Zojz, the sky-and-lightning father god
Albanian folk pantheon · deity · Albanian folk pantheon traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Zojz is the sky-and-lightning father god of Albanian folk religion, regarded as the highest of the gods. His name continues the Proto-Indo-European daylight-sky deity and is cognate with Messapic Zis and Greek Zeus. In several northern regions the lightning god of the clouds is named instead Shurdhi, Verbti or Rmoria, while Perëndi serves both as a name of the supreme sky-being and as the ordinary Albanian word for sky, heaven and God. Traces of his cult, including the veneration of lightning-struck oaks, survived in the highlands of northern Albania into the early twentieth century.
Children
Domains
- sky and heaven
- lightning and thunder
Powers
- to hurl the lightning-bolt from the clouded sky
Epithets
- PerëndiDemiraj, Bardhyl, Albanische Etymologien: Untersuchungen zum albanischen Erbwortschatz, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1997, s.v. 'Perëndi'. (secondary)
Sources
- Zojz is the Albanian sky-and-lightning father god, the supreme deity of the folk pantheon and the inherited Albanian reflex of the Proto-Indo-European daylight-sky god.: Mallory, J. P. & Adams, D. Q. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, London–Chicago, 1997, s.v. 'Sky'. (secondary); Demiraj, Bardhyl, Albanische Etymologien: Untersuchungen zum albanischen Erbwortschatz, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1997, s.v. 'Perëndi'. (secondary)