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Title: Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in
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Author: J. C. Lawson

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MODERN GREEK FOLKLORE
AND
ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

All rights reserved

MODERN GREEK FOLKLORE
AND
ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION
A STUDY IN SURVIVALS

BY
JOHN CUTHBERT LAWSON, M.A.
FELLOW AND LECTURER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
FORMERLY CRAVEN STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

Cambridge:
at the University Press
1910

Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

PIIS MANIBUS

ROBERTI ALEXANDRI NEIL

LABORUM ADHORTANTE IPSO SUSCEPTORUM
HUNC DEDICAVI FRUCTUM.

PREFACE.
This book is the outcome of work undertaken in Greece during my two
years’ tenure of the Craven Studentship from 1898 to 1900. It is therefore
my first duty gratefully to commemorate John, Lord Craven, to whose
benefactions of two and a half centuries ago I owed my opportunity for
research.
The scheme of work originally proposed was the investigation of the
customs and superstitions of modern Greece in their possible bearing upon
the life and thought of ancient Greece; and to the Managers of the Craven
Fund at that time, with whom was associated Mr R. A. Neil of Pembroke
College to whose memory I have dedicated this book, I render hearty thanks
for their willingness to encourage a venture new in direction, vague in
scope, and possibly void of result.
The course of research proposed was one which required as the first
condition of any success considerable readiness in speaking and
understanding the popular language, and to the attainment of this my first
few months were necessarily devoted. When once the ear has become
accustomed to the modern pronunciation, a knowledge of ancient Greek
makes for rapid progress; and some three or four months spent chiefly in
the cafés of small provincial towns rendered me fairly proficient in ordinary
conversation. Subsequent practice enabled me also to follow conversations
not intended for my ear; and on more than one occasion I obtained from the
talk of peasants thus overheard information which they might have been
chary of imparting to a stranger.
The time at my disposal however, after I had sufficiently mastered the
language, would have been far too short to allow of any complete enquiry
into the beliefs and customs of the country, had it not been for the existence
of two books, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen und das Hellenische
Alterthum by Bernhard Schmidt, and Μελέτη ἐπὶ τοῦ βίου τῶν νεωτέρων
Ἑλλήνων by Professor Polites of Athens University, which at once supplied
me with a working knowledge of the subject which I was studying and

suggested certain directions in which further research might profitably be
pursued. My debt to these two books is repeatedly acknowledged in the
following pages; and if I have given references to Schmidt’s work more
frequently than to that of Polites, my reason is not that I owe less to the
latter, but merely that the former is more generally accessible.
In pursuit of my task I followed no special system. I have known of those
who professed to obtain a complete knowledge of the folklore of a given
village in the course of a few hours’ visit, and whose method was to provide
themselves with an introduction to the schoolmaster, who would generally
be not even a native of the place, and to read out to him a formidable
questionnaire, in the charitable and misplaced expectation that the answers
given would be prompted not by courtesy and loquacity, which are the
attributes of most Greeks, but by veracity, which is the attribute of few. The
formal interview with paper and pencil is in my opinion a mistake. The
‘educated’ Greek whose pose is to despise the traditions of the common-
folk will discourse upon them no less tediously than inaccurately for the
sake of having his vapourings put on record; but the peasant who honestly
believes the superstitions and scrupulously observes the customs of which
he may happen to speak is silenced at once by the sight of a note-book.
Apart however from this objection to being interviewed, the countryfolk are
in general communicative enough. They do not indeed expect to be plied
with questions until their own curiosity concerning the new-comer has been
satisfied, and even then any questions on uncanny subjects must be
discreetly introduced. But it is no difficult matter to start some suitable
topic. A wedding, a funeral, or some local fête perhaps is in progress, and
your host is eager to have the distinction of escorting you to it and
explaining all the customs appropriate to the occasion. You have been taken
to see the village-church, and some offering there dedicated, to which you
call attention, elicits the story of some supernatural ‘seizure’ and miraculous
cure. You express a desire to visit some cave which you have observed in
the mountain-side, and the dissuasion and excuses which follow form the
prelude to an account of the fearful beings by whom it is haunted. Your
guide crosses himself or spits before fording a stream, and you enquire,
once safely across, what is the particular danger at this spot. Your mule
perhaps rolls with your baggage in the same stream, and the muleteer’s
imprecations suggest luridly novel conceptions of the future life.

Much also may be effected by playing upon patriotism or vanity or, let it be
confessed, love of lucre. You relate some story heard in a neighbouring
village or praise some custom there observed, and the peasant’s parochial
patriotism is up in arms to prove the superiority of his native hamlet. You
show perhaps some signs of incredulity (but not until your informant is well
launched upon his panegyric), and his wounded pride bids him call in his
neighbours to corroborate his story. Or again you may hint at a little
largesse, not of course for your host—only witches and the professional
reciters of folk-tales and ballads are entitled to a fee—but on behalf of his
children, and he may pardon and satisfy what might otherwise have seemed
too inquisitive a curiosity.
Such are the folk to whom I am most beholden, and how shall I fitly
acknowledge my debt to them? Their very names maybe were unknown to
me even then, or at the most a ‘John’ or ‘George’ sufficed; and they in turn
knew not that I was in their debt. You, muleteers and boatmen, who drove
shrewd bargains for your services and gave unwittingly so much beside, and
you too, cottagers, who gave a night’s lodging to a stranger and never
guessed that your chatter was more prized than your shelter, how shall I
thank you? Not severally, for I cannot write nor could you ever read the list
of acknowledgements due; but to you all, Georges and Johns, Demetris and
Constantines, and rare anachronistic Epaminondases, in memory of services
rendered unawares, greeting from afar and true gratitude!
Nor must I omit to mention the assistance which I have derived from
written sources. In recent times it has been a favourite amusement with
Greeks of some education to compile little histories of the particular district
or island in which they live, and many of these contain a chapter devoted to
the customs and superstitions of the locality. From these, as also from the
records of travel in Greece, particularly those of French writers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I have culled much that is valuable.
Nearly ten years have passed since my return from Greece, and such leisure
as they have allowed has been devoted to co-ordinating the piecemeal
information which I personally obtained or have gathered from the writings
of others, and to examining its bearing upon the life and thought of Ancient
Greece. In the former half of this task I have but followed in the steps of
Bernhard Schmidt and of Polites, who had already presented a coherent, if
still incomplete, account of the folklore of Modern Greece, and my work

has been mainly to check, to correct, and to amplify; but for the latter half I
would ask the indulgent consideration which may fairly be extended to a
pioneer. Analogies and coincidences in the beliefs and customs of modern
and of ancient Greece have indeed been pointed out by others; but no large
attempt has previously been made to trace the continuity of the life and
thought of the Greek people, and to exhibit modern Greek folklore as an
essential factor in the interpretation of ancient Greek religion.
It is my hope that this book will prove interesting not to Greek scholars
only, but to readers who have little or no acquaintance with Greek. All
quotations whether from the ancient or modern language are translated, and
references to ancient and modern writers are distinguished by the use of the
ordinary Latinised names and titles in the case of the former, and the
retention of the Greek character for denoting the latter. As regards the
transliteration of modern Greek words, I have made no attempt to represent
the exact sound, except to indicate in some words the accented syllable and
to make the obvious substitution of the English v for the Greek β; but to
replace γ by gh and δ by dh, as is sometimes done, gives to words an
uncouth appearance without assisting the majority of readers in their
pronunciation.
It remains only to express my thanks to the reviser of my proofs, Mr W. S.
Hadley of Pembroke College, but these are the hardest to express
adequately. I was conscious of making no small demand on the kindness of
the Tutor of a large College when I asked him to do me this service; and I
am conscious now that any words in acknowledgement of his kindness are a
poor expression of my gratitude for the generous measure of time and of
trouble which he has expended on each page.
Lastly I would thank the Syndics of the University Press for their
willingness to undertake the publication of this book, and the staff of the
Press for their unfailing courtesy in the course of its preparation.
J. C. L.
Pembroke College,
Cambridge,
December 31, 1909.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface vii-x
Chapter I. Introductory.
Modern Folklore as a source for the study of
§ 1. 1-7
Ancient Religion
§ 2. The survival of Ancient Tradition 8-25
§ 3. The survival of Hellenic Tradition 25-36
§ 4. The survival of Pagan Tradition 36-64
Chapter II. The Survival of Pagan Deities.
§ 1. The Range of Modern Polytheism 65-71
§ 2. Zeus 72-74
§ 3. Poseidon 75-77
§ 4. Pan 77-79
§ 5. Demeter and Persephone 79-98
§ 6. Charon 98-117
§ 7. Aphrodite and Eros 117-120
§ 8. The Fates 121-130
§ 9. The Nymphs 130-162
§ 10. The Queens of the Nymphs 162-173
§ 11. Lamiae, Gelloudes, and Striges 173-184
§ 12. Gorgons 184-190
§ 13. The Centaurs 190-255
§ 14. Genii 255-291
Chapter III. The Communion of Gods and Men. 292-360

Chapter IV. The Relation of Soul and Body.
§ 1. The Modern Greek Vampire 361-376
The Composition of the Superstition:
§ 2. Slavonic, Ecclesiastical, and Hellenic 376-412
Contributions
§ 3. Revenants in Ancient Greece 412-434
§ 4. Revenants as Avengers of Blood 434-484
Chapter V. Cremation and Inhumation 485-514

Chapter VI. the Benefit of Dissolution 515-542

Chapter VII. the Union of Gods and Men 543-606

General Index 607-617

Index of Greek words and phrases 618-620

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

§ 1. Modern Folklore as a source for the study of Ancient
Religion.

The sources of information most obviously open to the student of ancient
Greek religion are the Art and the Literature of ancient Greece; and the idea
that modern Greece can have any teaching to impart concerning the beliefs
of more than two thousand years ago seems seldom to have been
entertained. Just as we speak of ancient Greek as a dead language, and too
often forget that many of the words and inflexions in popular use at the
present day are identical with those of the classical period and even of the
Homeric age, while many others, no longer identical, have suffered only a
slight modification, so are we apt to think of Greek paganism as a dead
religion, and do not enquire whether the beliefs and customs of the modern
peasant may not be a direct heritage from his classical forefathers. And yet,
if any such heritage exist, there is clearly a fresh source of knowledge open
to us, from which to supplement and to correct the lessons of Art and
Literature.
Art, by its very nature, serves rather as illustration than as proof of any
theory of ancient religion. Sculpture has preserved to us the old conceptions
of the divine personalities. Vase-paintings record many acts of ritual and
scenes of worship. Architectural remains allow us to restore in imagination
the grandeur of holy places. But these things are only the externals of
religion: they need an interpreter, if we would understand the spirit which
informed them: and however able the interpreter, the material with which he
deals is so small a remnant of the treasures of ancient art, that from day to
day some fresh discovery may subvert his precariously founded theories.
Though all would acknowledge how fruitful in religious suggestion the
evidence of art has proved when handled by competent critics, none would

claim that that evidence either in its scope, which the losses of time have
limited, or in its accuracy, which depends upon conjectural interpretation, is
a complete or infallible guide to the knowledge of ancient religion.
From literature more might be expected, and more indeed is forthcoming,
though not perhaps where the modern mind, with its tendency to methodical
analysis, would look for it. If anyone should attempt to classify ancient
Greek literature in modern fashion, under the headings of religion, science,
history, drama, and so forth, he would remark one apparent deficiency.
While history, philosophy, and poetry of every kind are amply represented
and, however much has perished to be read no more, the choicest blossoms
and richest fruit of Greek toil in these fields have been preserved to us,
religion seems at first sight to have been almost barren of literary produce.
The department of religion pure and simple would have little beyond an
Hesiodic Theogony or some Orphic Hymns to exhibit,—and even these
have little enough bearing upon real religion. In short, it is not on any
special branch of Greek literature, but rather upon the whole bulk thereof,
that the student of Greek religion must rely. He must recognize that a
religious spirit pervades the whole; that there is hardly a book in the
language but has some allusion to religious beliefs and customs, to cults and
ceremonies and divine personalities. And while recognizing this, he must
still admit the fact that nowhere is there found any definite exposition of
accepted beliefs as a whole, any statement of doctrine, any creed which
except a man believe he cannot be saved. How are we to reconcile these
two facts,—the constant presence of religion in all Greek literature, and the
almost total absence of any literature appertaining to religion only? The
answer to this question must be sought in the character of the religion itself.
Greek religion differed from the chief now existing religions of the world in
its origin and development. It had no founder. Its sanction was not the ipse
dixit of some inspired teacher. It possessed nothing analogous to the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, or the Koran. It was a free, autochthonous growth, evolved
from the various hopes and fears of a whole people. If we could catch a
glimpse of it in its infancy, we should probably deny to it the very name of
religion, and call it superstition or folklore. Great teachers indeed arose, like
Orpheus, advocating special doctrines and imposing upon their followers
special rules of life. Great centres of religious influence were developed,
such as Delphi, exercising a general control over rites and ceremonies. But

