Red archer

"A savage Dragon lives in the forest, / Most venomous he is [...] / In the hour of his death / His venom becomes the great Medicine". Book of Lambspring 15 c...

Fiery (fire breathing) dragon, symbol of the destructive sun's heat during the hot, dry half of the year, which peaks in in Leo, Jul/Aug, the hottest and dries time of the year in continental Europe, Levant, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran...

I talked about this dragon in Mesopotamia in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

In Mesopotamia, summer lasted seven (hot) months...Which is why local dragon (dragon = symbol of summer), had seven snake heads (snake = symbols of sun's heat)...Oh, and look, we also have dragon killer(s) and the princess 🙂 

And in my posts "Angra Minyu", "The king killing Angra Mainyu", "Sacred hunt"...

Why were Persian kings so obsessed with lion hunt? Cause they were reenacting the annual fight between the Rain season (Rain god) and the Dry season (Lion/Dragon) in which the rain god always wins...

And I talked about this dragon in Europe in my posts "Scaring off dragon", "Dragons always get killed", "Letnitsa treasure", "Dragon who stole rain", "The damned"

In Bulgaria, at the start of summer, all the strong and healthy village men would gather at midnight, strip naked and walk the village land in ritual silence brandishing axes or cudgels, weapons of thunder gods "to scare the dragon who steals the waters" 

And I talked about this dragon in Central Asia in my posts: "Bactrian snakes and dragons". 

In all these places, dragon always marks Jul/Aug, the hottest and driest time of the year...

Is the venom the water that dragon (drought) stole? Which gets released when dragon dies (drought ends) and the waters that dragon stole get released as rain and flowing water?

It is the main duty of all the thunder gods to kill the snake/dragon and release the waters the dragon stole...

So is the archer depicted pointing its arrow at the dragon a thunder god? This guy depicted here with a bow, killing the blazing sun that causes drought?

Until recently I would have been sure it was. In Fertile Crescent, where I think this fire breathing dragon mythology originated, the year is divided into two halves, 

And right at the beginning of the rain season, lightning arrows start shooting from the night sky. Orionids....

And if arrows are shooting down from the night sky, there must be an [invisible] archer shooting them from up there. Orion...

I talked about this father of all thunder gods in my post "Invisible archer"...

But now I know that there are two Great Archers in the sky. One that shoots his arrows towards Earth in Oct/Nov (Orion), and the other one that shoots his arrows towards Earth in Jul/Aug (Perseus)...

I stumbled across this while I was writing my article "Apollo the great archer" about why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

And I have a feeling that the red dude from the original image is the later...The one which was marked by Mesopotamians with the bow and arrow constellation...

Question here, which I will try to answer soon: Did Mesopotamians see both Great Archers as one, just shooting at two different times of the year?

And the one which was in India called Rudra/Indra, the leader of the army of Rudras/Maruts armed with golden spears...I talked about this in my post "Rudra"...

And the one whom Greeks called Perseus...And Heracles...I talked about him in my post "Cetus"...

And the one whom Serbs call Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer), a very very strange saint celebrated in Jul/Aug...

Amazing picture. Elijah's Chariots of Fire, Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece. 

When I wrote my articles about him, "The thundering sun god", "Alidjun", "Zodiac killer", I already suspected that Elijah the Thunderer was not just simple replacement for Perun, Slavic thunder god. Like in Greece where he seem to have replaced Zeus, because most holy places associated with Elijah in Greece are mountain tops once associated with Zeus... 

The reason why I thought that there was more to Elijah, is because Serbs believed that Every August 2nd, the hottest day of the year, Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer) is about to burn the world to ashes, but his sister/wife Ognjena Marija (Fiery Mary), another strange Serbian saint, persuades him not to do it. 

This Russian "Christian" icon depicts Ognjena Marija or the "Fiery Mary" surrounded with fiery wheels of Perun, inside the burning flame. 

This is why I called him The Thundering Sun God/Saint...But I couldn't fully make sense of him...

Then while I was writing my article "Croesus" I came across "Thundering Apollo" which sounded very similar to The Thundering Sun God/Saint from Serbian folklore...

It all finally made sense when I discovered the reason why Apollo was "the most feared archer"...

You should check my articles about Apollo if you want to fully understand what I am talking about here:

"Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

"Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

"Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

"Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

"Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

"Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

"White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

"Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

"Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

"Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Croesus

This is Croesus, the last Lydian king. In 546 BC, he misunderstood the prophecy from Delphi, which said that "If Croesus attacked the Persians, he would destroy a great empire". Croesus went to war with Persia which ended up with the destruction of his empire...

