Thiermes (Or Tiermes)

Thiermes (Or Tiermes)

Thiermes (or Tiermes)

in the mythology of the Laplanders, was the son of the devil by a Lapland girl. The latter was sitting upon the ground under a tree, when Perkel (the devil), disguised as a stranger, came to her, and asked her to hang her fur coat upon a bundle of wood. This she complied with, but suddenly the bundle of wood began to burn, and she, vainly endeavoring to escape his embraces, became his victim. The child was removed to the highest heaven, and was there questioned as to whose child it desired to be, the father's or the mother's. It decided in favor of the mother, after which the high ruler made of it a god of thunder. As such, pursued by its father, it flies about in the heavens, thundering and lightening, now uprooting trees, again splitting rocks, doing good and evil. The Laplanders have a poorly developed worship of the deities. Thus, it seems, there can be accredited to Thiermes only a general worship.