Taara (Taara)

Supreme but possibly pseudo-mythological god in Estonian folklore (often suggested as related to the Norse god Thor, [coincidental chicken-egg here: Sanscrit तारा, tāra, means ‘star’, and Hindu mythology has a goddess called तारा, Tārā, also meaning ‘star’]), also known as Uku, sometimes Vana Isa (Old Father), or Tharapita from the god indicated in the c. 1229 Livonian Chronicle of Henry (which some claimed, with unintentional humor, as coming from Thor, avita!, Thor, help!), and probably derived from Finno-Ugric words meaning ‘sky’/‘high’ and ‘great’. Very complex. Its seeming relation to Saaremaa and its famous meteorite craters suggests a literal manifestation of ‘the sky is falling’ (pace Goscinny), (where most hypotheses depend upon the meteorite’s definitive dating). Also poetic name for Tartu: Taaralinn (Taaratown). Taara was also the name that Oodo, bad guy of Bornhöhe E.’s Tasuja, symbolically names his dog. Part of a small Estonian mythology street-name group.