Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/450

Thunderer") and pray to him as the dispenser of good harvests. Among the Southern Slavs Tlijevo, Tlinden ("St. Iliya's Day") is most reverently celebrated; no man does any work in the fields at that time, and no woman thinks of weaving or spinning. He who dared to labour then would make St. Iliya angry and could not expect him to help in garnering the crops; on the contrary, the Saint would slay him with his thunderbolt. In the Rhodope Mountains the festival is kept on a lofty summit, and a bull or a cow is killed and prepared for the solemn banquet. All this is doubtless nothing less than a survival of the feasts that, long before, were celebrated in honour of Perun.¹³