Apart from being famous for his disastrous prophecy interpreting abilities, Croesus was also famous for minting the earliest known gold coins known as "Croeseids". They always depicted lion and bull in this pose, and the meaning of this scene is still debated... 

Finally, Croesus was also famous for the fact that no one knows what actually happened to him after he was captured by the Persian king Cyrus the Great...

In the version of the story written by Bacchylides, Croesus tried to commit suicide, by burning himself on a pyre. But at the last moment Zeus sent the storm with rain which extinguished the fire, and then Apollo took Croesus to the Hyperboreans where he lived happily ever after

In the version written by Herodotus, Cyrus captured Croesus and ordered for him to be burned to death on a pyre. But at the last moment, Croesus was saved from death by Apollo who sent a violent storm with rain which extinguished the flames. Cyrus then made Croesus his advisor..

The fact that we don't know how Croesus ended up on the pyre and what happened to him after he was saved, is not that interesting (to me at least). What is interesting (to me at least) is who and how saved him...

In the Bacchylides' version, Zeus, the God of Thunder, sends the rainstorm which extinguishes the flames. But in the Herodotus' version, it is Apollo who sends the rainstorm which extinguishes the flames...A weird thing for a Sun god to do...

A lot of people say that Herodotus was "known" to have written crap...But maybe not. Maybe Herodotus just had access to information other Greeks didn't...

Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. Believe or not the Hittite records, which called Troy "Wilusa", identify Trojan tutelary deity as a god named Appaliunas (A-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš), usually identified as Apollo...

Now there is a recently translated Hittite document which talks about a peace contract made between Hittite king Muwatalli and Wilusa king Alaksandu...The kings swear not to break the contract and list their deities as witnesses...

And in that document, one of three gods guaranteeing the terms of the treaty on the side of Alaksandu is A-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš who was described as the "Storm-god of the Army"...

Well, I guess, a storm god could easily send a rain storm to extinguish the flames of the Croesus' pyre...Right?

You know how you always wandered (well I did anyway) why Greeks were so afraid of lyre playing Apolo? They weren't. They were afraid of A-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš...

The same way Serbs were afraid of Sveti Ilija Gromovnik (St Elijah the Thunderer), The Thundering Sun. Serbs celebrate him at the end of summer and beginning of autumn. The moment when summer (represented by a bull) ends and autumn (represented by a lion) begins. Lion and bull???

In Serbian folklore, St Elijah is a weird character indeed. He is both the sun god (Helios, Veles) and storm god (Zeus, Perun)...Like A-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš??? I talked about St Elijah in my article "Thundering sun god"

He gets so angry every year around his pattern day, 2nd of August, the hottest part of the year, called in the Balkans "Kresovi, Krijesovi" (fires), that he "wants to burn the world to cinder". Just like any real scary sun god would do...

But he doesn't...His wife/sister Ognjena Marija (Burning Mary, the ever hotter summer earth) calms him down...After St Elijah calms down, his wife turns to Blaga Marija (Mild, Kind Mary, the ever cooler autumn earth)... 

And right then, at the end of summer, beginning of autumn, the temperature starts to decrease and the first autumn rains arrive, the world is saved...By the way, Serbs believed that these rains were brought by St Elijah himself...As any decent thunder god would have done...Hence Elijah (Helios) "The Thunderer" (Zeus)...

Climate chart for Belgrade, Serbia...

In Serbian the expression "On vedri i oblači" means "he rules", "he has absolute control, absolute power". Literally this expression means "he makes the sky clear and cloudy"...

Originally the all powerful one was the Sky God...I talked about this in my article "The power of the thunder giant"

Was the original Apollo, "A-ap-pa-li-u-na-aš", before Greeks borrowed him from the Anatolians, one such god? The sun god + storm god = scary MF who can destroy your crops, dry out your wells, flood your houses, kill you with fire and lightning and disease? I believe so...

Finally, did you know that apparently no one knows what Croesus's name means??? Croesus comes from Latin Croesus, from Greek Kroîsos (the name has no further etymology)...

As i said he was famous for his gold, and for the pyre...Now Ancient Greek word for gold was χρυσός (kʰryː.sós)...Was this the root of his name? Golden king? Just misspelled???

