My Son Perun

I made this website for my son. His name is Perun. He was born on May 6, 2007. The events that occurred from his conception to birth will show why the name Perun was chosen.

My Wife and I went to her parents' cottage from Saturday, July 29 until Friday, August 4; it was just the two of us there. Perun was conceived on the morning of Wednesday, August 2, 2006. In the evening, a storm was coming through in the distance with lightning and thunder. At first I could only hear the thunder. It became more frequent and louder over the following minutes. I then saw some lightning flashes. The storm was travelling east but was to the north of us, so it wasn't raining over us at that time. I went outside to chant with the storm and give Praises to the Most High God. The storm continued in the horizon travelling east until I could no longer see the lightning and then further until I couldn't hear the thunder. After a little more chanting I went inside.

I sat in the sunroom of the cottage with my Wife. The main part of the cottage is rectangular and a sunroom was added to it making it an L shape, as shown below.

After about 15 minutes, dragonflies (a dragonfly is called vilinski konjic in Serbian meaning fairy pony) started to collect in the area within the L shape of the cottage labelled as (1) in the diagram. Several hundreds of dragonflies collected in this area flying back and forth but staying within the L and not going higher than the roof. They continued flying within the L for 15 to 20 minutes and then within a 5 minute period they flew over to the other side of the sunroom, labelled as (2) in the diagram. The dragonflies continued on this side for another 10 to 15 minutes flying back and forth in the same manner that they did at the other side of the sunroom. After this they left, and then the storm came.

The storm came fast and strong with lightning and thunder and very hard rain that was coming down diagonally (almost sideways) splashing the water in the lake. The wind was very strong and the sky turned a green colour. The power was cut out by the storm and the storm continued for a long time. The power was out for the remainder of the days that we were at the cottage and continued to be out for several days after that.

After I left the cottage and came home I did some research and found out that there were 8 tornadoes in that area during the storm. The first tornado touched ground 10 km South East of the cottage that we were at. The general direction of the storm in that area was east, moving a little south. I also found out through my research that a green sky in a storm usually means a tornado is forming, so the first tornado must have started to form over us when we saw the green sky and travelled 10 km before touching the ground.

Before my Wife and I knew we were having a boy, we were looking at names for boys and girls and we found one name we liked for a girl, but none for a boy. We were looking for any kind of name, but we made an effort to look for names related to storms or tornadoes because of the events at conception. The only name we liked at that time was Taima for a girl. Taima means loud thunder in a North American First Nations language.

On Tuesday, December 5 we had an ultrasound done and found out that our baby was a boy. So we planned to do some more searching for names on the weekend. This time we decided to not try and look for names related to storms but just look for a name we liked, because looking for names related to storms limited our choices. We looked for names on Saturday, December 9. We searched many websites for baby names. We were looking for a long time but didn't find even one name we would have wanted. We finally came to one page and my Wife noticed the name Bronte and when we looked at the meaning of the name, it was thunder. We weren't set on that name so we continued looking. Soon after I noticed the name Perun. I said to my Wife that I think that is the name of a Serbian God before Christianity. (I had previously read something talking about the history of Serbian people and the name Perun was mentioned along with the names of other gods in those times, but only the names were mentioned, nothing else was said about them.) My Wife then clicked the name to see the meaning, and it said thunder. So I said to her that Perun must be the God of thunder. My Wife said that God must be telling us something. Our intention this time was to not look for names specifically related to storms, but just find names that we liked, but the only two names we liked happened to be names related to thunder. And in addition to that, Taima, the only name we found before was also related to thunder.

I kept on thinking about the name through the evening and later in the night I did some research about Perun and I was amazed at what I found.

Perun is the god of the living world, sky and earth and is the god of thunder and lightning and storms. One place talked about his voice being the thunder and the windstorms his breath. Perun is also the highest God above other gods and represents judgement.

Here is a quote "Perun represented justice and order. He was the purifier, as well as the devil's principal enemy. His actions were manifested in lightning and thunder; and ancient men heard his voice in thunder, and believed it drove away the devil and other evil forces."

The main sacred animal of Perun is the Bull (Taurus). My son was born during the time of Taurus.

The following is a more minor relation; Perun's sacred tree is the oak tree and strong oak trees are especially associated with Perun. We have a big oak tree near the street in front of our house that has a large base and close to the bottom it splits into three. The tree holds on to most of its leaves until late winter.

I also read that evening that Perun is associated with Elijah from the bible because Elijah called down the lightning. The main day that is associated with Perun is August 2 (July 20 in the old Julian calendar); Which became St. Elijah day when Christianity came. The day of the storm and tornadoes when my son Perun was conceived was August 2.

