riving across the sky in a flaming car, and
launching the shafts of the lightning at his demon foes. His name is
still preserved by the western and southern Slavonians in many local
phrases, especially in imprecations; but, with the introduction of
Christianity into Slavonic lands, all this worship of his divinity
came to an end. Then took place, as had occurred before in other
countries, the merging of numerous portions of the old faith in the
new, the transferring of many of the attributes of the old gods to the
sacred personages of the new religion.[442] During this period of
transition the ideas which were formerly associated with the person of
Perun, the thunder-god, became attached to that of the Prophet Ilya or
Elijah.

One of the causes which conduced to this result may have been--if
Perun really was considered in old times, as he is said to have been,
the Lord of the Harvest--that the day consecrated by the Church to
Elijah, July 20, occurs in the beginning of the harvest season, and
therefore the peasants naturally connected their new saint with their
old deity. But with more certainty may it be accepted that, the
leading cause was the similarity which appeared to the recent converts
to prevail between their dethroned thunder-god and the prophet who was
connected with drought and with rain, whose enemies were consumed by
fire from on high, and on whom waited "a chariot of fire and horses of
fire," when he was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven. And so at the
present day, according to Russian tradition, 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,"--weapons corresponding to the hammer of
Thor and the lance of Indra. 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 t