Re: Slavic saint - light in darkeness?

On 2009-07-31 22:33, Brian M. Scott wrote:

>
>
> At 5:03:50 AM on Friday, July 31, 2009, Anatoly Guzaev
> wrote:
>
> > OK, let us skip the question why anyone would compare St.
> > John with glow-worm? Midsummer (St. John's eve) is a
> > festival of fire and light; bonfire and torches are lit
> > everywhere.
>
> There's no need to skip it, since Piotr already gave the
> explanation.

I can only add that the popular Polish names of the
glowworm/firefly/lightning bug are <robaczek s'wie,tojan'ski> 'St John's
bug' and <s'wietlik> 'light {+ derivative suffix}'. The formal binomial
name of our native firefly (_Lampyris nocticula_) is actually <s'wietlik
s'wie,tojan'ski>. The peak of their glowing season is late June and the
beginning of July, hence the connection with St. John.

Piotr