Perun shoots his lightning bolts at the dragon (the devil) and every spring Perun slays the dragon and summer comes. Perun is associated with St. George because St. George slayed the dragon. In the Serbian tradition, people would have a Saint that is associated with them, and every year they would have a celebration for that Saint, the celebration is called Slava. The Saint was passed on through the generations from father to son. The Saint of my family is St.George, from the tradition of my father and forefathers, and St. George day is celebrated on May 6 (April 23 in the old Julian calendar). It is likely that the reason my family's feast day is St. George is because the feast day of my family before Christianity was the day that celebrated when Perun slayed the dragon to end winter and bring forth summer. Many of the Christian holidays in Serbia are related to the feasts celebrated before. This was done because the people still celebrated their old feasts after Christianity was brought to the region. So the people spreading Christianity found biblical or other religious characters that had similarities with the stories of the old religion and replaced the old feasts with new similar ones. It is especially interesting about St. George because the original story of St. George had nothing to do with a dragon, he was a man who spread Christianity and was executed because of it.

After my Wife's first midwife appointment a month or two after conception, we were told that the baby was due on April 30 (This date was later adjusted to May 1). After that first midwife appointment (even before we found the name Perun), I told my Wife that I thought that our child would be born on St. George Day. Whenever other people asked me the due date, I would tell them the baby is technically due on May 1, but he will be coming on May 6. People wondered why I was so sure and I told them they would find out why after the baby is born.

Perun was born on St. George day, May 6, 2007 (277 days after conception). My Wife had light contractions starting on the evening of Friday, May 4. There were 33 tornadoes reported in the United States that evening and night. Since the contractions were very light at that time, my Wife was able to sleep through the night. The light contractions continued during the day on May 5 and at 4 pm EST her water broke and soon after the strong contractions started and continued through the night. There were 111 tornadoes reported in the United States that day and night. Perun was born at 9:49 am EST and weighed 3.37 kg (7 pounds 7 ounces). There were 11 tornadoes reported in the United States that day and night.

In January, there was one more thing I noticed. I found something that said that some saints had two days associated with them; one was the main celebration and the other one was a secondary and less important celebration. It said that St. George day is also celebrated on December 9 (November 26 in the old Julian calendar). December 9 was the day we found the name Perun.

A small thing happened one night in the first week of Perun's Life, he was in bed and fussing a bit. Then a lightning storm started and he almost immediately calmed and fell asleep. He slept for a long time after.

On July 4, 2007, Perun, my Wife and I returned to my Wife's parent's cottage for the first time since August, when Perun was concieved; we spent three days there. I went outside to chant with Perun a few times during our stay. On July 5, Perun fell asleep in the early evening and soon after a lightning storm started and a lot of hail poured down. This went on for a while and Perun remained asleep. My Wife's parents said this was the first time they saw hail at the cottage in all the years they have been there.

I don't know how often it hails at the cottage, but I would assume it probably hails a few times every year. My Wife's parents go the the cottage a few times over the spring, summer and fall. They spend a week or two at a time or sometimes over a long weekend, but they are not there all the time. But it still is interesting that that was the first time they saw hail there, they have had the cottage for several years.

In the morning of the next day, the sky was clear over us and during the morning Perun fell asleep. I went over to look at him and he was sleeping quietly and then after a few minutes he moved a little a made a small amount of noise, and then I heard thunder, he continued to sleep . A small storm came over us a few minutes later.

In the beginning of November I found out about the asteroid Perun and that it would be visible near the end of the month. It was visible in the sky over northern Europe on November 23, 2007 at around 7pm UTC/GMT. The Perun asteroid 4250 (provisional designation 1984 UG) was discovered in October 20, 1984, it is 20 km in diameter and circles the sun in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter.

On, November 23, The asteroid crossed the constellation of Taurus. Taurus is the sign my Son was born in. I also found out afterwards that in the country of Georgia, they celebrate St. George day on May 6 (My Son's Birthday) and also on November 23. So since St. George day was taken from a celebration of Perun slaying Veles, November 23 is likely one of Perun's celebration days.

Here is a picture of the location in the sky that the Perun asteroid was visible crossing over the Taurus constellation. The Perun asteroid is within the circle in the red square labeled C35, click the square to get a zoomed in view within the square.



Here is a picture showing the the path where the asteroid was visible, the times displayed show the time it was visible at each area in UTC time. The center line is the projected path, and the red lines show the possible variance in the path. Click the picture to zoom in.



This picture below shows a close up of the path of the asteroid when it passed over Denmark. One interesting thing I noticed is that if you take the radius of the curve at the point where it passes Denmark, the radius crosses through Serbia. My Wife's Father is from Denmark and as I already mentioned, my parents are from Serbia.