no single preacher, no priesthood, succeeded in dominating over the free
conscience of the people. Nothing was imposed by authority. In belief and
in worship each man was a law unto himself; and so far as there were any
accepted doctrines and established observances, these were not the subtle
inventions of professional theologians or an interested priesthood, but were
based upon the hereditary and innate convictions of the whole Greek race.
The individual was free to believe what he would and what he could; it was
the general, if vague, consensus of the masses which constituted the real
religion of Greece. The vox populi fully established itself as the vox dei.
Again in this popular religion, when it had emerged from its earliest and
crudest form and had reached the definitely anthropomorphic stage in
which we know it, we can discern no trace of any tendency towards
monotheism. The idea of a single supreme deity, personal or impersonal,
appealed only to some of the greatest thinkers: the mass of the people
remained frankly polytheistic. For this reason the development of Greek
religion proceeded on very different lines from that of Hebrew religion. The
earliest Jewish conception of a God ‘walking in the garden in the cool of
the day’ was certainly no less anthropomorphic than the Homeric
presentation of the Olympian deities: but the subsequent growth of Judaism
was like that of some tall straight palm tree lifting its head to purer air than
is breathed by men; whereas Greek religion resembled rather the cedar
spreading wide its branches nearer the earth. The Jew, by concentrating in
one unique being every transcendent quality and function, exalted gradually
his idea of godhead far above the anthropomorphic plane: the Greek
multiplied his gods to be the several incarnations of passions and powers
and activities pertaining also, though in less fulness, to mankind.
It is obvious that in point of simplicity and consistency the monotheistic
system must prove superior. As the worshipper’s intellectual and spiritual
capacities develop, he discards the older and cruder notions in favour of a
more enlightened ideal. Abraham’s crude conception of the deity as a being
to whom even human sacrifice would be acceptable was necessarily
rejected by an humaner age to whom was delivered the message ‘I will have
mercy and not sacrifice.’ In the growth of Greek polytheism, on the
contrary, the new did not supersede the old, but was superimposed upon it.
Fresh conceptions were expressed by the creation or acceptance of fresh
gods, but the venerable embodiments of more primitive beliefs were not

necessarily displaced by them. The development of humaner ideas in one
cult was no bar to the retention of barbarous rites by another. The same
deity under different titles of invocation (ἐπωνυμίαι) was invested with
different and even conflicting characters: and reversely the same religious
idea found several expressions in the cults of widely different deities. The
forms of worship, viewed in the mass, were of an inconsistent and chaotic
complexity. Human sacrifice, we may be sure, was a thing abhorrent to the
majority of the cults of Zeus: yet Lycaean Zeus continued to exact his toll
of human life down to the time of Pausanias[1]. The worship of Dionysus
embodied something of the same religious spirit which pervaded the
teachings of Orpheus and the mysteries of Demeter, and came to be closely
allied with them: yet neither the austerity of Orphism nor the real
spirituality of the Eleusinian cult succeeded in mitigating the wild orgies of
the Bacchant or in repressing the savage rite of omophagia in which
drunken fanatics tore a bull to pieces with their teeth. Aphrodite was
worshipped under two incompatible titles: in the rôle of the ‘Heavenly’
(οὐρανία), says Artemidorus[2], she looks favourably upon marriage and
childbirth and the home life, while under her title of ‘Popular’ (πάνδημος)
she is hostile to the matron, and patroness of laxer ties. It is needless to
multiply illustrations. The forms in which the religious spirit of Greece
found embodiment are beyond question confused and mutually inconsistent.
The same religious idea might be expressed in so great a variety of rites,
and the same divine personality might be associated with so great a variety
of ideas, that no formal exposition of Greek religion as a whole was
possible. The verbal limitations of a creed, a summa theologiae, would have
been too narrow for the free, imaginative faith of Greece. It was a necessary
condition of Hellenic polytheism that, as it came into being without any
personal founder, without any authoritative sacred books, so in its
development it should be hampered and confined neither by priestcraft nor
by any literature purely and distinctively religious. The spirit which
manifested itself in a myriad forms of worship could not brook the restraint
of any one form of words.
And not only would it have been difficult to give adequate expression to the
essential ideas of Greek religion, but there was no motive for attempting the
task. Those of the philosophers who dealt with religion wrote and taught for
the reason that they had some new idea, some fresh doctrine, to advance.

Plato certainly abounds in references to the popular beliefs of his age: but
his object is not to expound them for their own sake: rather he utilizes them
as illustration and ornament of his own philosophical views: his treatment
of them in the main is artistic, not scientific. In fact there was no one
interested in giving to popular beliefs an authoritative and dogmatic
expression. There was no hierarchy concerned to arrest the free progress of
thought or to chain men’s minds to the faith of their forefathers. A summary
of popular doctrines, if it could have been written, would have had no
readers, for the simple reason that the people felt their religion more truly
and fully than the writer could express it: and few men have the interests of
posterity so largely at heart, as to write what their own contemporaries will
certainly not read. Thus it appears that there was neither motive nor means
for treating the popular religion in literary form: to formulate the common-
folk’s creed, to analyse the common-folk’s religion, was a thing neither
desired nor feasible.
But because we observe an almost total absence of distinctively religious
literature, we need not for that reason be surprised at the constant presence
of religious feeling in all that a Greek wrote or sang. Rather it was
consistent with that freedom and that absence of all control and
circumscription which we have noted, that religion should pervade the
whole life of the people, whose hearts were its native soil, and should
consequently pervade also the literature in which their thoughts and doings
are recorded. For religion with them was not a single and separate
department of their civilisation, not an avocation from the ordinary pursuits
of men, but rather a spirit with which work and holiday, gaiety and gloom,
were alike penetrated. We should be misled by the modern devotion to
dogma and definite formulae of faith, were we to think that so vague a
religion as Greek polytheism was any the less an abiding force, any the less
capable of inspiring genuine enthusiasm and reverence. It is not hard to
imagine the worshipper animated for the time by one emotion only, his
mind void of all else and flooded with the one idea incarnate in the divine
being at whose altar he sat in supplication. It is impossible really to
misdoubt the strength and the depth of Greek religious sentiment, however
multifarious and even mutually contradictory its modes of display. A nation
who peopled sky and earth and sea with godlike forms; who saw in every
stream and glen and mountain-top its own haunting, hallowing presence,
and, ill-content that nature alone should do them honour, sought out the

loveliest hills and vales in all their lovely land to dedicate there the choicest
of their art; who consecrated with lavish love bronze and marble, ivory and
gold, all the best that wealth could win and skill adorn, in honour of the
beings that were above man yet always with him, majestic as Zeus, joyous
as Dionysus, grave as Demeter, light as Aphrodite, yet all divine; such a
nation, though it knew nought of inspired books and formulated creeds, can
be convicted of no shortcoming in real piety and devotion.
Their gods were very near to those whom they favoured; no communion or
intercourse was beyond hope of attainment; gods fought in men’s battles,
guided men’s wanderings, dined at men’s boards, and took to themselves
mortal consorts; and when men grew degenerate and the race of heroes was
no more, gods still held speech with them in oracles. Religious hopes,
religious fears, were the dominant motive of the people’s whole life. It was
in religion that sculpture found its inspiration, and its highest achievements
were in pourtraying deities. The theatre was a religious institution, and on
the stage, without detriment to reverence, figured the Eumenides
themselves. Religious duties were excuse enough for Sparta to hang back
from defending the freedom of Greece. Religious scruples set enlightened
Athens in an uproar, because a number of idols were decently mutilated.
Religious fears cost her the loss of the proudest armament that ever sailed
from her shores. A charge of irreligion was pretext enough for condemning
to death her noblest philosopher. In everything, great and small, the pouring
of libations at the feast, the taking of omens before battle, the consulting of
the Delphic oracle upon the most important or most trivial of occasions, the
same spirit is manifest. Religion used or abused, piety or superstition, was
to the Greeks an abiding motive and influence in all the affairs of life.
It is chiefly of these definite doings and customs that literature tells us, just
as art depicts the mise-en-scène of religion. Yet it would be inconceivable
that a people who displayed so strong and so abundant a religious feeling in
all the circumstances and tasks of life, should not have pondered over the
essential underlying questions of all religion, the nature of the soul and the
mystery of life and death. Literature tells us that to their poets and
philosophers these problems did present themselves, and many were the
solutions which different thinkers propounded: but of the general sense of
the people in this respect, of the fundamental beliefs which guided their
conduct towards gods and men in this life and prompted their care for the

dead, literature furnishes no direct statement: its evidence is fragmentary,
casual, sporadic. Everywhere it displays the externals, but it leaves the inner
spirit veiled. Literature as well as art needs an interpreter.
It is precisely in this task of interpretation that the assistance offered by the
folklore of Modern Greece should be sought. It should be remembered that
there is still living a people who, as they have inherited the land and the
language, may also have inherited the beliefs and customs, of those ancients
whose mazes of religion are bewildering without a guide who knows them.
Among that still living people it is possible not only to observe acts and
usages, but to enquire also their significance: and though some customs will
undoubtedly be found either to be mere survivals of which the meaning has
long been forgotten, or even to have been subjected to new and false
interpretations, yet others, still rooted in and nourished by an intelligent
belief, may be vital documents of ancient Greek life and thought.

§ 2. The survival of Ancient Tradition.

There may perhaps be some few who, quite apart from the continuity of the
Hellenic race, a question with which I must deal later, would be inclined to
pronounce the quest of ancient religion in modern folklore mere lost labour.
The lapse, they may think, of all the centuries which separate the present
day from the age of Hellenic greatness would in itself disfigure or
altogether efface any tradition of genuine value. Such a view, however, is
opposed to all the lessons that have of late years been gained from a more
systematic study of the folklore of all parts of the world. Certain principles
of magic and certain tendencies of superstition seem to obtain, in curiously
similar form, among peoples far removed both in racial type and in
geographical position. It is sometimes urged by way of explanation that the
resources of the primitive mind are necessarily so limited, that many
coincidences in belief and custom are only to be expected, and that
therefore the similarity of form presented by some superstitions of widely
separated peoples is no argument in favour of their common origin. But, for
my part, when I consider such a belief as that in the Evil Eye, which
possesses, I believe, an almost world-wide notoriety, I find it more
reasonable to suppose that it was a tenet in the creed of some single
primitive people, of whom many present races of the world are offshoots,
and from whom they have inherited the superstition, than that scores or
hundreds of peoples, who had long since diverged in racial type and
dwelling and language, should subsequently have hit upon one uniform
belief. Indeed it may be that in the future the study of folklore will become
a science of no less value than the study of language, and that by a
comparison of the superstitions still held by various sections of the human
race it will be possible to adumbrate the beliefs of their remotest common
ancestors as clearly as, by a comparison of their various speeches, the
outlines of a common ancestral language have been, and are being, traced.
The data of folklore are in the nature of things more difficult to collect,
more comprehensive in scope, and more liable to misinterpretation, than the
data of linguistic study; but none the less, when once there are labourers
enough in the field, it is not beyond hope that the laws which govern the

tradition and modification of customs and beliefs may be found to be hardly
less definite than the laws of language.
But comparative folklore is outside my present purpose. I assume only,
without much fear of contradiction, that many of the popular superstitions
and customs and magical practices still prevalent in the world date from a
period far more remote than any age on which Greek history or archaeology
can throw even a glimmering of light. If then I can show that among the
Greek folk of to-day there still survive in full vigour such examples of
primaeval superstition as the belief in ‘the evil eye’ and the practice of
magic, I shall have established at least an antecedent probability that there
may exist also vestiges of the religious beliefs and practices of the historical
era.
The fear of ‘the evil eye’ (τὸ κακὸ μάτι, or simply τὸ μάτι[3],) is universal
among the Greek peasantry, and fairly common though not so frankly
avowed among the more educated classes. The old words βασκαίνω and
βασκανία are still in use, but ματιάζω and μάτι̯αγμα[4], direct formations
from the word μάτι, are more frequently heard. It would be difficult to say
on what grounds this power of ‘overlooking,’ if I may use a popular English
equivalent, is usually imputed to anyone. Old women are most generally
credited with it, but not so much owing to any menacing appearance as
because they are the chief exponents of witchcraft and it is only fitting that
the wise woman of a village should possess the power of exercising the evil
eye at will. These form therefore quite a distinct class from those persons
whose eyes are suspected of exerting naturally and involuntarily a baneful
influence. In the neighbourhood of Mount Hymettus it appears that blue
eyes fall most commonly under suspicion: and this is the more curious
because in Attica, with its large proportion of Albanian inhabitants, blue
eyes are by no means rare. Possibly, however, it was the native Greeks’
suspicion of the strangers who settled among them, which first caused this
particular development of the belief in this district. Myself possessing eyes
of the objectionable colour, I have more than once been somewhat taken
aback at having my ordinary salutation (’γει̯ά σου, ‘health to you,’) to some
passing peasant answered only by the sign of the Cross. Fortunately in other
localities I never to my knowledge inspired the same dread; had it been
general, I should have been forced to abandon my project of enquiring into
Greek folklore; for the risk of being ‘overlooked’ holds the Greek peasant,

