Slavic sends his axe or arrow from a mountain or the sky. The original meaning of could thus have been 'stone-made weapon', then 'sky' or 'lightning'. Evidence Theonyms The following deities are cognates stemming from or related names in Western Indo-European mythologies: PIE: *per-, 'to strike' (or *pérkʷus, the 'oak'), PIE: *per-kwun-os, the weather god, Baltic: Old Prussian: Perkunis, Yotvingian: Parkuns (or Parcuns), Latgalian: Pārkiuņs (ltg); Lithuanian: Perkūnas, the god of rain and thunder, depicted as an angry-looking man with a tawny beard, Latvian: Pērkōns, whose functions are occasionally merged with those of Dievs (the sky-god) in the Latvian dainas (folk songs), Percunatele or Perkunatele, a female deity associated with Perkunas, as mother or wife; PIE: *per-uh₁n-os, the 'one with the thunder stone', Slavic: *perunъ Old Church Slavonic: Perūn (Перýн), the 'maker of the lightning', Old Russian: Perunŭ, Belarusian: Piarun (Пярун), Czech: Perun, Slovak: Perún ; Parom; Bulgarian: Perun (); Polish: Piorun ("lightning"); Russian: Peryn, a peninsula in Novgorod, Russia, connected to a historical worship of Slavic Perun. South Slavic: Perun and Perperuna, a reduplicated feminine derivative from Perun's name which parallels the Old Norse couple Fjörgyn–Fjörgynn and the Lithuanian Perkūnas–Perkūnija, PIE: *per-kwun-iyo (feminine *per-kwun-iyā, the 'realm of Perkwunos', i.e. the [wooded] mountains), Celtic: , Gaulish: the Hercynian (Hercynia) forest or mountains, ancient name of the Ardennes and the Black Forest, which was also known as Arkunia by the time of Aristotle; Hercuniates (’Ερκουνιατες; attached to the suffix -atis 'belonging to'), the name of a Celtic tribe from Pannonia, as described by Pliny and Ptolemy. Germanic: *fergunja, meaning 'mountain', perhaps 'mountainous forest' (or the feminine equivalent of *ferga, 'god'), Old Norse: Fjörgyn, the mother of the thunder-god Thor, the goddess of the wooded landscape and a poetic synonym for 'land' or 'the earth', Gothic: (𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌲𐌿𐌽𐌹), '(wooded) mountain', and , 'world', Old English: , 'mountain', 'wooded hill', Old High German: Firgunnea, the Ore Mountains, and Virgundia Waldus, Virgunnia, 'oaks forest', Slavic: , 'wooded hills' (perhaps an early borrowing from Germanic), Old Church Slavonic: , Old Russian: peregynja, 'wooded hills'; Polish: (toponym), Thunder-god's weapon The name of Perkwunos' weapon *meld-n- is attested by a group of cognates alternatively denoting 'hammer' or 'lightning' in the following traditions: PIE: , 'to grind', Northern PIE: *mel-d-(n)-, 'thunder-god's hammer > lightning', Germanic: *melðunijaz, Old Norse: mjǫllnir, the hammer of Thor; cf. also myln, 'fire', Balto-Slavic: *mild-n-, Slavic: *mlъldni, Old Church Slavonic: mlъni or mlъnii, Serbo-Croatian: múnja