TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

174
TIIUNAR.
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 1
daz Elias in demo wige arwartit :
sar so daz Eliascs pluot
in erda kitriufit,
so inpriunant 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, 2 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 sug
gestive by the fact that 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 : Ellai, Ellai, eldaer tchoppei ! (0
Elias, Elias,
lord of the
rocky summits). By the cairn over the grave they set up a long pole
which is their usual manner
supporting the skin of a black he-goat,
of sacrificing to Elias (see Suppl.). They implore Elias to make
3
their fields fruitful, and keep the hail away from them.
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. 4 Even the Muhammadans, in praying that a thunder
storm may be averted, name the name of Ilya?
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 Liege
1
Gotman, a divine, a ?
priest Conf. supra, pp. 88-9.
2 The Rabbinical legend likewise assumes that Elias will return and slay
the malignant Sammael ; Eisenmenger 2, 696. 851.
3
Klaproth s travels in the Caucasus 2, 606. 601.
4 Erman a archiv fur Russland 1841, 429.
5 Ad. Olearius reiseschr. 1647, pp. 522-3.