovii, and to the Greeks themselves:

A secondary source sums up the importance of this God:

Interestingly, until the Christian period, it was a taboo to actually utter the name Perkunas.

RAIN GOD

The mythology of the Baltic peoples states that Perkūnas was created by Dievas, placed on a high inaccessible mountain in a magnificent palace located in the clouds and entrusted with controlling the air. Hence, he was known to be a God of the Rains and to provide assistance to farmers, something that the Jesuit named Hieronymas Fabricius noted in his account of the Baltic worship:

In folksongs a peasant asks Perkūnas to bring the rains, as the "shoots of barley have faded". Fabricius describes how people ceremonially carried beer around the fire and finally poured it into the flames as an offering, all the while petitioning Perkūnas for the much-needed rain​. This practice of libation shows reverence and a direct appeal to the God – the rising fire and smoke would carry the prayers skyward.

Much like the thunder stone mythology from Rome and Africa, stones, arrows and axes struck by lightning were held to reappear from the ground and were considered sacred. These were supposedly used to treat diseases such seizures, warts, tumors, wounds, bleeding, and snake bites.

DISPOSITOR OF GRAND DUKES

Perkūnas, as the primary God of thunder, symbolized cosmic order, authority, and justice. Lithuanian rulers viewed him as a divine guardian, reinforcing their own authority and legitimacy well into the Middle Ages.

As the guardian of morality and keeper of oaths, Lithuanian princes and nobles often swore significant oaths invoking Perkūnas. Much like with the grim penalties involving breaking the oaths of Perun, breaking these oaths meant inviting the God's direct wrath, such as lightning, disaster, or defeat in battle.

Maciej Stryjkowski, a Polish-Lithuanian chronicler, provides a notable historical account (1582) describing how Grand Duke Gediminas (r. 1316–1341) respected Perkūnas and reportedly erected an idol to him:

THE BALTIC TRIAD

Perkūnas is a God associated with thunder and celestial matters, acting as the assistant and executor of Dievas's will in Baltic mythology. His role clearly demonstrates a typical division of powers: Perkūnas governs heavenly elements such as thunder, storms, lightning, and the sky, while Potrimpo (the equivalent of Poseidon) oversees seas, earth, crops, and cereals, and Velnias (also known as Patulas) is associated with the underworld, death, and hell (much like Hades). Although Perkūnas appears subordinate to Dievas, the supreme deity, he was interpreted to function prominently in carrying out creative tasks on Dievas’ behalf, showing a typical pattern of how Zeus is portrayed.

Peter von Dusburg refers to this system of belief in his work from 1326. The triad appears prominently in the Preussiche Chronik of Simon Grunau where it is said to be the major constituent of the sanctuary of Romuva in Prussia that still remained in his time.

The hierarchical dynamic places Perkūnas as a visible agent of divine power and a deity with his own distinct attributes, potentially blurring boundaries that later Christian observers would interpret as confusing from a strictly monotheistic standpoint. Due to this, Christian missionaries and theologians encountering Baltic traditions viewed such a clear hierarchy of Gods as evidence of persistent pagan confusion, apostasy, or heresy. The missionaries also interpreted Perkūnas as ‘supplanting’ Dievas, yet this may have been a total confusion of their delineation of powers.

SYMBOLISM OF PERKŪNAS

As with most forms of Zeus, he is represented wielding a thunderbolt and a weapon, along with an aegis wrapped around his shoulder.

The God is often represented on horseback as a rider on a golden horse. He is known to wield an iron whip, an axe and a fiery club, along with casting spheres of thunder from his hands. Over time, such axes became symbols of Perkūnas.

Amber axes were worn as amulets to protect against misfortune, placed under the bed of a woman in labor, used during wedding ceremonies, and placed in a grave to protect the dead from evil spirits. The axe was attributed with magical power to summon natural atmospheric phenomena. Lithuanians depicted axes on huts, crosses, etc. The axes depicted signs of the sun and lightning (rosettes, concentric circles, single and double spirals), serpents, and lightning.

The oak tree was sacred to Perkūnas. Oaks are the tallest and sturdiest trees of the Baltic forests, and crucially, they are the trees most often struck by lightning. This made them sacred to him in a very literal sense, much like the rest of the Indo-European pantheon. Hieronymas Fabricius also claimed all major rituals to this God were held deep within the very tall forests of the Baltic lands.

Goats were considered emblematic of the God and strongly sacred, maintaining this position long into Lithuanian folklore. In Lithuanian folklore, the humble goat is humorously nicknamed “Perkūno oželis” – literally “Perkūnas’s goat.” The serpent was also associated with him, which is treated with much ire in Christian contexts.

The rainbow, locally called Perkūno laiptai (“Perkūnas’s stairs”) in some dialects, was mythologized as the path by which Perkūnas climbed back to the sky after drenching the earth, showing a commonality with Norse and African representations of Zeus.

In the Romuva sanctuary of the Old Prussians, it is said that an eternal flame burned for the God of Gods that was congregated around for worship, showing his clear relationship with other variations of Zeus.

During the patriarchal period, Perkūnas is depicted with horns, coarse hair, a terrible face, dressed in white and black clothes with a black axe in his hands.

In later symbolism, Perkūnas is an old man with a long, white, gray beard, sitting on an amber throne, a crown on his head, woven from golden hyacinth flowers, holding a stallion in one hand and a golden staff in the other. Sometimes, he is represented gray-haired old man with a moon-colored face, dressed in a red cloak, under which weapons and signs of power are hidden, armed with a silver bow, golden arrows and flint axes. The sign of power is a silver shield with zigzags of lightning.

AFTER CHRISTIANIZATION

One unique facet of Baltic culture is that this equivalent of Zeus was not demonized by the Lithuanians or Latvians to the degree of the others, partially as they Christianized so late. The Christianization did not penetrate into Lithuania as deeply as hoped, as one major Catholic priest complained in 1595:

Even folklore collected in the 19th century further preserves Perkūnas’s mythic persona and his role in cosmic dramas. He is often portrayed as the eternal adversary of evil. In Lithuanian oral legends, the thunder God battles the Velnias (the spirit of Hades, now regarded as a devil), striking at him with lightning. One legend says that Perkūnas is so feared by Velnias and all evil beings that they “try to hide under big rocks and in hollows of large oak trees” to escape his bolts. This shows a very persistent and faithful elaboration of the myth of Zeus battling the forces of decay.

Sacred groves or springs, once dedicated to Perkūnas or Potrimpo, continued to be venerated under Christian saints, blending old deities into Christian saint worship. Much like Perun to the east, Perkūnas was assimilated into the cult of the so-called Saint Elijah. Throughout Lithuania, the Thunder festival was celebrated on July 20th, which in Christian times was identified with the feast of St. Elijah. For a long time, people sacrificed oxen and other animals to Thunder on that day according to pagan custom.