NOTE H, p. 194
ON PARGANYA IN GERMAN.
I am afraid that Slavonic scholars may think that I have represented the identity of Par^anya and the Lituanian Per- kuna as more certain than it really is. Though I have pointed out one difficulty, namely, the Lituanian guttural tenuis k taking the place of a Sanskrit palatal media, I ought perhaps to have added that the transition of Perkuna into the Old Slav. Perunii is not free from difficulties either. G. Krek (Einleitung in die Slavische Literaturgeschichte, Gratz, 1874, p. 101) still keeps to the old derivation of Perunii (thunder) from a root pr, ferire, and looks upon the k as a phonetic intrusion, as in Lit. arklas = Old Slav, oralo. The name Perkuna, however, seems older than the forms without the k, for it occurs in the Lituanian Dainos (Schleicher, Handbuch der Litauischen Sprache, vol. ii. p. 1 seq.). In Russian the name of Perun is mentioned by Nestor (about 1100 A. D.), while Perkunii still occurs in old Russian docu- ments of the thirteenth century (Kerk, I.e., p. 101, n. 3). All this is difficult to explain ; yet Slavonic scholars would hardly feel inclined to admit two different deities, one Per- kunu, the other Perun. Here we must wait for further researches, particularly with reference to the phonetic laws of the Slavonic languages.
But if the identification of Par^anya with Perkuna is not quite free from doubt, this is much more the case with another identification of Par^anya with the Gothic fairguni, first suggested by Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology, and sup- U
