© Jürgen Sauer

"Huge black billows joined jagged peaks to silhouette the rays of a departed sun, while purple-white flashes began strobing the darkened rock and snow and cloud... The patter of rain started shortly after I crawled into my tent, followed by the full fury of whatever thunder god now rules these heavens. Many have come and gone—the Celtic Taranis, the Germanic Thor, the Slavic Perun (all possible descendants of the proto-Indo-European Perkwunos)—and when Marcus Aurelius came dealing retribution, he would have brought Jupiter.
        Or was it not a pagan god whom the Roman Emperor thanked for splitting these lofty skies?..."

— Lead-in to the "Rain Miracle of Marcus Aurelius," pages 94-95, Into the Carpathians, Part 2, © Alan E. Sparks.