At the same time Slavic word Kres, Krijes, Kris means "fire" but also "ritual summer solstice bonfire" representing the sun's fire...

Looks very much like Croesus's pyre...And sounds very much like Croesus...Probably a coincidence...

Bull of Grom Div

Storm clouds over norther Serbia, 2nd of August.

Terrible storms hit Serbia yesterday and today. Crops were destroyed, houses damaged, people killed. 

In Serbian the expression "On vedri i oblači" means "he rules", "he has absolute control, absolute power". Literally this expression means "he makes the sky clear and cloudy"... Storm clouds over northern Serbia... You can read more about this in my post "The power of the Thunder Giant" 

You can see why agricultural societies, like the Early Slavic society, would consider the Sky God, Perun to be the Supreme god... Procopius, 6th c. Byzantine historian, who tells us that the Slavs “believe that one god, the maker of lightning, is alone lord of all things...

Interestingly the 2nd of August is the old day of Perun, Slavic Thunder god. Painting depicting Perun by Andrey Shishkin.  

I like that Shishkin depicted Perun with a blazing sun on his chest. This is because Perun's day falls in the middle of Kresovi (Fires), the hottest part of the year in the Northern hemisphere.  You can read more about this in my post "Two Crosses"

This is why the 2nd of August is also the day of Helios, The burning sun. Today in Serbia known as the the day of St Elijah. St Elijah who every year gets so angry, that he wants to burn the world into cinder... Very saint like 🙂 

You can read more about St Elijah the Thunderer in my post "Thundering sun god". 

But St Elijah doesn't burn the world to cinder. Because his wife Ognjena Marija (Fiery Mary) calms him down. Ognjena Marija who is also known as Perunika. The wife of Perun, who has burning sun at its heart 🙂 Here is Ognjena Marija surrounded by Perun's burning wheels...

You can read more about Ognjena Marija in my post "Ognjena Marija".


The fact that Perun comes on the 2nd of August, when Sun is the hottest is symbolically depicted through Perun's wheel being basically Svetovid's wheel on fire...

Basically Perun and Svetovid are one and the same. 

You can read more about Svetovid in my post "The Horseman". 

So Perun comes at the moment of maximum heat to announce the beginning of the cooling of the northern hemisphere...This is part of the never ending change of the climate as a result of the never ending interplay between the Father Sun, Sky (Male principle) and Mother Earth (Female principle).  

You can read more about this in my post "Yin and Yang" and "Square and Compases";  


That Perun (thunder) really has Svetovid (sun) at its heart can be seen from the latest scientific data. It shows that it is the high speed solar wind particles which directly cause lightning. 

You can read more about this in my post "Sun Thunder Fire";

Svetovid (Sun) through Perun (Thunder) creates (Fire) Svarog. Fire (Svarog) heats up Sun (Svetovid) who creates lightning (Perun). In Slavic mythology this is symbolically represented by Triglav (Three headed) god... 

"Because it is a great secret how come Svarog (hevenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder) and Svetovid (Sun)..." From Book of Veles...

You can read more about this in my post "Triglav Trojan Trinity Trimurti Agni". 

In Slavic mythology, Perun's main "opponent" is Veles. He is "the great horned snake" who "stole heavenly cows from Perun". Every year on his day, 2nd of August, "Perun defeats Veles" and "rescues his heavenly cows"... 

Great snake is another name for a Dragon, a fire breathing beast. In Serbian mythology Dragon is just "an old male snake". Serbian word for dragon "zmaj" is a masculine form of the Serbian word for snake "zmija". And snakes are solar animals who Slavs believed "eat sun's heat, sun's fire" and cause sun to cool down and summer to end. You can read more about this in my post "Apep".

Fire breathing dragon is the symbol of sun's heat, sun's fire which causes draught.

Heavenly cows are clouds and their milk is rain. 

Basically Veles, the fire breathing Dragon, is the end of summer heat which dries the sky and the land and causes draughts. And guess what. The end of summer, the hottest part of the year in the northern hemisphere, which is by Balkan Slavs called "kresovi" (fiers), is also known as "dog days" and falls in the middle of Leo zodiac sign. St Austell Norman baptismal font with a dragon standing between the lions (in the middle of Leo) on top of a dog??? 

You can read more about this symbolism in my post "St Austell font" and "You will trample the great lion and the serpent". 