save for a few phrases of aversion, in awe-stricken silence. My impression
is that any eyes which are peculiar in any way are apt to incur suspicion,
and that in different localities different qualities, colouring or brilliance or
prominence, excite special notice and, with notice, disfavour. The evil eye,
it would seem, is a regular attribute both of the Gorgon and of the wolf; for
both, by merely looking upon a man, are still believed to inflict some
grievous suffering,—dumbness, madness, or death; and yet there is little in
common between the narrow, crafty eye of the wolf and either the
prominent, glaring eyes in an ancient Medusa’s head or the passionate,
seductive eyes of the modern Gorgon, unless it be that any fixed
unflinching gaze is sufficient reason for alarm.
Some such explanation will best account for the strange vagary of
superstition which brings under the category of the evil eye two classes of
things which seemingly would have no connexion either with it or with
each other, looking-glasses and the stars.
To look at oneself in a mirror is, in some districts, regarded as a dangerous
operation, especially if it be prolonged. A bride, being specially liable to all
sinister influences, is wise to forego the pleasure of seeing her own
reflection in the glass; and a woman in child-bed, who is no less liable, is
deprived of all chance of seeing herself by the removal of all mirrors from
the room. The risk in all cases is usually greatest at night, and in the town of
Sinasos in Cappadocia no prudent person would at that time incur it[5]. The
reflection, it would seem, of a man’s own image may put the evil eye upon
him by its steady gaze: and it was in fear of such an issue that Damoetas, in
the Idylls of Theocritus, after criticizing his own features reflected in some
glassy pool, spat thrice into his bosom that he might not suffer from the evil
eye[6].
The belief in a certain magical property of the stars akin to that of the evil
eye is far more widely held. They are, as it were, the eyes of night, and in
the darkness ‘overlook’ men and their belongings as disastrously as does the
human eye in the day-time. Just as a woman after confinement is peculiarly
liable to the evil eye and must have amulets hung about her and mirrors
removed from her room, so must particular care be taken to avoid exposure
to stellar influence. Sonnini de Magnoncourt, who had some medical
experience in Greece, speaks authoritatively on this subject. According to
the popular view, he says, she must not let herself be ‘seen by a star’; and if

she goes out before the prescribed time,—according to this authority, only
eight days, but now preferably forty days, from the birth of the child,—she
is careful to return home and to shut herself up in her room by sunset, and
after that hour to open neither door nor window, for fear that a star may
surprise her and cause the death of both mother and child[7]. So too in the
island of Chios, if there is occasion to carry leaven from one house to
another, it must be covered up,—in the day-time ‘to prevent it from being
seen by any strange eye,’ at night ‘to prevent it from being seen by the
stars’: for if it were ‘overlooked’ by either, the bread made with it would not
rise[8]. Such customs show clearly that the stars are held to exercise exactly
the same malign influence as the human eye: the same simple phrases
denote in Greek the operation of either, and the ‘overlooking’ of either has
the same blighting effect.
The range of this mischievous influence—for I now take it that the evil eye
and the stars are indistinguishable in their ill effects—is very large. Human
beings are perhaps most susceptible to it. In some districts[9] indeed new-
born infants up to the time of their baptism are held to be immune; till then
they are the children of darkness, and the powers of darkness do not move
against them. But in general no one at any moment of his life is wholly
secure. Amulets however afford a reasonable safety at ordinary times; it is
chiefly in the critical hours of life, at marriage and at the birth of children,
that the fear of the evil eye is lively and the precautions against it more
elaborate. Animals also may be affected. Horses and mules are very
commonly protected by amulets hung round their necks, and this is the
original purpose of the strings of blue beads with which the cab-horses of
Athens are often decorated. The shepherd too has cause for anxiety on
behalf of his flock, and, when a bad season or disease diminishes the
number of his lambs, is apt to re-echo the pastoral complaint,

Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos[10].
‘Some jealous eye “o’erlooks” my tender lambs.’

And the pernicious influence makes itself felt in even a lower scale of life.
In the neighbourhood of Sparta, where there is a considerable silk industry,
the women believe that silk-worms are susceptible of mischief from the evil
eye; and the same superstition is recorded by de Magnoncourt from Chios.

Of inanimate things, those most easily damaged in a similar way are leaven,
salt, and vinegar,—as being possessed of quickening or preservative
properties to which the blighting, destructive power of the evil eye or of the
stars is naturally opposed. The precautions to be observed in carrying
leaven from house to house have already been noticed. Equal care is
required in the making of the bread. It often happens, so I have been told,
that when a woman is kneading, some malicious neighbour will come in,
ostensibly for a chat, and put the evil eye upon the leaven; and unless the
woman perceives what is going on and averts disaster by a special gesture
which turns the evil influence against the intruder, nothing to call bread will
be baked that day. Similarly it is unwise to borrow or to give away either
salt or vinegar at night[11]; but if it is necessary, it is prudent to take
precautions to prevent its exposure to the stars, which may even be cheated
of their prey by some such device as calling the vinegar (ξεῖδι) ‘syrup’
(γλυκάδι) in asking for it[12]. Further, an object which has been exposed to
the stars may even carry the infection, as it were, to those who afterwards
use it. For this reason the linen and clothes of a mother and her new-born
infant must never be left out of doors at night[13].
The precaution, as I have said, most commonly adopted is the wearing of
amulets. The articles which have the greatest intrinsic virtue for this
purpose are garlic, bits of blue stone or glass often in the form of beads, old
coins, salt, and charcoal: but many other things, by their associations, may
be rendered efficacious. The stump of a candle burnt on some high religious
festival, or a shred of the Holy Shroud used on Good Friday, is by no means
to be despised; and the bones of a bat or a snake’s skin over which a witch
has muttered her incantations acquire thereby an equal merit. But such
charms as these are objets de luxe; the ordinary man contents himself with
the commoner articles whose virtue is in themselves. No midwife, I
understand, would go about her business without a plentiful supply of
garlic. It is well that the room should be redolent of it, and a few cloves
must be fastened about the baby’s neck either at birth or immediately after
the baptism. Blue beads are in general use for women, children, and
animals. If men wear them, they are usually concealed from view. But
mothers value them above all, because in virtue of their colour—γαλάζιος is
modern Greek for ‘blue’—they ensure an abundant supply of milk (γάλα)
unaffected by the evil eye or any other sinister potency. Salt and charcoal

are most conveniently carried in little bags with a string to go round the
neck. An effective charm consists of three grains of each material with an
old coin. But many other things are also used; when I have been permitted
to inspect the contents of such a bag, I have found strange assortments of
things, pebbles, pomegranate-seeds, bits of soap, leaves of basil and other
plants, often hard to recognize through age and dirt and grease. One
scientifically-minded man recommended me sulphate of copper.
Special occasions also have special precautions proper to them. At a
wedding, the time of all others when envious eyes are most likely to cause
mischief, the bridegroom commonly carries a black-handled knife slipped
inside his belt[14], and the bride has an open pair of scissors in her shoe or
some convenient place, in order that any such evil influence may be ‘cut
off.’ But some of these magical safeguards concern not only the evil eye,
but ghostly perils in general, and will claim notice in other connexions.
If, however, through lack of precautions or in spite of them, a man suspects
that he is being ‘overlooked,’ he must rely for protection on the resources
with which nature has provided him. The simplest thing is to spit,—three
times for choice, for that number has magical value,—but on oneself, not at
the suspected foe. Theocritus was scrupulously correct, according to the
modern view, in making his shepherd spit thrice on his own bosom. Another
expedient, though no garlic be at hand to give effect to the words, is to
ejaculate, σκόρδο ’στὰ μάτι̯α σου, ‘garlic in your eyes!’ Or use may be
made of an imprecation considered effective in many circumstances of
danger, νὰ φᾶς τὸ κεφάλι σου, ‘may you devour your own head!’ Lastly
there is the φάσκελον, a gesture of the hand,—first raised with the fist
closed and then suddenly advanced either with all the fingers open but bent,
or with the thumb and little finger alone extended,—which returns the evil
upon the offender’s own head with usury.
But, in spite of these manifold means of defence, the evil eye has its
victims; some malady seizes upon a man, for which no other cause can be
assigned; and the question of a cure arises. Here the Church comes to the
rescue, with special forms of prayer, commonly known as βασκανισμοί,
provided for the purpose. The person affected goes to the church, or, if the
case be serious, the priest comes to his house, the prayers are recited, and
the sufferer is fumigated with incense. Also if there happens to be a sacred
spring or well, ἅγι̯ασμα as it is called, in the precincts of any church near,—

and there are a fair number of churches in Greece which derive both fame
and emolument from the possession of healing and miracle-working
waters[15],—the victim of the evil eye is well-advised to drink of them.
There are some, however, who rate the powers of a witch more highly than
those of a priest, and prefer her incantations to the prayers of the Church.
She knows, or is ready to improvise, forms of exorcism (ξόρκια, ξορκισμοί)
for all kinds of affliction. A typical example[16] begins, as do many of the
incantations of witchcraft, with an invocation of Christ and the Virgin and
the Trinity and the twelve Apostles; then comes a complaint against the
grievous illness which needs curing; next imprecations upon the man or
woman responsible for causing it; and finally an adjuration of the evil eye
to depart from the sufferer’s ‘head and heart and finger-nails and toe-nails
and the cockles of the heart, and to begone to the hills and mountains[17]’
and so forth; after all which the Lord’s prayer or any religious formula may
be repeated ad libitum. During the recitation of some such charm, the witch
fumigates her patient either with incense, or,—what is more effectual where
a guess can be made as to the identity of the envious enemy,—by burning
something belonging to the latter, a piece of his clothing or even a handful
of earth from his doorway[18]. Or again, if the patient is at a loss to
conjecture who it is that has harmed him, recourse may be had to
divination. A familiar method is to burn leaves or petals of certain plants,—
basil and gillyflower being of special repute[19],—mentioning at the same
time a number of names in succession. A loud pop or crackling denotes that
the name of the offender has been reached, and the treatment can then
proceed as described above.

No less widespread in Greece than the belief in the evil eye, and equally
primitive in character, is the practice of magic. Few villages, I believe, even
at the present day do not possess a wise woman (μάγισσα). Often indeed,
owing to the spread of education and the desire to be thought ‘European’
and ‘civilised,’ the inhabitants will indignantly deny her existence, and
affect to speak of witches as things of the past. But in times of illness or
trouble they are apt to forget their pretensions of superiority, and do not
hesitate to avail themselves of the lore inherited from their superstitious

forefathers. For the most part women are the depositaries of these ancient
secrets, and the knowledge of charms, incantations, and all the rites and
formularies of witchcraft is handed down from mother to daughter. But men
are not excluded from the profession. The functions of the priest, for
example, are not clearly distinguished from those of the unconsecrated
magician. At a baptism, which often takes place in the house where the
child is born and not at the church, the priest opens the service by
exorcising all evil spirits and influences from the four corners of the room
by swinging his censer, but the midwife, who usually knows something of
magic, or one of the god-parents, accompanies him and makes assurance
doubly sure by spitting in each suspected nook. Moreover if a priest lead a
notoriously evil life or chance to be actually unfrocked, the devil invests
him with a double portion of magical power, which on any serious occasion
is sure to be in request. But, apart from the clergy who owe their powers to
the use or abuse of their office, there are other men too here and there who
deal in witchcraft. They are usually specialists in some one branch, and
professors of the white art rather than of the black,—one versed in popular
medicine and the incantations proper to it, another in undoing mischievous
spells, another in laying the restless dead. The general practitioners, causing
disease as often as curing it, binding with curses as readily as loosing from
them, are for the most part women.
I shall not attempt to enumerate here all the petty uses of magic of which I
have heard or read: indeed an exhaustive treatment of the subject, even for
one who had devoted a lifetime to cultivating an intimacy with Greek
witches, would be hardly possible; for their secrets are not lightly divulged,
and new circumstances may at any time require the invention of new
methods. I propose only to describe some of the best known and most
widely spread practices, some beneficent, others mischievous. Most of them
will be seen to be based on the primitive and worldwide principle of
sympathetic magic,—the principle that a relation, analogy, or sympathy
existing, or being once established, between two objects, that which the one
does or suffers, will be done or suffered also by the other.
If it be desired to cause physical injury or death to an enemy, the simplest
and surest method is to make an image of him in some malleable material,
—wax, lead, or clay,—and, if opportunity offer, to knead into it or attach to
it some trifle from the enemy’s person. Three hairs from his head are a

