Russian Fairy Tales — 33 - Chapter 6 - Legends - About Saints - Part 2 - Elijah the Prophet and Nicholas

We may take next the legends current among the peasantry about various saints.

Of these, the story of "The Prophet Elijah and St. Nicholas," will serve as a good specimen.

But, in order to render it intelligible, a few words about "Ilya the Prophet," as Elijah is styled in Russia, may as well be prefixed.

It is well known that in the days of heathenism the Slavonians worshipped a thunder-god, Perun,[441] who occupied in their mythological system the place which in the Teutonic was assigned to a Donar or a Thor.

He was believed, if traditions may be relied upon, to sway the elements, often driving 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 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."

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 cornfields the green blades were growing up so splendidly that it did one's heart good to look at them.

"Here'll be a good harvest, a right good harvest!"

says Nicholas, "and the Moujik, too, is a good fellow sure enough, both honest and pious: one who remembers God and thinks about the Saints!

It will fall into good hands--" "We'll see by-and-by whether much will fall to his share!"

answered Elijah; "when I've burnt up all his land with lightning, and beaten it all flat with hail, then this Moujik of yours will know what's right, and will learn to keep Elijah's day holy."

Well, they wrangled and wrangled; then they parted asunder.

St. Nicholas went off straight to the Moujik and said: "Sell all your corn at once, just as it stands, to the Priest of Elijah.

[445] If you don't, nothing will be left of it: it will all be beaten flat by hail."

Off rushed the Moujik to the Priest.

"Won't your Reverence buy some standing corn?

I'll sell my whole crop.

I'm in such pressing need of money just now.

It's a case of pay up with me!

Buy it, Father!

I'll sell it cheap."

They bargained and bargained, and came to an agreement.

The Moujik got his money and went home.

Some little time passed by.

There gathered together, there came rolling up, a stormcloud; with a terrible raining and hailing did it empty itself over the Moujik's cornfields, cutting down all the crop as if with a knife--not even a single blade did it leave standing.

Next day Elijah and Nicholas walked past.

Says Elijah: "Only see how I've devastated the Moujik's cornfield!"

"The Moujik's!

No, brother!

Devastated it you have splendidly, only that field belongs to the Elijah Priest, not to the Moujik."

"To the Priest!

How's that?"

"Why, this way.

The Moujik sold it last week to the Elijah Priest, and got all the money for it.

And so, methinks, the Priest may whistle for his money!"

"Stop a bit!"

said Elijah.

"I'll set the field all right again.

It shall be twice as good as it was before."

They finished talking, and went each his own way.

St. Nicholas returned to the Moujik, and said: "Go to the Priest and buy back your crop--you won't lose anything by it."

The Moujik went to the Priest, made his bow, and said: "I see, your Reverence, God has sent you a misfortune--the hail has beaten the whole field so flat you might roll a ball over it.

Since things are so, let's go halves in the loss.

I'll take my field back, and here's half of your money for you to relieve your distress."

The Priest was rejoiced, and they immediately struck hands on the bargain.

Meanwhile--goodness knows how--the Moujik's ground began to get all right.

From the old roots shot forth new tender stems.

Rain-clouds came sailing exactly over the cornfield and gave the soil to drink.

There sprang up a marvellous crop--tall and thick.

As to weeds, there positively was not one to be seen.

And the ears grew fuller and fuller, till they were fairly bent right down to the ground.

Then the dear sun glowed, and the rye grew ripe--like so much gold did it stand in the fields.

Many a sheaf did the Moujik gather, many a heap of sheaves did he set up; and now he was beginning to carry the crop, and to gather it together into ricks.

At that very time Elijah and Nicholas came walking by again.

Joyfully did the Prophet gaze on all the land, and say: "Only look, Nicholas!

what a blessing!

Why, I have rewarded the Priest in such wise, that he will never forget it all his life."

"The Priest?

No, brother!

the blessing indeed is great, but this land, you see, belongs to the Moujik.

The Priest hasn't got anything whatsoever to do with it."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's perfectly true.

When the hail beat all the cornfield flat, the Moujik went to the Priest and bought it back again at half price."

"Stop a bit!"

says Elijah.

"I'll take the profit out of the corn.

However many sheaves the Moujik may lay on the threshing-floor, he shall never thresh out of them more than a peck[446] at a time."

"A bad piece of work!"

thinks St. Nicholas.

Off he went at once to the Moujik.

"Mind," says he, "when you begin threshing your corn, never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor."

The Moujik began to thresh: from every sheaf he got a peck of grain.

All his bins, all his storehouses, he crammed with rye; but still much remained over.

So he built himself new barns, and filled them as full as they could hold.

Well, one day Elijah and Nicholas came walking past his homestead, and the Prophet began looking here and there, and said: "Do you see what barns he's built?

has he got anything to put into them?"

"They're quite full already," answers Nicholas.

"Why, wherever did the Moujik get such a lot of grain?"

"Bless me!

Why, every one of his sheaves gave him a peck of grain.

When he began to thresh he never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor."

"Ah, brother Nicholas!"

said Elijah, guessing the truth, "it's you who go and tell the Moujik everything!"

"What an idea!

that I should go and tell--" "As you please; that's your doing!

But that Moujik sha'n't forget me in a hurry!"

"Why, what are you going to do to him?"

"What I shall do, that I won't tell you," replies Elijah.

"There's a great danger coming," thinks St. Nicholas, and he goes to the Moujik again, and says: "Buy two tapers, a big one and a little one, and do thus and thus with them."

Well, next day the Prophet Elijah and St. Nicholas were walking along together in the guise of wayfarers, and they met the Moujik, who was carrying two wax tapers--one, a big rouble one, and the other, a tiny copeck one.

"Where are you going, Moujik?"

asked St. Nicholas.

"Well, I'm going to offer a rouble taper to Prophet Elijah;

he's been ever so good to me!

When my crops were ruined by the hail, he bestirred himself like anything, and gave me a plentiful harvest, twice as good as the other would have been."

"And the copeck taper, what's that for?"

"Why, that's for Nicholas!"

said the peasant and passed on.

"There now, Elijah!"

says Nicholas, "you say I go and tell everything to the Moujik--surely you can see for yourself how much truth there is in that!"