Sky Father
Estonian · deity · timeless · Recorded classification
Estonian sky-father. English 'Sky Father' leads; native Uku / Vanaisa in term (Latin script). Uku is genuinely folk-attested in incantations (cf. Finnish Ukko), though the systematised 'high god' portrait was elaborated by 19th-c. writers. Father of the thunder-sons Kõu and Pikker.
Children
Domains
- sky and weather
- thunder
Powers
- father the storm-sons
Epithets
- Vanaisa 'Grandfather', folk-epithet of the sky-father UkuLoorits, Grundzüge des estnischen Volksglaubens (1949) (secondary)
- Taevataat Sky Old-Man / Sky FatherLoorits, Grundzüge des estnischen Volksglaubens (1949) (secondary)
Relations
- equated with: UkkoReciprocal of finnish_ukko.equated-with — Shared Finnic *ukko 'old man' thunder/sky figure across the Gulf of Finland; Estonian folk Uku is genuine but his 'supreme god' profile is partly 19th-c. Estophile inflation (Loorits) — cognate core, romantic overlay.U. Salo, Ukko: The God of Thunder of the Ancient Finns and His Indo-European Family (JIES Monograph 51, 2006) (secondary); O. Loorits, Grundzüge des estnischen Volksglaubens (1949-57) (secondary)
Sources
- Estonian folk religion knows a sky/thunder god called Uku (cognate with Finnish Ukko), also titled Vanaisa ('Grandfather') and Taevataat ('Sky-father').: Estonian mythology, Wikipedia (tertiary)