highly valuable acquisition, but parings of his nails or a few shreds of his
clothing will serve: or again the image may be put in some place where his
shadow will fall upon it as he passes. These refinements of the practice,
however, are not indispensable; the image by itself will suffice. This being
made, the treatment of it varies according to the degree of suffering which it
is desired to inflict.
Acute pain may be caused to the man by driving into his image pins or
nails. This device is popularly known as κάρφωμα, ‘pinning’ or ‘nailing,’
and many variations of it are practised. One case recorded in some detail
was that of a priest’s wife who from her wedding-day onward was a prey to
various pains and ills. The priest tried in vain to relieve them by prayer, and
finally called in a witch to aid him. After performing certain occult rites of
divination, she informed him that he must dig in the middle of his
courtyard. There he found a tin, which on being opened revealed an
assortment of pernicious charms,—one of his wife’s bridal shoes with a
large nail through it, a dried-up bit of soap (presumably from the bridal
bath) stuck full of pins, a wisp of hair (probably some of the bride’s
combings) all in a tangle, and lastly a padlock. The nail and pins were at
once pulled out and the hair carefully disentangled, with the result that the
woman was freed from her pains and her complicated ailments. But the
padlock could not be undone, and was thrown away into the sea, with the
result that the woman remained childless. The bride had been ‘nailed’
(καρφωμένη) by a rival. In this case, it is true, no waxen or leaden image
was used, but the principle is the same. The use of an image is only
preferable as allowing the maker of it to select any part of the body which
he wishes to torture.
Another method of dealing with the image is to melt or wear it away
gradually; if it be of wax or lead, it may be seared with a red-hot poker, or
placed bodily in the fire; if it be of clay, it may be scraped with a knife, or
put into some stream which will gradually wash it away. Accordingly as it
is thus wasted away, slowly or rapidly, so will the person whom it
represents waste and die. This is in principle the same system as that
adopted by Simaetha in the Idyll of Theocritus to win back the love of
Delphis. ‘Even as I melt this wax,’ she cries, ‘with God’s help, so may the
Myndian Delphis by love be straightway molten[20]’; and she too used in
her magic rites a fringe from Delphis’ cloak, to shred and to cast into the

fierce flame.[21] Only, in her case, the incantation turned what might have
been a death-spell into a love-charm.
Love and jealousy are still the passions which most frequently suggest the
use of magic. Occult methods are necessary to the girl whose modesty
prevents her from courting openly the man on whom her heart is set, and
not less so to her who would punish the faithlessness of a former lover.
The following are some recorded recipes[22] for winning the love of an
apathetic swain.
Obtain some milk from the breasts of a mother and daughter who are both
nursing male infants at the same time, or, in default of that, from any two
women both nursing first-born male infants; mix it with wheat-flour and
leaven, and contrive that the man eat of it. Repeat therewith the following
incantation: ὅπως κλαῖνε καὶ λαχταρίζουν τώρα τὰ παιδία ποῦ τοὺς λείπει
τὸ γάλα τους, ἔτσι νὰ λαχταρίσῃ καὶ ὁ τάδε γι̯ὰ τὴν τάδε, ‘As the infants
now cry and throb with desire for the milk which fails them, so may N.
throb with desire for M.’
Take a bat or three young swallows, and roast to cinders on a fire of sticks
gathered by a witch at midnight where cross-roads meet: at the same time
repeat the words, ὅπως στρηφογυρίζει, τρέμει, καὶ λαχταρίζει ἡ νυχτερίδα
ἔτσι νὰ γυρίζῃ ὁ τάδε, νὰ τρέμῃ καὶ νὰ λαχταρίζῃ ἡ καρδι̯ά του γι̯ὰ τὴν
τάδε, ‘As the bat writhes, quivers, and throbs, so may N. turn, and his heart
quiver and throb with desire for M.’ The ashes of the bat are then to be put
into the man’s drink.
Take a bat and bury it at cross-roads; burn incense over it for forty days at
midnight; dig it up and grind its spine to powder. Put the dust in the man’s
drink as before.
Such are some of the magic means of winning love; and the rites, while
involving as much cruelty to the bat as was suffered by the bird of
witchcraft, the ἴυγξ, in the ancient counterpart of these practices, are at any
rate, save for the ashes in the man’s liquor, innocuous to him. But the
weapon of witchcraft wherewith a jealous woman takes vengeance upon a
man who has forsaken her or who has never returned her affection and takes
to himself another for his bride, is truly diabolical. This is known as the
spell of ‘binding’ (δέσιμον or ἀμπόδεμα[23]). Its purpose is to fetter the

virility of the husband and so to prevent the consummation of the marriage.
The rite itself is simple. Either the jealous girl herself or a witch employed
by her attends the wedding, taking with her a piece of thread or string in
which three loops have been loosely made. During the reading of the gospel
or the pronouncement of the blessing, she pulls the ends of the string,
forming thereby three knots in it, and at the same time mutters the brief
incantation, δένω τὸν τάδε καὶ τὴν τάδε, καὶ τὸ διάβολο ’στὴ μέση, ‘I bind
N. and M. and the Devil betwixt them.’ The thread is subsequently buried or
hidden, and unless it can be found and either be burnt or have the knots
untied, there is small hope for the man to recover from his impotence. There
is no doubt, I think, that the extreme fear in which this spell is held has in
some cases so worked upon the bridegroom’s nerves as to render the
‘binding’ actually effective, just as extreme faith in miraculous icons
occasionally effects cures of nervous maladies[24]. Sonnini de Magnoncourt
vouches for a case, known to him personally, in which the effect of this
terror continued for several months, until finally the marriage was dissolved
on the ground of non-consummation, and the man afterwards married
another wife and regained his energy[25]. I myself have more than once been
told of similar cases, in which however divorce was not sought (it is
extremely rare in Greece) but the spell was broken by the finding of the
thread or by countervailing operations of magic. In Aetolia, where this
superstition is specially rife, I knew of a priest, a son of Belial by all
accounts, who made a speciality of loosing these binding-spells. By his
direction the afflicted man and his wife would go at sunset to a lonely
chapel on a mountain-side, taking with them food and a liberal supply of
wine, with which to regale themselves and the priest till midnight. At that
hour they undressed and stood before the priest, who pronounced over them
some form of exorcism and benediction,—my informant could not give me
the words. They then retired to rest on some bedding provided by the priest
on the chapel-floor, while he recited more prayers and swung his censer
over them. I was assured that more than one couple in the small town where
I was staying confessed to having obtained release from the spell by a night
thus spent and with the extreme simplicity of the peasants of that district
thought no shame to confess it. And this is the more easily intelligible,
because, as we shall see later[26], the practice of ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in
some holy place with a view to being cured of any ailment, is as familiar to
Christians of to-day as it was to their pagan ancestors.

But pure magic too, no less than these quasi-Christian methods, may effect
the loosing of the bond, even without the discovery of the knotted thread
which is the source of the mischief. In a recent case on record, a witch,
having been consulted by a couple thus distressed, took them to the sea-
shore, bade them undress, bound them together with a vine-shoot, and
caused them to stand embracing one another in the water until forty waves
had beaten upon them[27]. On the significance of the details of this charm no
comment is made by the recorder of it; but they deserve, I think, some
notice. The vine-shoot, like the olive-shoot, is a known instrument of
purification, and is sometimes laid on the bier beside the dead during the
lying-in-state (πρόθεσις). Salt is likewise possessed of magical powers to
avert all evil influences,—we have noticed the use of it in amulets to protect
from the evil eye,—and the sea is therefore more efficacious than a river for
mystic purposes. Forty is the number of purification; the churching of
women takes place on the fortieth day from the birth, whence the Greek
word for to ‘church’ is σαραντίζω,—from σαράντα, ‘forty.’ Lastly the
beating of the waves seems intended to drive out by physical compulsion
the devil or any power of evil by which husband and wife are kept apart.
In view of this danger it is natural that ample precautions should be taken at
every wedding. During the dressing of the bride or the bridegroom, it is
customary to throw a handful of salt into a vessel of water, saying, ὅπως
λυώνει τὸ ἁλάτι, ἔτσι νὰ λυώσουν οἱ ὀχτροί (ἐχθροί), ‘As the salt dissolves,
so may all enemies dissolve.’ The black-handled knife worn by the
bridegroom in his belt, and the pair of scissors put in the bride’s shoe or
sometimes attached to her girdle, both of which have been noticed as
safeguards against the evil eye, serve also to ‘cut’ this magic bond of
impotence. Sometimes too a pair of scissors and a piece of fisherman’s net
are put in the bridal bed. In Acarnania and Aetolia, and it may be elsewhere,
a still more primitive custom prevails; both bride and bridegroom wear an
old piece of fishing-net,—in which therefore resides the virtue of salt water,
—round the loins next to the body; and from these bits of netting are
afterwards made amulets to be worn by any children of the marriage. Such
customs are likely long to continue among the simpler folk of modern
Greece, who frankly and innocently wish the bride at her wedding reception
‘seven sons and one daughter.’

But it is not only for ailments induced by malicious magic that magical
means of cure or aversion are used. The whole of popular medicine is based
upon the knowledge of charms and incantations. Many simples and drugs
are of course known and employed; but it is still generally believed, as it
was in old time, that ‘there would be no good in the herb without the
incantation[28].’ For the most ordinary diseases are credited to supernatural
causes, and there is no ill to which flesh is heir,—from a headache to the
plague,—without some demon responsible for it. A nightmare and the sense
of physical oppression which often accompanies it are not traced to so
vulgar a cause as a heavy supper, but are dignified as the work of a
malicious being named Βραχνᾶς[29], who in the dead of night delights to
seat himself on the chest of some sleeper, and by his weight produces an
unpleasant feeling of congestion. Material for a similar personification has
been found also in the more terrible pestilences by which Greece has from
time to time been visited. It is still believed among the poorest folk of
Athens that in a cleft on the Hill of the Nymphs, undisturbed even by the
modern observatory on its summit, there lives a gruesome sisterhood, a
trinity of she-devils, Χολέρα, Βλογι̯ά, and Πανοῦκλα,—Cholera, Smallpox,
and Plague.
Granted then that illness in general is the malicious work of supernatural
beings, common reason recommends the employment of supernatural
means to defeat and expel them. Forms of exorcism have in past times been
provided by the Church and are still in vogue; but here, as in other matters,
the functions of the priest are shared with the witch, and an old woman
versed in the traditional lore of popular medicine is as competent as any
bishop to cast out the devils of sickness. Nor do the popular incantations
differ much in substance from the ecclesiastical. The witch knows better
than to try to cast out devils in the Devil’s name, and her exorcisms contain
invocations of God and the saints of the same character as those sanctioned
by the Church; only in her accompanying rites and gestures there is a
picturesque variety which is lacking in the swinging of the priest’s censer.
The details of the rites and the full forms of incantation are in general
extremely difficult to obtain. The witches themselves are always reticent on
such points, and I have known one plead, by way of excuse for her apparent
discourtesy in withholding information, that the virtue of magic was
diminished in proportion as the knowledge of it was disseminated. One

cure, however,—a cure for headache—will sufficiently illustrate the
principle on which the healing art among the common-folk generally
proceeds. This cure is based upon the assumption that the tense and bruised
feeling of a bad headache is due to the presence of some demon within the
skull, and that the room which he occupies must have been provided by
distention of the head,—which will therefore measure more in
circumference while it aches than when the demon has been exorcised. This
is demonstrated in the course of the cure. The witch takes a handkerchief
and measures with it the patient’s head. Doubling back the six or eight
inches of the handkerchief that remain over, she puts in the fold three cloves
of garlic, three grains of salt, or some other article of magical virtue, and
ties a knot. Then waving the handkerchief about the patient’s head, she
recites her form of exorcism,—but usually in a tone so low and mumbling
that the bystanders cannot catch the words. The exorcism being finished,
she again measures the head, and this time the knot, which marks the
previous measurement, is found to overlap, by two or three inches it may
be, the other end of the kerchief,—a sure sign that the intruding demon has
been expelled and that the head having returned to its natural dimensions
will no longer ache[30]. The exact words of the incantation which should
accompany this rite I could not obtain; but I make little doubt that in
substance they would differ little from a Macedonian formula recently
published:—
‘For megrim and headache:
‘Write on a piece of paper:—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
loose the demon of the megrim from the head of Thy servant. I charge thee,
unclean spirit which ever sittest in the head of man, take thy pain and depart
from the head: from half-head, membrane, and vertebra, from the servant of
God, So-and-so. Stand we fairly, stand we with fear of God. Amen[31].’
In this instance we have the formula but not, it seems, the rite which should
accompany it; for the mere act of committing the words to paper is hardly
likely to be deemed sufficient. Probably the paper would be laid under the
pillow at night, or, as I have known in other cases, would be burnt, and its
ashes taken as a sedative powder.
The various charms which we have so far considered are directed towards
the hurt or the healing of man: but external nature is also responsive to

magic spells. It is rumoured that there are still witches who have power to
draw down the moon from the heavens by incantation; but a more useful
ceremony, designed to draw down the clouds upon a parched land, may still
be actually witnessed. The most recent case known to me was in the April
of 1899, when the rite was carried out some few days, unfortunately, after I
had left the district by the people of Larissa. The custom is known all over
the north of Greece—in Epirus[32], Thessaly, and Macedonia,—and also it is
said among some of the Turks, Wallachs, and Servians; to the south of those
regions and in the islands of the Aegean I heard nothing of it. A boy (or
sometimes, it is said, a girl[33]) is stripped naked and then dressed up in
wreaths and festoons of leafage, grass, and flowers, and, escorted by a troop
of children of his own age, goes the round of the neighbourhood. He is
known as the περπερία, and his companions sing as they go,