And every year, in the middle of Leo, in the middle of Dog Days, on Perun's day, 2nd of August, Perun "kills" Veles. Summer (draught) ends and Autumn (rain) begins. 

The reason why Veles is "horned snake" or more precisely "horned dragon" is because Veles is not just dragon, he is also a bull (hence his love of heavenly cows🙂). This is because Veles is summer, and summer starts in Taurus. You can read more about this Dragon-Bull duality in my post "Water bull" where I talk about Balkan legends which equate dragons and monstrous bulls. 

At the beginning of summer the bull of summer is young, fertile and life creating. At the end of summer the bull of summer is old, sterile and life destroying. And has to be slaughtered before it destroys everything...Which is what happens on day of Perun...The bull is killed, summer ends. 

Interestingly, bull is also the animal sacrificed in Serbia on Perun's day, which falls on the same day as Lughnasadh (Crom Dubh day) in Ireland (2nd of August, Last Sunday in July or First Sunday in August, the beginning of Autumn). You can read more about sacrificial animals in Serbian culture in my post "Sacrificial animals"

This tradition of sacrificing bulls to Perun was attested by Procopius, 6th c. Byzantine historian, who tells us that the "Slavs sacrifice to Perun oxen and every victim.”  

Now remember my post "Bull of Crom Dubh"? In it I talked about the link between bull and mysterious Irish Sun (Sky) god and god of Agriculture, Crom Dubh. The Irish celebrated him on the Lughnasadh, Crom Dubh Day, the First Sunday in August and sacrificed bulls to him. As I said at the end of that post, there is one more god to whom people sacrificed bulls at the end of summer: Grom Div (which means Thunder Giant, Thunder God in Serbian), Perun...Interestingly in Serbian folklore (and only in Serbian folklore, not any other Slavic folklore), Dabog (Giving god), who is at the same time Sun god and Rain god (Sky god) is also known as Hromi Daba. Believe or not, in Irish folklore, Crom Dubh is said to be another name for Dagda (Giving god)...

In Bosnia every first Sunday in August, people organise traditional bull fights. These were originally probably organised as part of the old Perun day celebration which revolved around "bull sacrifice"... You can read more about these bull fights in my post "Bo-Vo". 

Day of Perun, sorry day of Helios, sorry day of St Elijah the Thunderer 🙂 is so important that it is also celebrated by Balkan Muslims (Serbs who converted to Islam during Turkish rule) as Alidjun, meaning "The day of Ali (Elijah)". More about this in my post "Alidjun"

As I said, the reason why bull is sacrificed on this day is because this is the day when summer ends. And the summer starts in Taurus (Bull). So killing the bull is symbolic killing of the summer, summer heat. But bull is also symbol for grain which grew through the summer and is ready to be harvested. In most of Europe, harvest (from Old English "hærfest" meaning autumn) begins at the beginning of August. And so killing of the bull on Perun's day is also symbolic killing of the grain, beginning of harvest. You can read more about this in my post "Klas". 

In Ireland this is Crom Dubh day, the day of first fruits when in the distant past even first born were sacrificed to the God of Grain, Crom Dubh, but to whom until recently people sacrificed bulls as replacements for human sacrifice. You can read more about these ancient sacrifices to Crom Dubh in my post "How old is Crom Dubh".

In Cornwall the last sheaf of wheat is ceremonially "slaughtered" while crying "we have cut the neck" (of summer). 

In Slavic countries the last sheaf of wheat is called "Velesova brada" (Veles's beard)...Veles (summer) has been slaughtered...Harvest is finished...

Interestingly, in some Slavic areas this last sheaf is called Perun's beard...and in Bulgaria the last sheaf of wheat is dedicated (sacrificed) to St Vlas, Christianised Veles...

So what is the link between Irish Crom Dubh, Serbian Hromi Daba and Grom Div?

I believe that Grom Div arrived to Ireland during Bronze Age, when we find many stone circles being aligned to his day, 2nd (1st) of August, beginning of harvest, Crom Dubh Day, Lughnasadh. There, the true meaning of God's name was forgotten and was replaced with the closest Gaelic words Crom Dubh (stooped dark???, strange name for sun, sky god). I believed that Crom Dubh then arrived to the Balkans during Early Iron Age. By then the original name of the Sky God, Grom Div, was long forgotten and Gaelic Crom Dubh was replaced with the closest Serbian words Hromi Daba (lame daba???, daba means nothing in Serbian). But both the Irish and the Serbs preserved the ancient link between the Sky god and the bull and his day which marks the end of summer and beginning of autumn.

