o 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." To these a cross-bearing procession was
made when a change in the weather was desired: to the former in times
of drought, to the latter when injury was being done to the crops by
rain. Diseases being considered to be evil spirits, invalids used to
pray to the thunder-god for relief. And so, at the present day, a
_zagovor_ or spell against the Siberian cattle-plague entreats the
"Holy Prophet of God Ilya," to send "thirty angels in golden array,
with bows and with arrows" to destroy it. 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. Wherefore 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 sinners.[443]

Such are a few of the ideas connected by Slavonian tradition with the
person of the Prophet Elijah or Ilya. To St. Nicholas, who has
succeeded to the place occupied by an ancient ruler of the waters, a
milder character is attributed than to Ilya, the thunder-god's
successor. As Ilya is the counterpart of Thor, so does Nicholas in
some respects resemble Odin. The special characteristics of the Saint
and the Prophet are fairly contrasted in the following story.

ELIJAH THE PROPHET AND NICHOLAS.[444]

A long while ago there lived a Moujik. Nicholas's day he
always kept holy, but Elijah's not a bit; he would even work
upon it. In honor of St. Nicholas he would have a taper lighted
and a service performed, but about Elijah the Prophet he
forgot so much as to think.

Well, it happened one day that Elijah and Nicholas were
walking over the land belonging to this Moujik; and as they
walked they looked--in the cor