Perpería goes his way
And to God above doth pray,
Rain, O God, a gentle rain,
Shed, O God, a gentle shower,
That the fields may give their grain,
And the vines may come to flower,

and so forth in such simple strain[34]. At each doorway and more
particularly at every spring and well, which it is the special duty of the
Perpería to visit, anyone who will may empty a vessel of water over the
boy, to whom some compensation for his drenching is usually made in the
form of sweetmeats or coppers.
The word περπερία has been the subject of considerable discussion. By-
forms περπερίτσα, περπεροῦνα, and παππαροῦνα also occur. The first two
are of the nature of diminutives; the last-named is a corrupt form used only,
so far as I know, in one district of Epirus, and means a ‘garden-poppy.’ The
perversion of the word has in this district (Zagorion) affected the rite itself;
for it is considered necessary for this flower to be used largely in dressing
up the chief actor in the ceremony[35]. But the most general, and, as I think,
most correct form is περπερία (or περπερεία). With the ancient word
περπερεία, derived from the Latin perperus and used in the sense of
‘boasting’ or ‘ostentation,’ it can, I feel, have no connexion; and I suggest

that it stands for περιπορεία, with the same abbreviation as in περπατῶ for
περιπατῶ, ‘walk,’ and subsequent assimilation of the first two syllables. If
my conjecture is right, the word originally meant nothing more than a
‘procession round’ the village; next it became confined in usage to a
procession for the particular purpose of procuring rain; and finally, the
words πορεία[36] and πορεύομαι having been lost from popular speech, it
was taken to be the name of the boy who plays the uncomfortable part of
vegetation craving water. And indeed it would seem likely that the song
which forms part of the ceremony was actually first composed at a time
when περπερία was still understood in the sense of ‘procession’: for in
every recorded version known to me it would be still possible to interpret
the word in this meaning without detriment to the context.
The rite itself as an example of sympathetic magic requires no commentary:
a simpler application of the principle that like produces like could not be
found.

Other examples of primitive customs and beliefs still prevalent in Greece
might easily be amassed: but I have preferred to select these few for
detailed treatment rather than to glance over a larger number, in order that
they may the more clearly be seen to belong to certain types of superstition
found the whole world over and therefore presumably dating from
prehistoric ages: for if the population of Greece has proved a good vehicle
for the transmission of superstitions so primaeval, it will surely follow that
there is nothing extravagant in hoping to learn also from their traditions
something of the religion of historic Hellas.

§ 3. The survival of Hellenic Tradition.

There may however be some who, while admitting that mere lapse of time
need not have extinguished ancient Hellenic ideas, will be disposed to
question the likelihood, even the possibility, of their transmission on racial
grounds. The belief in the evil eye and the practice of sympathetic magic
were once, they may say, the common property of the whole uncivilised
world; and though the inhabitants of modern Greece have inherited these
old superstitions and usages, there is nothing to show from what ancestry
they have received the inheritance. The population, it may be urged, has
changed; the Greeks of to-day are not Hellenes; their blood has been
contaminated by foreign admixture, and with this admixture may have
come external, non-Hellenic traditions; has not Fallmerayer stoutly
maintained that the modern inhabitants of Greece have practically no claim
to the name of Hellenes, but come of a stock Slavonic in the main, though
cross-bred with the offscourings of many peoples?
The historical facts from which Fallmerayer argued are not to be slighted. It
is well established[37] that, from the middle of the sixth century onwards,
successive hordes of Slavonic invaders swept over Greece, driving such of
the native population as escaped destruction into the more mountainous or
remote districts; that in the middle of the eighth century, when the numbers
of the Greek population had been further reduced by the great pestilence of
746, ‘the whole country,’ to use the exact phrase of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus[38], ‘became Slavonic and was occupied by foreigners’;
that the Slavonic supremacy lasted at least until the end of the tenth century;
that thereafter a gradual fusion of the remnants of the Greek population
with their conquerors began, but proceeded so slowly that at the beginning
of the thirteenth century the ‘Franks,’ as the warriors of Western
Christendom were popularly called, found Slavonic tribes in Elis and
Laconia quite detached from the rest of the population, acknowledging
indeed the supremacy of the Byzantine government, but still employing
their own language and their own laws; and finally that the amalgamation
of the two races was not complete even by the middle of the fifteenth
century, for the Turks at their conquest of Greece found several tribes of the

Peloponnese, especially in the neighbourhood of Mount Taygetus, still
speaking a Slavonic tongue.
If then, as is now generally admitted, Fallmerayer’s conclusions were
somewhat exaggerated, it remains none the less an historical fact that there
is a very large admixture of Slavonic blood in the veins of the present
inhabitants of Greece. The truth of this is moreover enforced by the
physical characteristics of the people as a whole. Travellers conversant alike
with Slavs and with modern Greeks have affirmed to me their impression
that there is a close physical resemblance between the two races; and while
I have not the experience of Slavonic races which would permit me to judge
of this resemblance for myself, it certainly offers the best explanation of my
own observations with regard to the variations of physical type in different
parts of the Greek world. In the islands of the Aegean and in the
promontory of Maina, to which the Slavs never penetrated, the ancient
Hellenic types are far commoner than in the rest of the Peloponnese or in
Northern Greece. Not a little of the charm of Tenos or Myconos or Scyros
lies in the fact that the grand and impassive beauty of the earlier Greek
sculpture may still be seen in the living figures and faces of men and
women: and if anyone would see in the flesh the burly, black-bearded type
idealised in a Heracles, he need but go to the south of the Peloponnese, and
among the Maniotes he will soon be satisfied: for there he will find not
merely an occasional example, as of reversion to an ancestral type, but a
whole tribe of swarthy, stalwart warriors, whose aspect seems to justify
their claim that in proud, though poverty-stricken, isolation they have kept
their native peninsula free from alien aggression, and the old Laconian
blood still pure in their veins. The ordinary Greek of the mainland, on the
other hand, is usually of a mongrel and unattractive appearance; and in view
of the marked difference of the type in regions untouched by the Slavs, I
cannot but impute his lack of beauty to his largely Slavonic ancestry.
Yet even in the centre of the Peloponnese where the Slavonic influence has
probably been strongest, the pure Greek type is not wholly extinct. I
remember a young man who acted as ostler and waiter and in all other
capacities at a small khan on the road from Tripolitza to Sparta, who would
not have been despised as a model by Praxiteles; and elsewhere too, now
and again, I have seen statuesque forms and classic features, less perfect
indeed than his, but yet proclaiming beyond question an Hellenic lineage;

so that I should hesitate to say that in any part of Greece the population is as
purely Slavonic as in Maina or many of the islands it is purely Greek.
But, as I think, the exact proportion of Slavonic and of Hellenic blood in the
veins of the modern Greeks is not a matter of supreme importance. Even if
their outward appearance were universally and completely Slavonic, I
would still maintain that they deserve the name of Greeks. Though their
lineage were wholly Slavonic, their nationality, I claim, would still be
Hellenic. For the nationality of a people, like the personality of an
individual, is something which eludes definition but which embraces the
mental and the moral as well as the physical. A man’s personality is not to
be determined by knowledge of his family and his physiognomy alone; and
similarly racial descent and physical type are not the sole indices of
nationality. Even if a purely Slavonic ancestry had dowered the inhabitants
of Greece with a purely Slavonic appearance, yet, if their thoughts and
speech and acts were, as they are, Greek, I would still venture to call them
Greek in nationality. Ce n’est que la peau dont l’Ethiope ne change pas.
But the people of modern Greece do not actually present so extreme a case
of acquired nationality. They are partly Greek in race: and if it should
appear that they are wholly Greek in nationality, the explanation must
simply be that the character, no less than the language, of their Hellenic
ancestors was superior in vitality to that of the Slavs who intermarried with
them, and alone has been transmitted to the modern Greek people.
What, then, is the national character at the present day?
The first feature of it which casual conversation with any Greek will soon
bring into view is that narrow patriotism which was so remarkable a trait in
the Greeks of old time. If he be asked what is his native land (πατρίδα), his
answer will be, not Greece nor any of the larger divisions of it, but the
particular town or hamlet in which he happened to be born: and if in later
life he change his place of abode, though he live in his new home ten or
twenty years, he will regard himself and be regarded by the native-born
inhabitants as a foreigner (ξένος). Or again if a man obtain work for a short
time in another part of the country, or if a girl marry an inhabitant of a
village half a dozen miles from her own, the departure is mourned with
some of those plaintive songs of exile in which the popular muse delights.
Nor are there lacking historical cases in which this narrow love of country

has produced something more than fond lamentations; the boast of the
Maniotes that they have never acknowledged alien masters is in the main a
true boast, and it was pure patriotism which nerved them in their long
struggle with the Turks for the possession of their rugged, barren, storm-
lashed home. It was patriotism too, narrow and proud, that both sustained
the heroic outlaws of Souli in their defiance of Ottoman armies, and also,—
because they disdained alliance with their Greek neighbours,—contributed
to their final downfall.
But so tenacious and indomitable a courage is in modern, as it was in
ancient, Greece the exception rather than the rule. The men of Maina and of
Souli are comparable to the Spartans: but in no period of Greek history has
steadfast bravery been commonly displayed. Yet, in spite of the humiliating
experiences of the late Graeco-Turkish war, the Greek people should not be
judged devoid of courage. But theirs is a courage which comes of impulse
rather than of self-command; a courage which might prompt a charge as
brilliant as that of Marathon, but could not cheerfully face the hardships of
a campaign; a courage which might turn a slight success into a victory, but
could not save a retreat from becoming a rout.
It must be acknowledged also that the rank and file are in general more
admirable than their officers. The bravery of the men, impulsive and short-
lived though it be, is inspired by a real devotion of themselves to a cause;
whereas among the officers self-seeking and even self-saving are
conspicuous faults. Even the really courageous leaders seldom have a single
eye to the success of their arms. Their plans are marred by petty jealousies.
The same rivalries for the supreme command which embarrassed the
Greeks of old in defending their liberty against Persia, were repeated in the
struggles of the last century to throw off the Turkish yoke. And if in both
cases the Greeks were successful, in neither was victory due to the unity
and harmony of their leaders, but rather to that passionate hatred of the
barbarians which stirred the people as a whole.
Indeed, not only in war but in all conditions of life, any personal eminence
or distinction has been apt to turn the head of a Greek. ‘The abundant
enjoyment of power or wealth,’ said the ancients not without knowledge of
the national character, ‘begets lawlessness and arrogance’; and in humbler
phrase the modern proverb sums up the same qualities of the race,—καλὸς
δοῦλος, κακὸς ἀφέντης, ‘a good servant and a bad master.’ In all periods of

Greek history there have been few men who have attained to power without
abusing it. The honour of being returned to the Greek Parliament upsets the
mental balance of a large number of deputies. Without any more intimate
knowledge of politics than can be obtained from second-rate newspapers,
they believe themselves called and qualified to lead each his own party,
with the result—so it is commonly said—that no government since the first
institution of parliament has ever had an assured majority in the House, and
on an average there have been more than one dissolution a year. The
modern parliament is as unstable an institution as the ancient ecclesia of
Athens when there was no longer a Pericles to control it, and its
demagogues are as numerous.
Even the petty eminence of a village schoolmaster proves to be too giddy a
pinnacle for many. Such an one thinks it necessary to support his position—
which owing to the Greek love of education is more highly respected
perhaps than in other countries—by a pretence of universal knowledge and
a pedantry as lamentable as it is ludicrous. I remember a gentleman who
boasted the title of Professor of Ancient History in the gymnasium or
secondary school of a certain town, who called to me one day as I was
passing a café where he and some of his friends were sitting, and said that
they were having a pleasant little discussion about the first Triumvirate, and
had recalled the names of Cicero and Caesar, but could not at the moment
remember the third party. Could I help them? I hesitated a moment, and
then resolved to risk it and suggest, what was at least alliterative if not
accurate, the name of Cato. ‘Of course,’ he answered, ‘how these things do
slip one’s memory sometimes!’ Yet this Professor posed as an authority on
many subjects outside his own province of learning, and frequently when I
met him would insist on talking dog-Latin with an Italian pronunciation, a
medium in which I found it difficult to converse.
In this readiness to discourse on any and every subject and to display
attainments in and out of season, he and the class of which he is typical are
the living images of the less respectable of the ancient Sophists. And in
pedantry of language too they fairly rival their famous prototypes. The
movement in favour of an artificial revival of ancient Greek has already
been of long duration, and has had a detrimental effect upon the modern
language. The vulgar tongue has a melodious charm, while many classical
words, in the modern pronunciation, are extremely harsh and uncouth. The

