Chapter 8

Christian mythology among the Slav and certain Asiatic nations has handed over the thunderer's business to the prophet Elijah, who drives to heaven in the tempest, whom a chariot and horse of fire receive, 2 Kings 2, 1l. In the Servian songs 2, 1. 2, 2 he is expressly called gromovnik Iliya (13) lightning and thunder (munya and grom) are given into his hand, and to sinful men he shuts up the clouds of heaven, so that they let no rain fall on the earth (see Suppl.). This last agrees with the O.T. too, 1 Kings 17, 1. 18, 41-5, conf. Lu. 4, 25, Jam. 5, 17; and the same view is taken in the OHG. poem, O. iii. 12, 13:

Quedent sum giwâro, Helias sîs ther mâro,

ther thiz lant sô tharta, then himil sô bisparta,

ther iu ni liaz in nôtin regonon then liutin,

thuangta si giwâro harto filu suâro. (14)

But what we have to note especially is, that in the story of Anti-christ's appearance a little before the end of the world, which was current throughout the Mid. Ages (and whose striking points of agreement with the ON. mythus of Surtr and Muspellsheim I shall speak of later), Helias again occupies the place of the northern thundergod. Thôrr overcomes the great serpent, but he has scarcely moved nine paces from it, when he is touched by its venomous breath, and sinks to the ground dead, Sn. 73. In the OHG. poem of Muspilli 48--54, Antichrist and the devil do indeed fall, but Elias also is grievously wounded in the fight:

Doh wanit des vilu gotmanno (15)

daz Elias in demo wîge arwartit:

sâr sô daz Eliases pluot

in erda kitriufit,

sô inprinnant die perga;

his blood dripping on the earth sets the mountains on fire, and the Judgment-day is heralded by other signs as well. Without knowing in their completeness the notions of the devil, Antichrist, Elias and Enoch, which were current about the 7th or 8th century, (16) we cannot fully appreciate this analogy between Elias and the Donar of the heathens. There was nothing in christian tradition to warrant the supposition of Elias receiving a wound, and that a deadly one. The comparison becomes still more suggestive by the fact that the even half-christian races in the Caucasus worship Elias as a god of thunder. The Ossetes think a man lucky who is struck by lightning, they believe Ilia has taken him to himself; survivors raise a cry of joy, and sing and dance around the body, the people flock together; form a ring for dancing, and sing: O Ellai, Ellai, eldaer tchoppei! (O Elias, Elias, lord of the rocky summits). By the cairn over the grave they set up a long pole supporting a skin of a black he-goat, which is their usual manner of sacrificing to Elias (see Suppl.). They implore Elias to make their fields fruitful, and keep the hail away from them. (17) Olearius already had put it upon record, that the Circassians on the Caspian sacrificed a goat on Elias's day, and stretched the skin on a pole with prayers. (18) Even the Muhammadans, in praying that a thunderstorm may be averted, name the name of Ilya. (19)

Now, the Servian songs put by the side of Elias the Virgin Mary; and it was she especially that in the Mid. Ages was invoked for rain. The chroniclers mention a rain-procession in the Liège country about the year 1240 or 1244; (20) three times did priests and people march round (nudis pedibus et in laneis), but all in vain, because in calling upon all the saints they had forgotten the Mother of God; so, when the saintly choir laid the petition before God, Mary opposed. In a new procession a solemn 'salve regina' was sung: Et cum serenum tempus ante fuisset, tanta inundatio pluviae facta est, ut fere omnes qui in processione aderant, hac illacque dispergerentur. With the Lithuanians, the holy goddes (dievaite sventa) is a rain-goddess. Heathendom probably addressed the petition for rain to the thundergod, instead of to Elias and Mary. (21) Yet I cannot call to mind a single passage, even in ON. legend, where Thôrr is said to have bestowed rain when it was asked for; we are only told that he sends stormy weather when he is angry, Olafs Tryggv. saga 1, 302-6 (see Suppl.). But we may fairly take into account his general resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter (who are expressly uetioj, pluvius, Il. 12, 25: ue Zeuj sunecej), and the prevalence of votis imbrem vocare among all the neighbouring nations (see Suppl.).

