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the clouds, and very significantly Thor, immediately
after coming out of the glove, strikes the giant on his
head with his hammer so that the blood spurts out.
Among other things, Ilia also fights with the robber
Soloveï, who blocks his way to the mountain of the
Sun-prince. This Soloveï has a face of a bird and utters a
horrible bird-cry, whose shriek works such destruction
that the roofs in Vladimir’s palaces fall in. He is,
therefore, the spirit of bad weather and storm, and by his
bird-form calls to mind that giant in the guise of an
eagle who, in Vafthrudnismál, sitting at the end of
heaven, with his wings which are those of an eagle, sets
the winds in motion; or the giant Thiasse, who, in the
guise of an eagle, carries away, conceals, and later
pursues Idun, until he meets his death in the fire which was
kindled for him behind Asgaard’s wall. Bird-forms
everywhere are symbols of storms and bad weather.
There is still another little incident of Ilia’s battle
with the giant which recalls a Norse tradition. As Ilia
finds gold and silver in great quantity in Soloveï’s nest,
so Sigurd finds the red gold under the dragon Fafner. It
is one and the same symbol of the shining beams which
the dark clouds hide under or behind them.
Among Sviatogor’s adventures, in the next place, is one
which greatly reminds us of Thor’s when the giant plays
a trick upon him, and lets him drink out of the horn the
other end of which is in the sea, raises a cat which is the
Midgaard-serpent, and is troubled by an old woman who
is old age. When the giant Sviatogor one day is riding
over the plains, he meets an old man who asks him to
help him put his sack on his back. The hero would lift
the sack with the end of his whip, with his finger-tip,
with his strong hand, — he cannot do it. Then he alights
from his horse and tries with both hands, with
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