• Elijah the Prophet and St. Nicholas. Perún was the God of Thunder in pagan Slavdom, and his attributes have been transferred to Elijah who is represented as driven up to Heaven in a fiery chariot darting fiery rays, drawn by four winged horses, and surrounded by clouds and flames; a tale which copied the biblical account of Elijah’s end. On earth the noise of the wheels is called thunder. In Nóvgorod there were one or two churches to St. Elijah of the Drought, and St. Elijah of the Rain, to be consulted as occasion required. The name-days of these saints are December 6th and July 20th.
• Hawk. The hawk is one of the most common references in Russian folklore, and the reference to the clear-eyed hawk is one of the strongest metaphors. The crow is equally common, but is generally used as a malign being. In Russian folktale there is nothing incongruous in a man having as his sons a boy, a crow and a hawk or an eagle: or as in “ Márya Morévna ,” where the marriage of Iván with a beautiful princess and of his two sisters with the eagle and the crow are all of them equally plausible.