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

Zeus superseded by Saint Elias 183

performance of a rain-charm wrought through the imitative magic
of vicarious drenching. In the morning all the children throw
each other into the sea, and later on old men and young join with
them, until no person clad in dry clothes can walk through the
streets with impunity. Those who resist are dealt with by strong
fishermen. This compulsory bathing continues till Vespers, and
then the bells call the drenched multitudes to church. The town
itself looks as if a heavy rain-storm had fallen. And then the
dwellers on that island, where drought causes the greatest suffering,
pray to St. Elias for a good wet season.'

At Constantinople and in its vicinity people think that thunder
is caused by the prophet Elias speeding across the sky on his
chariot—a relic of the belief, which in the middle ages was common
throughout Greece, that thunder was due to God or Saint Elias
pursuing a dragon in heaven. Another relic of the same belief is
the frequent phrase: ( The lightning is chasing the snakes1.' A
manuscript at the monastery of Leimon in Lesbos records the
following conversation between Epiphanios and Andreas with
regard to Byzantine notions on the subject:

Epiphanios. Do they speak truly who declare that the prophet Elias is in
his chariot thundering and lightening among the clouds, and that he is pursuing
a dragon ?

Andreas. Far from it. To accept such a statement on mere hearsay
is utter folly. Men bereft of sense have concocted the tale out of their own
imagination, as also the story that Christ made sparrows out of clay in the
sight of the Jews, threw them into the air, and away they flew, or that he turned
snow into flour. Those stories are false, and so is this, and all the extravagant
doctrines forged by heretics.... Elias, then, did not go up to heaven (far from
it !), nor does he sit on a chariot; but he has power over the rain, and can ask
God that in time of drought he will give rain to the earth.... As to the fact that
lightning burns a dragon, I have no doubts. The thing is true. Only, the
hurler of the lightning is not Saint Elias but the angel of the Lord appointed
for the purpose. A dragon is produced thus : the Devil observes etc.2

Saint Elias has taken the place of the thunder-god not only in
Greece but throughout a wide area of Europe and even of Asia.
A folk-tale from Bukowina in Austria makes Saint Elias steal
thunder and lightning from the Devil, who had misused them3.
Another from the same place, current also in Hungary, tells how

1 N. G. Polites Atj/jLibdeis fierewpoXoyiKoi /ulvBoi (extract from Uapuaaa6s) Athens 1880
p. 4 ff., where further evidence bearing on the phrase 77 acrrpairri nvvriyq. ra '<pl8ia is
collected.

2 Id. ib. p. 7 f. and earlier in his MeX^rr/ iirl rod ($Lov tQu NecoT^pcov 'EA\^w Athens
1871 i. 23 f. (after D. A. M. Charikles in 2,/j.vpvr) Aug. 6, 1871), J. T. Bent The Cyclades
London 1885 p. 87.

3 O. Dahnhardt Natursagen Leipzig and Berlin 1907 i. 139.