object of the movement is to secure an uniform ‘pure’ speech, as they call it,
approximate to that of Plato or of Xenophon; and the method adopted is to
mix up Homeric and other words of antiquarian celebrity with literal
renderings of modern French idioms, inserting datives, infinitives, and other
obsolete forms at discretion. To aid in this movement is the task and the
delight of the schoolmasters: and such is their devotion to this linguistic
sophistry, that they are not dismayed even by the ambiguity arising from the
use of ancient forms indistinguishable in modern speech. The two old words
ἡμέτερος and ὑμέτερος have now no difference in sound: yet the
schoolmaster uses them and inculcates the use of them, with the lamentable
result that the children are not taught to distinguish meum and tuum even in
speech.
And here again the character of the modern Greek reflects that of his
ancestors. Honesty and truthfulness are not the national virtues. To lie, or
even to steal, is accounted morally venial and intellectually admirable. It is
a proof of superior mother-wit, than which no quality is more valued in the
business of everyday life. Almost the only things in Greece which have
fixed prices are tobacco, newspapers, and railway-tickets. The hire of a
mule, the cost of a bunch of grapes, the price of meat, the remuneration for
a vote at the elections,—such matters as these are the subject of long and
vivacious bargaining, and if the money does not change hands on the spot,
the bargain may be smilingly repudiated and an attempt made, on any
pretext which suggests itself, to extort more. Yet there is a certain charm in
all this; for, if a man get his own price, it is not so much the amount of his
profit which pleases him as his success in winning it; and if he fail, he takes
a smaller sum with perfect good humour and increased respect for the man
who has outwitted him. Anyone may be honest; but to be ἔξυπνος, as they
say, shrewd, wide-awake,—this is Greek and admirable. The contrast of an
Aristides with a Themistocles is the natural expression of Greek thought.
Moral uprightness and mental brilliance are not to be expected of one and
the same man; and for the most part the Greeks now as in old time praise
others for their justice and pride themselves on their cunning. The acme of
cleverness is touched by him who can both profit by dishonesty and
maintain a reputation for sincerity.
But, while truthfulness and fair dealing are certainly rare, there is one
relation in which the most scrupulous fidelity is unfailingly shown. The

obligations of hospitality are everywhere sacred. The security and the
comfort of the guest are not in name only but in actual fact the first
consideration of his host. However unscrupulous a Greek may be in his
ordinary dealings, he never, I believe, harbours for one moment the idea of
making profit out of the stranger who seeks the shelter of his roof. For
hospitality in Greece, it must be remembered, means not the entertainment
of friends and acquaintances who are welcome for their own sake or from
whom a return in kind may be expected, but real φιλοξενία, a generous and
friendly welcome to a stranger unknown yesterday and vanished again to-
morrow. To each unbidden chance-comer the door is always open. For
lodging he may chance to have an incense-reeking room where the family
icons hang, or a corner of a cottage-floor barricaded against the poultry and
other inmates; for food, hot viands rich in circumambient oil, or three-
month-old rye-bread softened in a cup of water; but among rich and poor
alike he is certain of the best which there is to give. Even where there are
inns available, the stranger will constantly find that the first native of the
place to whom he puts the Aristophanic enquiry ὅπου κόρεις ὀλίγιστοι[39]—
which inn is of least entomological interest—will constitute himself not
guide but host and will place the resources of his own house freely at the
service of the chance-found visitor.
The reception accorded by Eumaeus to Odysseus, in its revelation of human
—and also of canine—character, differs in no respect from that which may
await any traveller at the present day. As Odysseus approached the
swineherd’s hut, ‘suddenly the yelping dogs espied him, and with loud
barking rushed upon him, but Odysseus guilefully sat down and let fall his
staff from his hand[40].’ Such is the opening of the scene; and many, I
suppose, must have wondered, as they read it, wherein consisted Odysseus’
guilefulness. A shepherd of Northern Arcadia resolved me that riddle. I had
been attacked on a mountain-path by two or three of his dogs,—‘like unto
wild beasts[41],’ as Homer has it,—and the combat may have lasted some
few minutes when the shepherd thought fit to intervene. Sheep-dogs are of
course valued in proportion to their ferocity towards any person or animal
approaching the flock, and a taste of blood now and again is said to keep
them on their mettle. Fortunately matters had not reached that point; but
none the less I suggested to the man that he might have bestirred himself
sooner. ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘if you are really in difficulties, you should sit

down’; and when I showed some surprise, he explained that anyone who is
attacked by sheepdogs has only to sit down and let go his walking-stick or
gun or other offensive weapon, and the dogs, understanding that a truce has
been called, will sit down round him and maintain, so to speak, a peaceful
blockade[42]. On subsequent occasions I tested the shepherd’s counsel,
beginning prudently with one dog only and, as I gained assurance, raising
the number: it is uncomfortable[43] to remain sitting with a bloodthirsty
Molossian hound at one’s back, ready to resume hostilities if any suspicious
movement is made; but I must own that, in my own fairly wide experience,
Greek dogs, as they are sans peur in combat, are also sans reproche in
observing a truce. The traveller may fare worse than by following the
example of guileful Odysseus.
But if the scene of the encounter be not a mountain-path but the approach to
some cottage, the dogs’ master will, like Eumaeus, hasten to intervene,
‘chiding them and driving them this way and that with a shower of
stones[44],’—for the Greek dog does not heed mere words,—and again like
Eumaeus will assure his visitor that he himself would have been ‘covered
with shame[45]’ if the dogs had done his guest any hurt. Then he will
conduct his guest into his cottage and bid him take his fill of bread and wine
before he tells whence he is come and how he has fared[46]: for Greek
hospitality spares the guest the fatigue of talking until he is refreshed. The
visitor therefore sits at his ease, silent and patient, while his host catches
and kills such beast or fowl as he may possess, cuts up the flesh in small
pieces, threads these on a spit, and holds them over the embers of his fire
till they are ready to serve up[47]: similarly, in Homeric fashion, he mixes
wine and water[48]; and then, all the preparations being now complete, he
urges his guest to the meal[49].
Thus the hospitality of to-day, in its details no less than in its spirit, recalls
the hospitality of the Homeric age. The supreme virtue of the ancient Greek
remains the supreme virtue of the modern, and a familiarity with the
manners of the present day alone might suffice to explain why Paris who
stole another man’s wife was execrable but Admetus who let his own wife
die for him could yet win admiration. The one broke the laws of hospitality;
the other, by hiding his loss and entertaining his guest, upheld them.

A comparative estimate, such as I have essayed, of the characters of Greeks
of old and Greeks of to-day is perhaps evidence of a somewhat intangible
nature to those who are not personally intimate with the people: but no
foreigner, even though he were totally ignorant of the modern language,
could chance upon one of the many festivals of the country without
remarking that there, in humbler form, are re-enacted many of the scenes of
ancient days. The πανηγύρια, as they call these festivals,—diminutives,
both in name and in form, of the ancient πανηγύρεις,—present the same
medley of religion, art, trading, athletics, and amusement which constituted
the Olympian games. The occasion is most commonly some saint’s-day, and
a church or a sacred spring (ἅγι̯ασμα) the centre of the gathering. Art is
represented by the contests of local poets or wits in improvising topical and
other verses, and occasionally there is present one of the old-fashioned
rhapsodes, whose number is fast diminishing, to recite to the
accompaniment of a stringed instrument still called the κιθάρα[50] the
glorious feats of some patriot-outlaw (κλέφτης) in defiance of the Turks.
Then there are the pedlars and hucksters strolling to and fro or seated at
their stalls, and ever crying their wares—fruit, sausages, confectionery of
strange hues and stranger taste, beads, knives, cheap icons ranging in
subject from likenesses of patron-saints to gaudy views of hell, and all
manner of tin-foil trinkets representing ships, cattle, and parts of the human
body for dedication in the church. Then in some open space there will be a
gathering of young men, running, wrestling, hurling the stone; yonder
others, and with them the girls, indulge in the favourite recreation of
Greece, those graceful dances, of which the best-known, the συρτός[51], and
probably others too, are a legacy from dancers of old time. It is impossible
to be a spectator of such scenes without recognising that here, in embryonic
form, are the festivals of which the famous gatherings of Olympia and
Nemea, Delphi and the Isthmus, were the full development.
And it may well happen too that the observant onlooker will descry also the
rudiments of ancient drama. Often, as is natural in so mountainous and
rugged a country, the only level dancing-place which a village possesses is
a stone-paved threshing-floor hewn out of the hill-side. Hither on any festal
occasion, be it a saint’s-day or one of the celebrations which naturally
follow the ingathering of harvest or vintage, the dancers betake themselves.
Here too a small booth or tent, still called σκηνή, is often rigged up, to

which they can retire for rest or refreshment, while on the slopes above are
ranged the spectators. The circular threshing-floor is the orchestra, the hill-
side provides its tiers of seats, the dancers, who always sing while they
dance, are the chorus; add only the village musician twanging a sorry lyre,
and in the intervals of dancing an old-fashioned rhapsode reciting some
story of bygone days, or, it may be, two village wits contending in
improvised pleasantries, and the rudiments of ancient Tragedy or Comedy
are complete.
Other illustrations might easily be amassed. On March 1st the boys of
Greece still parade the village-streets with a painted wooden swallow set on
a flower-decked pole, and sing substantially the same ‘swallow-song’
(χελιδόνισμα)[52] as was sung in old time in Rhodes[53]. On May 1st the
girls make wreaths of flowers and corn which, like the ancient εἰρεσιώνη,
must be left hanging over the door of the house till next year’s wreaths take
their place. The fisherman still ties his oar to a single thole with a piece of
rope or a thong of leather, as did the mariners of Homer’s age[54]. The
farmer still drives his furrows with an Hesiodic plough.
Such are a few of the survivals which bear witness to the genuinely
Hellenic nationality of the inhabitants of modern Greece: and last, but not
least, there is the language, which, albeit no index of race, is most cogent
evidence of tradition. To the action of thought upon language there
corresponds a certain reaction of language upon thought: it is impossible to
speak a tongue which contains, let us say, the word νεράϊδα (modern Greek
for a ‘nymph’) without possessing also an idea of the being whom that word
denotes. Therefore even if the whole population of Greece were
demonstrably of Slavonic race, the fact that it now speaks Greek would go
far to support its claim to Hellenic nationality: for its adoption of the Greek
language would imply its assimilation of Greek thought.
But, quite apart from the evidence of custom and language, the occasional
perpetuation of the ancient Greek physical type and the general survival of
the ancient Greek character plainly forbid so extreme a supposition as that
of Fallmerayer: no traveller familiar with the modern Greek peasantry could
entertain for a moment the idea that at any period the whole of Greece
became Slavonicized, but, whatever might be the historical arguments for
such a theory, would reject it, on the evidence of his own eyes, as
ludicrously exaggerated. Fusion of race, no doubt, there has been; but in

that fusion the Hellenic element must have been the most vital and
persistent; for if the present population of Greece is of mixed descent, in its
traditions at least it is almost purely Hellenic.

§ 4. The Survival of Pagan Tradition.

It appears then that notwithstanding the immigration of Slavonic hordes,
and notwithstanding also, it may be added, the influences exercised in later
periods by ‘Franks,’ Genoese, Venetians, and Turks, the traditions of the
inhabitants of Greece still remain singularly pure; and their claim to
Hellenic nationality is justified by their language, by their character, and by
many secular aspects of their civilisation. But in the domain of religion it
might reasonably be expected that a large change would have taken place.
There is the obstinate fact, it may be thought, that the Greeks are now and
have long been Christian. Did not the new religion dispossess and oust the
ancient polytheism? Are we to look for pagan customs in the hallowed
usages of the Greek Church? What can the simple Christian peasant of to-
day, subject from his youth up to ecclesiastical influence, know of the
religion of his distant ancestors,—of those fundamental beliefs which
guided their conduct towards gods and men in this life, and inspired their
care for the dead?
On the conduct of man towards his fellow-men in this life the influence of
Christianity appears to have been as great as that of paganism was small.
Duty towards one’s neighbour hardly came within the purview of Hellenic
religion. If we look at the supreme acts of worship in ancient times, we
cannot fail to be struck by the disunion of the religious and the ethical. A
certain purity was no doubt required of those who attended the mysteries of
Eleusis; but by that purity was meant physical cleanliness and, strangely
enough, a pure use of the Greek language, just as much as any moral
temperance or rectitude; and the required condition was largely attained by
the use or avoidance of certain foods and by bathing in the sea. Their
cleanliness in fact was of the same confused kind, half physical and half
moral, as that which the inhabitants of Tenos were formerly wont, and
perhaps still continue, to seek on S. John the Baptist’s day (June 24) by
leaping thrice through a bonfire and crying ‘Here I leave my sins and my
fleas[55]’: and it was acquired by means equally material. There is nothing
conspicuously ethical in such a purity as this.