This explanation, I know, opens sooooo many "difficult" questions...

I also believe that this is one the most important links found in European folklore and mythology, the link which is a key for understanding a lot of forgotten ancient lore encoded in numerous legends, rituals and monuments scattered throughout Eurasia and North Africa...I have been writing extensively about this on my blog.

Lion killing snake

I came across this very interesting object on edgarlowen.com auction site:

9764. ROMANESQUE MARBLE SCULPTURE. France or Northern Italy, Romanesque period, c. 11th-13th century. A free standing triangular sculpture, likely from an early church, with a man with unkept hair, most likely Jesus, grasping the head of a lion which in turn holds a serpent in its mouth. Clearly a highly symbolic piece though the exact meaning is somewhat obscure. 5.5 x 10.5 x 19 inches. Excellent condition, all original with no repair or restoration. Extremely rare and a very remarkable piece of early Christian iconography.

Though not certain, the symbology of this piece most likely refers to Psalm 91:11-13 "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet." which is traditionally taken to refer to the defeat of Satan (represented by the serpent and the lion) by Jesus. The passage led to the Late Antique and Early Medieval iconography of Christ treading on the beasts, where beasts were most often depicted as lion and snake, both of which represented the devil, as explained by Cassiodorus and Bede in their commentaries on Psalm 91.  

The earliest and one of the most beautiful example of the depiction of the "Christ treading on the beasts" scene can be found in the "Basilica of San Vitale" in Ravenna which was built by Ostrogoths and completed by the 27th Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian, in 547 AD.

In my post "You will trample the great lion and the serpent" I wrote that this scene could actually have a secret meaning linked to the solar cult, which Christianity was trying to replace at the time when this scene started to appear. 

Summer starts on the 6th of May, Day of Jarilo, Beltine. Jarilo represents the sun's heat, symbolized by the snake and the dragon. Funnily Jarilo was Christianized into St George, the Dragon killer :) In Serbia, St Jeremija who is celebrated at the beginning of May is known as the Snake Saint. His day (1st of May according to the Julian calendar, 14th of May according to the Gregorian calendar) is the time when people perform magic ceremonies for protection from snakes...Interesting both names Jarilo and J(a)eremija have the root "jar" meaning "bright heat".

Summer ends on the 2nd of August, Day of Perun, Lughnasadh. Day of Perun falls in the middle of the Leo (Lion) zodiac sign. 

So summer is the period between the Day of Jarilo (Snake) and the Day of Perun (Lion). And in the middle of the summer is Day of Svetovid, the Summer solstice. The point when Sun in the northern hemisphere reaches its highest point above the horizon. 

Now have a look at "Christ treading on the beasts" scene again: 

Christ standing with his legs spread, with one leg on the snake (the beginning of the summer) and the other leg on the lion (the end of the summer). His head, with the solar halo is right at the point of the summer solstice, when Sun god is the most high...

If you make the Most High your dwelling...you will trample the great lion and the serpent...

You will be in the summer on the northern hemisphere...

How look at the above artefact again.

Christ is gone, and instead we see a head with what looks like dreadlocks. I believe that this head is the head of Helios, the old Titan Sun God. On Ancient Greek coins, he is portrayed in three different ways:

A man with dreadlocks hair and long sun rays

A man with dreadlocks hair and short sun rays

A man with dreadlocks hair and no sun rays

The sun's heat increases all the way through the summer until we reach the hottest point of the summer, the 2nd of August. This point marks the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn, the end of the heating and the beginning of the cooling of the northern hemisphere. I talked about this in my post "Two crosses".

The 2nd of August, is when Serbs celebrate Sveti Ilija (St Elijah) who is Christian version of Helios.

This is Helios

This is Elijah

As I already said, the sun's heat is represented by a snake. And the 2nd of August, the end of summer, the end the heating of the northern hemisphere, falls in the middle of the zodiac sign Leo, lion. 

The Serbian folk tradition says that every year at the end of the summer, St Elijah gets so angry that he wants to "burn the whole world down". But he never does, because right on the day of St Elijah, the summer ends, the lion kills the snake and the autumn begins...

Very interesting, right?

The thundering sun god

In North Germany, the peasants say, when they hear the low rumbling of distant thunder, "Use Herr Gott mangelt" meaning 'The Lord is mangling, or rolling the thunder.

