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

184 Zeus superseded by Saint Elias

Elias drove all evil spirits out of heaven by causing thunder,
lightning, and a torrent of rain for forty days and nights1. In
a Rumanian tale Judas steals the sun and moon from heaven, while
Petrus is asleep: Elias offers to vanquish him, is armed with
lightning and thunder, and succeeds in binding him to a column
with iron fetters2. In Servian songs Elias is expressly called
gromovnik Iliya, the' thunderer Elias': he controls lightning, thunder,
and the clouds of heaven3. According to Mr W. R. S. Ralston,
' The Servians say that at the division of the world Ilya received
the thunder and lightning as his share, and that the crash and
blaze of the storm are signs of his contest with the devil. Where-
fore the faithful ought not to cross themselves when the thunder
peals, lest the evil one should take refuge from the heavenly
weapons behind the protecting cross. The Bulgarians say that
forked lightning is the lance of Ilya who is chasing the Lamia
fiend : summer lightning is due to the sheen of that lance, or to the
fire issuing from the nostrils of his celestial steeds. The white
clouds of summer are named by them his heavenly sheep, and
they say that he compels the spirits of dead Gypsies to form pellets
of snow—by men styled hail—with which he scourges in summer
the fields of sinners4.' Mr Ralston further shows that Elias has
inherited the attributes of the old Slavonic thunder-god Perun.
The Russians hold that 'the Prophet Ilya thunders across the sky
in a flaming car, and smites the clouds with the darts of the
lightning. In the Vladimir Government he is said "to destroy
devils with stone arrows".... On his day the peasants everywhere
expect thunder and rain, and in some places they set out rye and
oats on their gates, and ask their clergy to laud the name of Ilya,
that he may bless their cornfields with plenteousness. There are
districts, also, in which the people go to church in a body on Ilya's
day, and after the service is over they kill and roast a beast which
has been purchased at the expense of the community. Its flesh is
cut up into small pieces and sold, the money paid for it going to
the church. To stay away from this ceremony, or not to purchase
a piece of the meat, would be considered a great sin ; to mow or
make hay on that day would be to incur a terrible risk, for Ilya
might smite the field with the thunder, or burn up the crop with
the lightning. In the old Novgorod there used to be two churches,
the one dedicated to " Ilya the Wet," the other to " Ilya the Dry."

1 O. Dahnhardt Natursagen i. 133 f.

2 Id. ib. i. 145.

3 J. Grimm Teutonic Mythology trans. J. S. Stallybrass London 1882 i. 173.

4 W. R. S. Ralston Russian Folktales London 1873 p. 339.