At this grand meeting there appeared in the first place a goodly number of Borussian or Prussian gods, among whom stood first and foremost Percunos, the divine leader of the heavenly bodies; Pikollos, whose face was as pale as Hela’s and whose duty was, like hers, to preside over hell; exacting, however, from men nothing but prayers accompanied by beating hearts, he cared nothing whether he was feared or beloved. A third god, Potrympos, had the appearance of a youth, with smiling lips and with a wreath of wheat ears and flowers on his brow; this was the god of War. Of War? And what meant the smile on his lips and the wheat ears on his brow? They indicated that he was also the god of public supplies and even of love. It seems that, in ancient Prussia, War was the purveyor-general and supplied everything. In the retinue of this great trio, we find Antrympos, the god of seas and lakes; Poculos, the god of the air and of storms; then, after these gods ending in _os_, came other deities ending in _us_; Pilvitus, the god of riches, Auchwitus, the god of the sick, and Marcopulus, the god of the nobles. The latter was the terror of the common people, whom he held under an iron yoke. In order to {226}conciliate his good will, they prayed to Puscatus, another god in us, but a kindhearted god. He lived under an elder tree, and the price he exacted in return for his mediation was the modest gift of a piece of bread and a _schoppen_ of beer. [Illustration: 246] Although their priests were called Crives or Waidelottes, their ceremonies were, nevertheless, mere imitations of those of the Druids. The Borussians honored particularly the famous oak of Remowe, to which Percunos, Pikollos, and Potrympos paid a daily visit. To these same gods they offered their prisoners of war; but they were not sacrificed by means of a knife after the German {227}Or the Scandinavian manner. They destroyed them by fire or they gave them to be devoured to enormous serpents who lived upon the altar and for the altar. [Illustration: 247] Now all these gods have come to Germany accompanied by their monstrous reptiles, by griffins fearful to behold, and by demons summoned from hell, all called upon to take part in the impending struggle. {228}Almost at the same time with the Prussian gods arrived also the Scythian gods and those of the Sarmatians, the former in chariots, according to the manner of travelling which prevailed among those nations. They also bowed low, like their people, before the all-powerful Tahiti, the great representative of their religion, Fire. The Scythians had evidently derived very little profit from hearing Ovid read his “Metamorphoses.”