When I was a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents. One year, around the 2nd of August, the day of the St Ilija the Thunderer, a late summer storm was rumbling over the village. My grandmother turned to me and said: "It's St Ilija the Thunderer driving his chariot over the clouds. The rolling thunder and flashing in the clouds are made by the fiery wheels of St Ilia's chariots bouncing off the bumpy tops of the clouds".

So this would indicate St Ilija the Thunderer is probably the Christianized pagan god of thunder lightning and rain.

But Serbian folk tradition also says that every year St Ilija the Thunderer gets so angry that he wants to  "burn the whole world down". As I already explained in my post "Two crosses", the 21st of June, the mid summer, is the day of the maximum sun light. But it is the 2nd of August the day that marks the end of summer, that is the day of maximum sun heat. And this is the day when Serbs celebrate St Ilia the Thunderer. The period three days before and the three days after the 2nd of August, is in South Slavic tradition called Kresovi meaning Fires. These are the days of wild fires and droughts. These days are also known as the dog days, because these are the days when the dog star Sirius is in the sky with the sun.

But thankfully "Ilia the thunderer" does not burn the earth. Every year, on his day, the 2nd of August, the day of St Ilija the Thunderer, he gets persuaded by his wife/sister, Ognjena Marija (Fiary Mary) to calm down. In Serbia there is a saying: "Od svetog Ilije sunce sve milije" which means "From St Ilija the sun starts getting kinder, milder, gentler". The first part of the 2nd of August is considered summer and the second is considered to be Autumn. And thus every year on the 2nd of August the summer ends and the autumn begins.

The fact that it is "Ilija the thunderer" who is accused of "wanting to burn the whole word", shows direct link between "Ilija the thunderer" and the burning late summer sun. Is it possible that Ilia the thunderer is also a Christianized sun god?

How is it possible that the same character could personify the burning sun and the storms?

Well do you remember my post "Sun, Thunder, Fire"? In it explained how modern science has proven the existence of the direct link between the solar winds and lightning. In short, without solar winds there would be no lightning.

When we compare our current knowledge of the development of thunder and lightning with the above description of the "Thundering sun god driving his chariots over the tops of the clouds with flashes of lightning sparking from the chariot wheels", we can see that this is pretty faithful description of what is actually happening during August thunderstorms. 

There are two basic types of lightnings:

1. Vertical, cloud to earth (or earth to cloud)

2. Horizontal, cloud to cloud.

A vertical lightning strike from cloud to earth arrives at the ear as a bang. A cloud to cloud strike can sound like rolling thunder because the bang you hear comes along the length of the bolt.

Belgrade school of meteorology has been conducting 35 year long research in frequency and characteristics of lightning over Serbia. 

In Serbia the number of thunder and lightnings is the highest at the end of June and beginning of July, but during that time thundering is very strong and short due to the angle under which the solar wind enters the atmosphere. If there is rolling thunder it is always very short.

On the contrary, the first days of August have the largest number of rolling thunder and lightnings. This is the period of the year when solar wind arrives from the sun under the smaller angle which creates longest rolling time of the solar wind particles over the tops of the clouds. Heliocentric electromagnetic research have shown that due to high speed, particles of the solar wind bounce off the tops of the clouds in the same way a flat stone bounces of the surface of water. Every bounce causes a sound effect in the shape of thunder and a flash of lightning. During that period you can hear how the fireball consisting of the particles of the solar wind, approaches and then goes away. Based on the audio and visual data you can precisely calculate the line and direction of the rolling of the thunder wheel. 

Just as if "the thundering sun god was driving his chariots over the tops of the clouds with flashes of lightning sparking from the chariot wheels"...

We know that wheel is a symbol directly linked with sun. But it is also linked with thunder and fire. We can see this through the symbols of Svetovid and Perun: their wheels. The wheel of Perun is "like" the wheel of Svetovid. It is actually the fiery version of the wheel of Svetovid. Sun creating fire through lightning. 

So the fiery wheels of Perun, the Thunder god, are actually burning sun wheels of Svetovid, the Sun god.  This is symbolic representation of now scientifically proven link between the sun and lightning. 

And the same link between Thunder and Lightning (Perun) and Sun (Svetovid), is also represented by the character of Ilija the Thunderer, the Thundering Sun...The thundering sun god driving his chariots over the tops of the clouds with flashes of lightning sparking from the chariot wheels...