If moreover, as has been well argued[56], a state of ecstasy was the highest
manifestation of religious feeling, and this spiritual exaltation was the
deliberate aim and end of Bacchic and other orgies, it must be frankly
avowed that religion in its highest manifestations was not conducive to
what we call morality. The means of inducing the ecstatic condition
comprised drunkenness, inhalation of vapours, wild and licentious dancing.
With physical surexcitation came, or was intended to come, a spiritual
elevation such that the mind could visualise the object of its desire[57] and
worship, and enjoy a sense of unity therewith. On the savagery and
debauchery which accompanied these religious celebrations there is no need
to enlarge. The Bacchae of Euripides, with all its passion for the beauty of
holiness, is a standing monument to the excesses of frenzy: and that these
were no mere figment of the poet’s imagination nor a transfiguration of rites
long obsolete, is proved by a single sentence of a sober enough writer of
later times, ‘The things that take place at nocturnal celebrations, however
licentious they may be, although known to the company at large, are to
some extent condoned by them owing to the drunkenness[58].’
There were of course certain sects, such as the Orphic, who, in strong
contrast with the ordinary religion, upheld definite ethical standards,
preaching the necessity of purification from sin, and advocating moral and
even ascetic rules of life. Yet, in spite of this, we find a certain
amalgamation of Orphic and Bacchic mysteries. And why? Simply because
both sects alike had a single end in view, a spiritual exaltation in which the
soul might transcend the things of ordinary life, and see and commune with
its gods. What did it matter if the means to that end differed? The one sect
might reduce the passions of the body by rigid abstinence; the other might
deaden them with a surfeit of their desire; but, whether by prostration or by
surexcitation, the same religious end was sought and gained, and that end
justified means which we count immoral.
In effect the morality of a man’s life counted for nothing as compared with
his religion. Participation in the mysteries ensured blessings here and
hereafter which an evil life would not forfeit nor a good life, without
initiation, earn. ‘Thrice blessed they of men, who look upon these rites ere
they go to Hades’ home: for them alone is there true life there, and for the
others nought but evil[59].’ It was this that made Diogenes scoffingly ask,
‘What, shall the thief Pataecion have a better lot than Epaminondas after

death, because he has been initiated[60]?’ Seemingly religion and morality
were to the Greek mind divorced, or rather had never been wedded.
Religion was concerned only with the intercourse of man and god: the
moral character of the man himself and his relations with his fellows were
outside the religious sphere.
Indeed it would have been hard for the ancients to regard morality as a
religious obligation, when immorality was freely imputed to their gods.
This was a real obstacle to the ethical improvement of the people at large,
and was recognised as such by many thinkers. Pindar strove to expurgate
mythological stories which brought discredit on the morals of Olympus.
Plato would have banished the evil records of Homeric theology from his
ideal state, and ridicules Musaeus for forming no more lofty conception of
future bliss than ‘eternal drunkenness.’ Epicurus defended his own attitude
towards the gods on the plea that there was ‘no impiety in doing away with
the popular gods, but rather in attaching to the gods the popular ideas of
them[61].’ In effect, in order to reconcile religion with the teaching of ethics,
the would-be preacher of morality had either openly to discard a large
amount of the popular theology or else to have recourse to adaptation and
mystical interpretation of so artificial and arbitrary a kind that it could gain
no hold upon the simple and spontaneous beliefs of the common-folk. Yet
even among the ordinary men of those days there must have been some
who, though they did not aspire to instruct their fellow-men, yet in hours of
sober reason and cool judgement cannot have viewed unabashed the
inconsistencies of a religion whose gods were stained with human vices.
But such thoughts, we may suppose, were swept away, as men approached
their sanctuaries and their mysteries, by a flood of religious fervour. Passion
in such moments defeated reason. Emotion, susceptibility, imagination,
impetuosity, powers of visualisation regarded among western nations as the
perquisite of the inebriate, powers of ecstasy not easily distinguished from
hysteria,—such were the mental conditions essential to the highest acts of
worship; by these, and not by sober meditation, the soul attained to the
closest communing and fullest union with that god whose glory for the
nonce outshone all pale remembrance of mere moral rectitude and alone
was able to evoke every supreme emotion of his worshipper.
If then morality was ever to be imposed and sanctioned by religion, a
wholly new religion had to be found. This was the opportunity of

Christianity. Paganism, in some of its most sacred rites, had availed itself
even of immoral means to secure a religious end: Christianity gave to ethics
a new and higher status, and was rather in danger of making religion wholly
subservient to morality. That it was difficult to bring the first converts to the
new point of view, is evident from the rebukes administered by S. Paul to
the Corinthians, who seem not only to have indulged in many gross forms
of vice in everyday life, but even to have made the most sacred of Christian
services an occasion for gluttony and drunkenness[62].
In all then that concerns the ethical standards of the people, our study of
modern Greece will contribute little to the understanding of ancient thought
or conduct. Christianity has fenced men about with a rigid moral code, and
has exerted itself to punish those who break bounds. Duty towards man is
now recognised as the complement of duty towards God; and any one who
by a notoriously evil life has outraged the moral laws of conduct, is liable to
be deprived by excommunication of the established means of worship. The
frailties of the Greek character remain indeed such as they always were: but
now religion at least enjoins, if it cannot always enforce, the observance of
a moral code which includes the eighth commandment, and Pataecion,
though he go regularly to church, yet lacks something.
But while the Church had an open field in matters of morality and had no
system of ethics based on Hellenic religion to combat in introducing her
higher views of man’s duty towards his fellow-men, in the province of pure
religion and of all that concerns the relations of man with his God or gods
she necessarily encountered competition and opposition. Primarily the
contest between paganism and Christianity might have been expected to
resolve itself into a struggle between polytheism and monotheism: but as a
matter of fact that simple issue became considerably complicated.
The minds of the educated classes had become confused by the subtleties of
the Gnostics, who sought to find, in some philosophical basis common to
all religions, an intellectual justification for accepting Christianity without
wholly discarding earlier religious convictions. This however was a matter
of theology rather than of religion, appealing not to the heart but to the
head: and so far as the common-folk were concerned we may safely say that
such speculations were above their heads.

Yet for them too the issue was confused in two ways. The first disturbing
factor was the attitude adopted by each of the two parties, pagan and
Christian, towards the object of the other’s worship. The pagans—so
catholic are the sympathies of polytheism—were ready enough to welcome
Christ into the number of their gods. Tertullian tells us that the emperor
Tiberius proposed the apotheosis of Christ[63]. Hadrian is said to have built
temples in his honour[64]. Alexander Severus had in his private chapel
statues of Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus[65]; and a similar association of
Homer, Pythagoras, Christ, and S. Paul is noted by S. Augustine[66]. Since
then there is no reason for supposing that the common-folk were more
exclusive in their religious sympathies than the upper classes, it may safely
be inferred that the average Pagan was willing to admit Christ to a place
among the gods of Greece. The Christians on the other hand did not attack
paganism by an utter denial of the existence of the old gods. They sought
rather to ridicule and discredit them by pointing out the inconsistencies of
pagan theology, and by ransacking mythology for every tale of the vices
and misdoings of its deities. They even appealed to the testimony of Homer
himself to show that the so-called gods (θεοί) of the Greek folk were mere
demons (δαίμονες)[67],—for since Homer’s day the latter word had lost
caste. Such methods, had they been wholly successful, might have produced
similar results to those which followed the conflict of two religions in the
early ages of Greece. As the Titanic dynasty of gods had fallen before the
Olympian Zeus, and in their defeat had come to be accounted cruel and
malicious powers rightly ousted from heaven by a more just and gracious
deity, so too in turn might the whole number of the pagan gods have been
reduced to the status of devils to act as a foil to the goodness of the
Christian God. But this did not happen. One reason perhaps was that
Christianity came provided with its own devil or devils, and the pagans
were naturally averse from placing the gods whom they had been wont to
venerate in the same category with spirits so uncompromisingly evil. The
main reason however must be found in the fact that the Church had nothing
to offer to the pagans in exchange for the countless gods of the old religion
whom she was endeavouring to displace and to degrade. Indeed the real
difficulty of the Christian Church was the tolerant spirit of the Greek
people. They would not acknowledge that any feud existed. They were
ready to worship the Christian God: but they must have felt that it was

unreasonable of the Christian missionaries to ask them to give up all their
old gods merely because a new god had been introduced. Even if their gods
were all that the Christians represented them to be—cruel, licentious, unjust
—that was no reason for neglecting them; rather it furnished a stronger
motive for propitiating them and averting their wrath by prayer and
sacrifice. Tolerant themselves, they must have resented a little the
intolerance of the new religion.
Such being the attitude of the two parties, it may be doubted whether the
Church would have made much headway in Greece, had it not been for a
fresh development in her own conditions. And this development was the
second disturbing factor in what should have been the simple struggle
between monotheism and polytheism. Christianity, as understood by the
masses, became polytheistic on its own account.
It is true that the authorities of the Greek Church have always taught that
the angels and saints are not to be worshipped in the same sense as God.
Ecclesiastical doctrine concedes to them no power to grant the petitions of
men at their own will: they can act as intermediaries only between man and
the Almighty; yet while they cannot in their own might fulfil the requests
which they hear, their intervention as messengers to the throne of God is
deemed to enhance the value of man’s prayers and wellnigh to ensure their
acceptance. But such a doctrine is naturally too subtle for the uninstructed
common-folk: and just as Christ had been admitted to the ranks of the
Greek gods, so were the saints, it would seem, accepted as lesser deities or
perhaps heroes. Whatever their precise status may have been, they at any
rate became objects of worship; and a religion which admits many objects
of worship becomes necessarily a form of polytheism.
Now while the Church did not sanction this state of things by her doctrine,
there can be no doubt that she condoned it by the use to which she put it.
The attempt to crush paganism had so far failed, and there was no longer
any thought of a combat à outrance between the two religions. Violence
was to give way to diplomacy; and the chief instrument of the Church’s
diplomacy was the worship of the saints. It became her hope to supplant
paganism by substituting for the old gods Christian saints of similar names
and functions; and the effects of this policy are everywhere in evidence in
modern Greece.

Thus Dionysus was displaced by S. Dionysius, as a story still current in
Greece testifies. ‘Once upon a time S. Dionysius was on his way to Naxos:
and as he went he espied a small plant which excited his wonder. He dug it
up, and because the sun was hot sought wherewith to shelter it. As he
looked about, he saw the bone of a bird’s leg, and in this he put the plant to
keep it safe. To his surprise the plant began to grow, and he sought again a
larger covering for it. This time he found the leg-bone of a lion, and as he
could not detach the plant from the bird’s leg, he put both together in that of
the lion. Yet again it grew and this time he found the leg-bone of an ass and
put plant and all into that. And so he came to Naxos. And when he came to
plant the vine—for the plant was in fact the first vine—he could not sever it
from the bones that sheltered it, but planted them all together. Then the vine
grew and bore grapes and men made wine and drank thereof. And first
when they drank they sang like birds, and when they drank more they grew
strong as lions, and afterwards foolish as asses[68].’
The disguise of the ancient god is thin indeed. His name is changed by an
iota, but his character not a jot. S. Dionysius is god of the vine, and even
retains his predecessor’s connexion with Naxos. It is perhaps noteworthy
too that in Athens the road which skirts the south side of the Acropolis and
the theatre of Dionysus is now called the street of S. Dionysius the
Areopagite. I was once corrected by a Greek of average education for
speaking of the theatre of Dionysus instead of ascribing it to his saintly
namesake.
Demeter again, although as we shall see later she still survives as a distinct
personality, has been for the most part dispossessed by S. Demetrius. His
festival, which falls in October and is therefore remote from harvest-time, is
none the less celebrated with special enthusiasm among the agricultural
classes; marriages too are especially frequent on that day[69].
Similarly Artemis, though she too is still known to the common-folk in
some districts, has in the main handed over her functions to a saint of the
other sex, Artemidos. Theodore Bent has recorded a good instance of this
from the island of Keos (modern Zea). There is a belief throughout Greece
that weakly children who show signs of wasting have been ‘struck by the
Nereids,’—by nymphs, that is, of any kind, whether terrestrial or marine.
‘In Keos,’ says Bent, ‘S. Artemidos is the patron of these weaklings, and the
church dedicated to him is some little way from the town on the hill-slopes;

