Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

170 Zeus superseded by Saint Elias

Greek waters,'—says Mr G. F. Abbott—' which has not the saint's
icon in its stern, with an ever-burning lamp in front of it, or a small
silver-plated picture of the saint attached to its mast. In time of
storm and stress it is the name of St Nicholas that instinctively
rises to the lips of the Greek mariner, and to him candles are
promised, and vows registered. He is to the modern sailor all that
Poseidon was to his ancestors1.'

As in cult, so in legend pagan elements are still to be traced.
Saint Niketas has a cavern with a painted roof by way of a chapel
near Cape Sudsuro in south-eastern Crete. Four or five centuries
ago, says local tradition, a girl was carried off from the chapel by
a Barbary corsair but miraculously restored on the anniversary of
her captivity by Saint Niketas. He flies through the air on a
white-winged horse, and marks on the rock still show where the
horse alighted. Captain T. A. B. Spratt, who visited the chapel,
mindful of Pegasos and Hippokrene, justly concludes that the
saint is 'a sort of Bellerophon2.' Again, many well-known figures
in classical mythology are said to have been saved from the sea by
riding on the back of a dolphin (Arion, Eikadios, Enalos, Koiranos,
Phalanthos, Taras, Theseus, etc.): others had their corpses brought
ashore by a dolphin, which itself expired on reaching land (so with
minor variations in the case of Palaimon or Melikertes, Dionysios
and Hermias of Iasos, Hesiod, and an anonymous boy at Naupaktos).
Both incidents reappear in the records of the hagiographers. Saints
Martinianos of Kaisareia, Kallistratos of Carthage, Basileios the
younger of Constantinople, were each rescued from a watery grave
by a couple of dolphins ; and the corpse of Saint Loukianos of
Antioch was brought ashore by a gigantic dolphin, which breathed
its last on the sand3. Or again,—to take an example that will
appeal to students of Homer—' Saint Elias had been a sailor, but
left the sea repenting of the evil life he had led. Others say he
left because of the hardships he had suffered. He determined to
go where it was not known what the sea or boats were. Shoulder-
ing an oar, he went on asking people what it was. When he came
to the top of a hill he was told it was wood. He saw that they

1 G. F. Abbott Macedonian Folklore Cambridge 1903 p. 241. See also B. Schmidt
Das Volksleben der Neugriechen Leipzig 1871 i. 37, N. G. Polites op. cit. i. 57 ff., D. H.
Kerler Die Patronate der Heiligen Ulm 1905 p. 306.

2 T. A. B. Spratt Travels and Researches in Crete London 1865 i. 343 ff.,
N. G. Polites llapadoaeis Athens 1904 i. inf. no. 199, ii. 798 f., Miss M. Hamilton
in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1906—1907 xiii. 349 and in her Greek Saints arid Their
Festivals Edinburgh and London 1910 p. 27 f.

:1 The evidence is collected and discussed by K. Klement Arion Wien 1898 pp. 1—64
and H. Usener Die Sintfiuthsagen Bonn 1899 pp. 138—180.