Firstly, cognates of Skt bhaga I believe are restriced to Satem
languages in Persian and Slavic, but not Baltic or Albanian (Armenian
I don't know). I am not aware of anything close in Greek or any other
centum language. I remember reading where English bogey, bug, puck,
and other words are derived from a root word related to the satem
words for 'god', but as I recall the source was not very
authoritative.
I believe the same is true of horse: Lith asva, Skt asva/ azva,
Avestan aspa. Perhaps centum cognates are ON hestr, Swe hast, and
Gaelic osan? There is also Hittite Asuwa/ aswu. Perhaps Pegasos was
derived from there? Nothing close in Greek, however.
Pegasus was the offspring of the Medusa and Poseidon. This hardly
seems the lineage of the 'horse of god'. Poseidon had a chariot
pulled by horses. So did the Welsh sea-god Manannan and the Norse sea-
god Aegir. They rode across the tops of waves. Perhaps this was
associated with sea breezes or clouds and mists at sea. I believe
that these three IE sea-gods were all related to the same PIE belief.
As for the apocalyptic destruction, I think that is pretty well
restricted to the World Serpent in about every IE mythology.
--- In cybalist@..., "João S. Lopes Filho" <jodan99@...> wrote:
> Well, I was not saying that in IE mythology the horse is allways
associated to apocalyptical destruction, but that there's some traits
of an older myth involving a horse (or a mare) in a kind of proto-
Ragnarok. There was also traits of supernatural horses helping
heroes, like Pegasus or Areion. Speaking of Pegasos... could be
ending -asos akin to Indo-Iranian ashva?
> So, Pe:gasos < * Bhaga-asva "Godly Horse"? Perhaps originally
*Bagasos, later due folk-etymological association with pe:ge: "well,
fountain" turned into Pa:gasos?