A description by Petronius cap. 44, of a Roman procession for rain, agrees closely with that given above from the Mid. Ages: Antea stolatae ibant nudis pedibus in clivum, passis capillis, mentionbus puris, et Jovem aquam exorbant; itaque statim uncreatim (in bucketfalls) pluebat, aut tunc aut nunquam, et emnes ridebant, uvidi tanquam mures. M. Antoninus (eij eauton 5, 7) has preserved the beautifully simple prayer of the Athenians for rain: euch Aqhnaiwn, uson, uson, w file Zeu, kata thj apoupaj thj Aqhnaiwn kai twn pediwn (see Suppl.). According to Lasicz, the Lithuanian prayer ran thus: Percune devaite niemuski und mana dirvu (se I emend dievu), melsu tavi, palti miessu. Cohibe te, Percune, neve in meum agrum calamitatem immittas (more simply, strike not), ego vero tibi hanc succidiam dabo. The Old Prussian formula is said to have been: Dievas Perkunos, absolo mus! spare us, = Lith. apsaugok mus! To all this I will add a more extended petition in Esthonian, as Gutslaff (22) heard an old peasant say it as late as the 17th century: 'Dear Thunder (woda Picker), we offer to thee an ox that hath two horns and four cloven hoofs, we would pray thee for our ploughing and sowing, that our straw be copper-red, our grain be golden-yellow. Push elsewhither all the thick black clouds, over great fens, high forests, and wildernesses. But unto us ploughers and sowers give a fruitful season and sweet rain. Holy Thunder (pöha Picken), guard our seedfield, that it bear good straw below, good ears above, and good grain within.' Picker or Picken would in modern Esthonian be called Pitkne, which comes near the Finnic pitkäinen = thunder, perhaps even Thunder; Hüpel's esth. Dict. however gives both pikkenne and pikne simply as thunder (impersonal). The Finns usually give their thundergod the name Ukko only, the Esthonians that of Turris as well, evidently from the Norse Thôrr (see Suppl.). (23)  
 



ENDNOTES:

13. Udrí gromom, gromovit Iliya! smite with thunder, thunderer Elias, 1, 77.  (back)

14. Greg. tur., pref. to bk 2: Meminerit (lector) sub Heliae tempore, qui pluvias cum voluit abstulit, et cum libuit arentibus terris infudit, &c.  (back)

15. Gotman, a divine, a priest? Conf. supra, pp. 88-9.  (back)

16. The Rabbinical legend likewise assumes that Elias will return and slay the malignant Sammael; Eisenmenger 2, 696. 851.  (back)

17. Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus 2, 606. 601.  (back)

18. Erman's archiv für Russland 1841, 429.  (back)

19. Ad. Olearius reiseschr. 1647, pp. 522-3.  (back)

20. Aegidius aureae vallis cap. 135 (Chapeauville 2, 267-8). Chron. belg. magn. ad ann. 1244 (Pistorius 3, 263).  (back)

21. Other saints also grant rain in answer to prayer, as St Mansuetus in Pertz, 6, 512. 513; the body of St Lupus carried about at Sens in 1097, Pertz 1, 106-7. Conf. infra, Rain-making.  (back)

22. Joh. Gutslaff, kurzer bericht und unterricht von der falsch heilig genandten bäche in Liefland Wöhhanda. Dorpt. 1644, pp. 362-4. Even in his time the language of the prayer was hard to understand; it is given, corrected in Peterson's Finn. mythol. p. 17, and Rosenplänter's beitr., heft 5, p. 157.  (back)

23. Ukko is, next to Yumala (whom I connect with Wuotan), the highest Finnish god. Pitkäinen literally means the long, tall, high one.  (back)