who have forgotten their Stone Age) flings down from heaven the stone hatchets which are found in the ground, and preserved as sacred objects.[1] In the religion of the Kamchadals, Billukai, the hem of whose garment is the rainbow, dwells in the clouds with many spirits, and sends thunder and lightning and rain.[2] Among the Ossetes of the Caucasus the Thunderer is Ilya, in whose name mythologists trace a Christian tradition of Elijah, whose fiery chariot seems indeed to have been elsewhere identified with that of the Thunder-god, while the highest peak of Ægina, once the seat of Pan-hellenic Zeus, is now called Mount St. Elias. Among certain Moslem schismatics, it is even the historical Ali, cousin of Mohammed, who is enthroned in the clouds, where the thunder is his voice, and the lightning the lash wherewith he smites the wicked.[3] Among the Turanian or Tatar race, the European branch shows most distinctly the figure of the Thunder-god. To the Lapps, Tiermes appears to have been the Heaven-god, especially conceived as Aija the Thunder-god; of old they thought the Thunder (Aija) to be a living being, hovering in the air and hearkening to the talk of men, smiting such as spoke of him in an unseemly way; or, as some said, the Thunder-god is the foe of sorcerers, whom he drives from heaven and smites, and then it is that men hear in thunder-peals the hurtling of his arrows, as he speeds them from his bow, the Rainbow. In Finnish poetry, likewise, Ukko the Heaven-god is portrayed with such attributes. The Runes call him Thunderer, he speaks through the clouds, his fiery shirt is the lurid storm-cloud, men talk of his stones and his hammer, he flashes his fiery sword and it lightens, or he draws his mighty rainbow, Ukko's bow, to shoot his fiery copper arrows, wherewith men would invoke him to
- ↑ Bowen, 'Yoruba Lang.' p. xvi. in 'Smithsonian Contr.' vol. i. See Burton, 'Dahome,' vol. ii. p. 142. Details as to thunder-axes, &c., in 'Early Hist. of Mankind,' ch. viii.1
- ↑ Steller, 'Kamtschatka,' p. 266.
- ↑ Klemm, 'C. G.' vol. iv. p. 85. (Ossetes, &c.) See Welcker, vol. i. p. 170; Grimm, 'D. M.' p. 158. Bastian, 'Mensch.' vol. ii. p. 423 (Ali-sect.).
