Magic weapons and epic tales
Perun is the god of thunder and lightning but he is also a warrior and has been endowed with an impressive array of weapons : thunderbolts, bow and arrow, mace, hammer, axe and even golden apples, talismans of ultimate destruction. The thunderbolts remind us of Jupiter, the Roman god and the hammer of Thor, the Norse. All three are sky gods. Norse, Slavs, Romans are of the same Indo-European origin and their ancestors shared the same pantheon.
Thus Perun was able to accomplish heroic deeds and defeat the watery god of the underworld, Veles. In fact gods and heroes all around the world have extraordinary, magical weapons. They have to fight epic battles to secure the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, cosmos over chaos. Heroes can also be sent on a quest . They need to be armed accordingly. We can note some of their main features :
- Weapons have a personal name ( this is specially true for swords). They can sometimes speak and even sing. For instance, Assyrian god Ninurta has a talking mace named Sharur( the Smasher of thousands).
- These weapons are often made by supernatural beings out of metals unknown to men. Three Cyclops, servants of fire god Hephaestus forge thunderbolts for Zeus
- These weapons, like the axe of Perun, can fly back in their owner’s hand.
- There is a special bond between the hero and his weapon. It is often specially designed for him, no one else can use it and it is linked to the hero’s destiny. For instance, Greek hero Ulysses had a bow no one else could bend and in Celtic legends, Arthur proves he is the legitimate king by being the only one capable of drawing the sword Excalibur from the stone it was imprisoned in.
All these deeds are worthy to be sung in epic poems and transmitted from generation to generation. The fascination lives on as we can see with the success of recent movies and Marvel comics. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, the girls try to understand why the guys are so passionate about these gods and heroes. They read some comics and get caught up in a heated discussion on the hammer of Thor and the nature of its magic power.
We shall leave these points to the experts and consider other aspects of the question.
Historical considerations
Some studies show that Perun’s weapons reflect the evolution of Slavic weaponry. They have to be considered from the point of view of Proto-Slavic and early Slavic society. What weapons prevailed at a certain time, the supreme god was empowered with the same weapons. Thus Perun went through a series of steps. It was believed that his bow and arrow were in the beginning made of stone. Stone tools and weapons belong to the dawn of humanity. He fights with a club or mace, a rustic, unsophisticated instrument used by shepherds to protect their herds from thieves. The sources on Slavic warfare mention most often the bow and arrow, the favorite weapon of nomadic tribes of steppes. The axe is also mentioned but it is obvious from the information we can gather that these Slavs did not fight with swords or spears.
The Sword and the Bow.
Considering that most of the information comes from historians who belonged to nations attacked by the Slavs, we must be aware of the ideological implications. Greek and Romans considered all other nations as barbaric. The Greek and Roman soldiers were free citizens and they fought with sword and spear. There was a contempt for the archer who fought cowardly at a distance, relying on skill rather than strength and courage. These ethics prevailed in the early medieval times and historians had a certain contempt for Slavic archers who avoided open battles and resorted to guerilla tactics. Much later, the English were to discover the merits of archery but that is another story.
The axes were however what terrified most « civilized » Europeans. The warriors fought in a frenzied state and could crack open skulls with the deadly weapon or throw it like a tomahawk. Nothing could symbolize more the savage, dark, pagan forces that were disrupting the fragile medieval Christian order.
Archeologists have found small amulets made of bronze called axes of Perun. They are decorated with symbols that do not seem to be connected to war. The zigzags represent lightning and the circles, the celestial bodies.
This seems to indicate that weapons were in fact linked to meteorological phenomena (the arrows were thunderbolts and the hammer was thunder).
When Sky meets Earth
The ax splits open, strikes, makes noise, produces sparkles. In many cultures it is likened to lightning and therefore to rain and fertility. The ax of stone, fallen from heaven, also called the stone of lightning is a symbol in such diverse cultures as the Mayas, the Chinese Tang dynasty or the Celts. The Dogons and Bambaras of West Africa keep as sacred objects axes they believe are lightning sent by the god of Water to fertilize Earth. They even bury them in the ground to activate germination. Perun’s lightning bolts were stone arrows. They remained seven years buried in the ground before returning to the heavens. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites, belemnites, masses of fused sand, prehistoric stone tools found in the ground were in fact remains of Perun’s arrows. They were called Perun’s stones and used as amulets against disease and evil magic.
The important fact is that lightning in the shape of arrows or axes brings fertility. In many ancient religions, all begins with a primordial couple, a male sky god and a female Earth goddess. Lightning like a piercing arrow or an ax splits open the earth, penetrates her, fills her with the sacred fire and life can begin. Perun comes from an Indo-European root per- that means to strike. Every spring he strikes the frozen Earth with lightning to awaken her from her winterly slumber.
Maybe the epic poems and the Marvel comics have put too much emphasis on war and battles. Perun’s weapons are deeply ambivalent. They bring destruction and punishment, they are even instruments and emblemas of royal authority but they bring life and fertility in a very striking manner.
Sources:
On Slavic warfare and weaponry: https://www.twcenter.net, https://en.topwar.ru
On the symbolism of the ax: https://archive.org
Images: wikimedia.org, img.freepik.com, jamesjchoi.com