THE DEPICTION OF THE ST. ELIJAH’S DAY IN EPIC AND FOLKLORE TEXTS

Abstract

The aim of the work was an attempt to identify the role and place of the St. Elijah’s Day in the poetized calendar picture of the world. The main method of research was a comparative analysis of epic and folklore texts, correlated with ecology. The work was relevant due to the proximity of the main features of the images of heroes in almost all of Eurasia – an indication of the stability of the structure of the original model of the myth. This can be explained only by the origin from a common source. It is a calendar myth, and its nodal points are weather fractures in the middle of the seasons. It is shown that the first texts testifying to the important sacred role of the events of the middle of the summer season belong to the beginning of the second millennium BC (ancient Hittites, the holiday of Purulliya). The ritual is based on the “main myth” about the struggle of the Thunder God with the Serpent, the common heritage of the peoples of the Indo-European language family. Natural markers of the Elijah’s Day were identified. It was revealed that in the texts related to the forest zone of Northern Eurasia (Kalevala, Karelian epic songs, Ob-Ugric texts, etc.), the events of Elijah's Day – torrential thunderstorms of early August, replacing the hot dry weather of July, are reflected as the heroes overcoming the “fiery” barrier (river, flood) on the way to the north (the “country” of coolness and moisture). The dominance of the 6-7 numerical complex in the Kalevala and Karelian epic songs is an evidence in favor of the beginning of the calendar time from the events of the Elijah's Day. An assumption was made about the structure of the calendar myth, in which a new cycle began with the events of the Elijah's Day (the ancient Armenian pagan calendar, Selkup calendars, etc.). The opposite picture is seen in the Ob-Ugric texts, with the absolute dominance of the 7-6numerical complex, the argument about counting the “summer road of the sun” from the date of the winter solstice. In the texts that relate to the southern regions (Asia Minor, the Caucasus), the events of the Elijah's Day are clothed in the form of a hero's struggle with a dragon, a snake or a hydra – mythologized causes of the summer drought. The descriptions of the features of the conception and birth of the hero, in the aspect of the calendar myth, were considered. In the texts related to the forest zone of Eurasia, as well as Celtic, the conception of the hero is correlated with the Elijah's Day. The summer season is the time of intense activity of the heroes (symbols of bright light), at the end of which (i. e. “life”), they go into the “stone-darkness”.

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