In Slavonic tradition Swarog is represented as the most ancient of their gods, as the one who was originally—before Perkunas—the supreme deity of those tribes, corresponding to Sanskrit Surya, like Helios in Greece, the dweller in the orb of the sun. Swarog was the pervading, irresistible luminary, the solar deity, par excellence, of the race, and vague recollections of him still exist. In some places Swarog seems to have yielded to another solar deity, Dazhbog, the god of fruitfulness, represented as the son of Swarog.
The etymological signification of Dazhbog is the “day-god.” With him, as a representative of the sun, was a god named Khors—probably, however, but another name of the day-god.
Ogon, answering closely to Sanskrit Agni, Latin, ignis (fire), was the god of fire, brother of Dazhbog; his worship was principally connected with the domestic hearth.
But the deity who stands out most prominently, who became the supreme divinity of the race, though corresponding to the Scandinavian Thor, was Perkunas, or Perun, whose name, yielding to certain laws of phonetic change, may correspond to Greek Keraunos (thunder), but more closely to Sanskrit Parjanya, called in the Rig-Veda, “The thunderer, the showerer, the bountiful, who impregnates the plants with rain.” This god was forgotten by the Hellenic Aryans, who exalted Dyaus (Zeus, Jove) to the supreme position, but the Letto-Slavonic tribes bestowed upon him the endearing appellation of the “All-Father,” a title which they only conferred upon the creator of the lightnings. It is said that the Russians still say, when the thunder rolls, “Perkuna gromena;” in Lithuanian, “Perkuns grumena.”
The South-Slavic term for the rainbow is “Perunika,” “Perun’s flower,” or “beauty.”
“White-Russian traditions,” says Afanasief,[C] “describe Perun as tall and well shaped, with black hair and a long golden beard. He rides in a flaming car, grasping in his left hand a quiver full of arrows, and in his right a fiery bow.”
He is also represented as carrying a mace, answering to Thor’s hammer, mjolnir.
After the introduction of Christianity the prophet Elijah became credited with many of the honors and functions of Perkunas. He was termed, “Gromovit Ilija” (Thunder Elijah), and the origin of the notion, and the strange metamorphosis of that sweet spirit into a Boanerges, undoubtedly lie in his flight to heaven in a chariot of fire, and in his power, when on earth, of calling down fire from heaven, and of bringing the rain. Thus, II. Kings, i:10, he says, “If I be a man of God, then shall fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty.” Again, Kings, i., 18:41, “And Elijah said unto Ahab: Get thee up; eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain.”
The Slavs considered that the thunder and lightning were given into the prophet’s hands, and that he closed the gates of heaven, i. e., the clouds, to sinful men, who thus might not share in his blessed reign. There is evidence of the same belief among the Teutonic tribes, and in the old High-German poem, “Muspilli,” a form of that saga which prevailed throughout all the middle ages with regard to the appearance of anti-Christ shortly before the end of the world. Elijah takes the place which Thor assumes in Scandinavian myth at Ragnarok, and fights the evil one:
“Daz hôrtih rahhôn dia werol trehtwison,