thither a mother will take a child afflicted by any mysterious wasting,
“struck by the Nereids,” as they say. She then strips off its clothes and puts
on new ones, blessed by the priest, leaving the old ones as a perquisite to
the Church; and then if perchance the child grows strong, she will thank S.
Artemidos for the blessing he has vouchsafed, unconscious that by so doing
she is perpetuating the archaic worship of Artemis, to whom in classical
times were attached the epithets παιδοτρόφος, κουροτρόφος, φιλομείραξ;
and now the Ionian idea of the fructifying and nourishing properties of the
Ephesian Artemis has been transferred to her Christian namesake[70].’ It
might have been added that in this custom are reflected not only those
general attributes of the tendance of children which Artemis shared with
many other deities, but possibly also her power to undo any mischief
wrought by her handmaidens, the nymphs[71].
Again there is every reason to suppose that S. Elias[72] whose chapels
crown countless hilltops is merely the Christian successor to Helios, the
Sun. The two names, which have only a moderate resemblance in the
nominative, coincide for modern pronunciation in the genitive; and the
frequency with which that case was needed in speaking of the church or the
mountain-peak dedicated to one or the other may have facilitated the
transition. Besides inheriting the mountain sanctuaries at which the worship
of the Sun may have persisted from a very early age, S. Elias has also taken
over the chariot of his predecessor, and thunder is sometimes attributed to
the rolling of its wheels.
In other cases, without any resemblance of names, identity of attributes or
functions suggested the substitution of saint for pagan deity. Hermes who in
old times was the chief ‘angel’ or messenger of the immortals (ἄγγελος
ἀθανάτων) was naturally succeeded by the archangel Michael, upon whom
therefore devolves the duty of escorting men’s souls to Hades; and to this
day the men of Maina tell how the archangel, with drawn sword in his hand
instead of the wand of his prototype, may be seen passing to and fro at the
mouth of the caves of Taenarus through which Heracles made his ascent
with Cerberus from the lower world, and which is still the best-known
descent thereto. The supplanting of Hermes by Michael is well illustrated in
the sphere of art also by a curious gem. The design is an ordinary type of
Hermes with his traditional cap, and at his side a cock, the symbol of
vigilance and of gymnastic sport; by a later hand has been engraved the

name ‘Michael’; the cock remained to be interpreted doubtless as the
Christian symbol of the awakening at the last day of them that sleep[73].
The conversion of pagan temples or of their sites to the purposes of
Christianity tells the same tale. The virgin goddess of Athens ceded the
Parthenon to the Blessed Virgin of the Christians. The so-called Theseum,
whether Theseus or Heracles was its original occupant, was fitly made over
to the warrior S. George: but none the less what seems to have been an old
pagan festival, known as the ρουσάλια (Latin rosalia)[74], continues to this
day to be celebrated with dancing and feasting in its precincts. The Church
of the Annunciation at Tenos, so famous throughout the Greek world for its
miracles of healing, stands on the foundations of Poseidon’s ancient
sanctuary, and includes in its precincts a holy spring (ἅγι̯ασμα) whose
healing virtues, we can hardly doubt, were first discovered by the pagans:
for Poseidon was worshipped in Tenos under the title of the ‘healer’
(ἰατρός)[75]. Indeed throughout the length and breadth of the land the
traveller will find churches built with the material of the old temples or
superimposed upon their foundation, and cannot fail to detect therein
evidence of a deliberate policy on the part of the Church.
But in her attempts to be conciliatory she became in fact compromised. It
was politic no doubt to encourage the weaker brethren by building churches
on sites where they had long been wont to worship: it was politic to smooth
the path of the common-folk by substituting for the god whom they had
worshipped a patron-saint of like name or attributes. But in so doing the
Church practically condoned polytheism. She drove out the old gods from
their temples made with hands, but did not ensure the obliteration of them
from men’s hearts. The saints whom she set up in the place of the old deities
were certain to acquire the rank of gods in the estimation of the people and,
despite the niceties of ecclesiastical doctrine, to become in fact objects of
frank and open worship. The adoption of the old places of worship made it
inevitable that the old associations of the pagan cults should survive and
blend themselves with the new ideas, and that the churches should more
often acquire prestige from their heathen sites than themselves shed a new
lustre of sanctity upon them. In effect, paganism was not uprooted to make
room for the planting of Christianity, but served rather as an old stock on
which a new and vigorous branch, capable indeed of fairer fruit but owing
its very vitality to alien sap, might be engrafted.

Bitterly and despondently did the early Fathers of the Church, and above all
S. John Chrysostom, complain of the inveteracy of pagan customs within
the pale of the Church, while a kind of official recognition was given to
many superstitions which were clearly outside that pale, if only by the many
forms of exorcism directed against the evil eye or prescribed for the cure of
those possessed by pagan powers of evil[76]. For illustration we need not
fall back upon the past history of the Greek Church; even to-day she has not
succeeded in living down the consequences of her whilom policy of
conciliation. The common-folk indeed profess and call themselves
Christian; their priesthood is a Christian priesthood; their places of worship
are Christian churches; they make the sign of the cross at every turn; and
the names of God and Christ and the Virgin are their commonest
ejaculations. But with all this external Christianity they are as pagan and as
polytheistic in their hearts as were ever their ancestors. By their acceptance
of Christianity they have increased rather than diminished their number of
gods: in their conception of them and attitude towards them they have made
little advance since the Homeric Age: and practically all the religious
customs most characteristic of ancient paganism, such as sacrifice, the
taking of auspices, and the consultation of oracles, continue with or without
the sanction of the Church down to the present day.
These are strong statements to make concerning even the humblest and
most ignorant members of the Holy Orthodox Church: but I shall show, I
think, that they do not exceed the warranty of facts.
First of all then the peasant believes himself to be ever compassed about by
a host of supernatural beings, who have no relation with his Christian faith,
and some of whom he unconsciously acknowledges, by the very names that
he applies to them, as ‘pagan’ beings and ‘outside’ the Christian fold[77]. To
all of these—and they are a motley crew, gods and demons, fairies and
dragons—he assigns severally and distinctly their looks, their dispositions,
their habitations, and their works. To some of them he prays and makes
offerings; against others he arms and fortifies himself in the season of their
maleficence; but all of them, whether for good or ill, are to him real existent
beings; no phantoms conjured up by trepidation of mind, but persons whose
substance is proved by sight and hearing and touch.
Nothing is more amazing in the peasantry of modern Greece than their
familiarity with these various beings. More than once I have overheard two

peasants comparing notes on the ghostly fauna of their respective districts;
and the intimate and detailed character of their knowledge was a revelation
in regard to their powers of visualisation. It is the mountaineers and the
mariners who excel in this; but even the duller folk of the lowlands see
much that is hidden from foreign eyes. Once however I did see a nymph—
or what my guide took for one—moving about in an olive-grove near
Sparta; and I must confess that had I possessed an initial faith in the
existence of nymphs and in the danger of looking upon them, so lifelike
was the apparition that I might have sworn as firmly as did my guide that it
was a nymph that we had seen, and might have required as strong a dose as
he at the next inn to restore my nerves. The initial faith in such things,
which the child acquires from its mother, is no doubt an important factor in
the visualisation; but it is certainly strange that often in Greece not one man
only but several together will see an apparition at the same moment, and
even agree afterwards as to what they saw.
These beings then are not the mere fanciful figures of old wives’ fables, but
have a real hold upon the peasant’s belief and a firm place in his religion.
To the objects of Christian worship or veneration—God and Christ and the
Virgin together with the archangels and all the host of saints—have been
accorded the highest places and chiefest honours: but beside them, or rather
below them, yet feared and honoured too, stand many of the divine
personalities of the old faith, recognised and distinguished still. Artemis,
Demeter, and Charon, as well as Nymphs and Gorgons, Lamiae and
Centaurs, have to be reckoned with in the conduct of life; while in folk-
stories the memory at least of other deities still survives. To these remnants
of ancient mythology the next chapter will be devoted; the purely pagan
element in the modern polytheism may be sufficiently illustrated here by a
few curious cases of the use even of the word ‘god’ (θεός) in reference to
other than the God of Christendom.
In Athens, down to recent times, there was a fine old formula of blessing in
vogue—and who shall say but that among the simpler people it may still be
heard?—which combined impartially the one God and the many:—νὰ ς’
ἀξιῶσῃ ὁ Θεὸς νὰ εὐχαριστήσῃς θεοὺς καὶ ἀνθρώπους[78], ‘God fit thee to
find favour with gods and men!’ In the island of Syra, according to Bent[79],
it was ‘a common belief amongst the peasants that the ghosts of the ancient
Greeks come once a year from all parts of Greece to worship at Delos, ...

and even to-day they will reverently speak of the “god in Delos.”’ Another
writer mentions a similar expression as used in several parts of the
mainland, though only it would seem as an ejaculation, θεὲ τῆς Κρήτης or
γιὰ τὸ θεὸ τῆς Κρήτης ‘by the god of Crete[80]!’ In the island of Santorini
(the ancient Thera) I personally encountered a still more striking case of
out-spoken polytheism. I chanced one day upon a very old woman squatting
on the extreme edge of the cliff above the great flooded crater which,
though too deep for anchorage, serves the main town of the island as
harbour—a place more fascinating in its hideousness than any I have seen.
Wondering at her dangerous position, I asked her what she was doing; and
she replied simply enough that she was making rain. It was two years since
any had fallen, and as she had the reputation of being a witch of unusual
powers and had procured rain in previous droughts, she had been
approached by several of the islanders who were anxious for their
vineyards. Moreover she had been prepaid for her work—a fact which
spoke most eloquently for the general belief in her; for the Greek is slow
enough (as doubtless she knew) to pay for what he has got, and never
prepays what he is not sure of getting. True, her profession had its risks, she
said; for on one occasion, the only time that her spells had failed, some of
her disappointed clients whose money she had not returned tried to burn her
house over her one night while she slept. But business was business. Did I
want some rain too? To ensure her good will and further conversation, I
invested a trifle, and tried to catch the mumbled incantations which
followed on my behalf. Of these however beyond a frequent invocation of
the Virgin (Παναγία μου) and a few words about water and rain I could
catch nothing; but I must acknowledge that her charms were effectual, for
before we parted the thunder was already rolling in the distance, and the
rain which I had bought spoilt largely the rest of my stay in the island. The
incantations being finished, she became more confidential. She would not
of course let a stranger know the exact formula which she employed; that
would mar its efficacy: she vouchsafed to me however with all humility the
information that it was not by her own virtue that she caused the rain, but
through knowing ‘the god above and the god below’ (τὸν ἄνω θεὸ καὶ τὸν
κάτω θεό). The latter indeed had long since given up watering the land; he
had caused shakings of the earth and turned even the sea-water red. The god
above also had once rained ashes when she asked for water, but generally
he gave her rain, sometimes even in summer-time. One thing she could not

make out—who was the god that caused the thunder; did I know? I evaded
the question, and our theological discussion went no further, for the god of
thunder was making his voice heard more threateningly, and the old witch
would not stay to make his acquaintance at closer quarters.
The physical interpretation of these references to the god above and the god
below is not difficult. At the present day there are said to be three springs,
and three only, in the whole island; nor are they of much use to the
inhabitants; indeed the only one which I saw was dry save for a scanty
moisture barely sufficient to keep the rock about it green and mossy: and in
fact the population depends entirely upon rain-water stored up in large
underground cisterns or reservoirs. Clearly the god below no longer gives
water; but that there may have been more spring-water prior to the great
eruptions of 1866 is very probable; for the people still call certain dry old
torrent-beds by which the island is intersected ‘rivers’ (ποταμοί), and real
rivers with water in them figure also in several of the local folk-stories. The
perversity of the god above in sending ashes on one occasion instead of rain
may also be understood in reference to the same eruptions, of which the old
woman gave me a vivid description.
But the theology itself is more interesting than its material basis. This witch
—a good Christian, they told me, but a little mad, with a madness however
of which sane vine-growers were eager enough to avail themselves—
acknowledged certainly three gods: the unknown thunder-god was clearly
distinct from the god of the rain who was known to her: and there was also
the god of the waters under the earth, in whose service she had perhaps
followed the calling of a water-finder, and to whom she ascribed, as did the
ancients to Poseidon, the shaking of the earth.
Polytheism then even in its purely pagan form is not yet extinct in Greece.
In the disguise of Christianity, we shall see, it is everywhere triumphant.
Among the Christian objects of worship—for I have already explained that
by the common-folk the saints are worshipped as deities—the Trinity and
the Virgin occupy the highest places, rivalled perhaps here and there by
some local saint of great repute for miracles, but nowhere surpassed. It is
the Virgin indeed who, in Pashley’s opinion, ‘is throughout Greece the chief
object of the Christian peasant’s worship[81]’; and certainly, I think, more
numerous and more various petitions are addressed to her than to any

person of the Trinity or to any saint. But the Trinity, or at any rate God (ὁ
Θεός) and Christ (ὁ Χριστός), as the peasants say,—for the Holy Ghost is
hardly a personality to them and is rarely named except in doxologies and
formal invocations—are of almost equal importance, and are so closely
allied with the Virgin that it is difficult to draw distinctions.
But while the Church has thus secured the first place for her most venerated
figures, the influence of pagan feeling is clearly seen in the popular
conception of this ‘God.’ His position is just such as that of Zeus in the old
régime. He is little more than the unnamed ruler among many other
divinities. His sway is indeed supreme and he exercises a general control;
but his functions are in a certain sense limited none the less, and his special
province is the weather only. Ζεὺς ὕει, said the ancients, and the moderns
re-echo their thought in words of the same import, βρέχει ὁ Θεός, ‘God is
raining,’ or ὁ Θεὸς ῥίχνει νερό, ‘God is throwing water[82].’ So too the
coming and going of the daylight is described as an act of God; ἔφεξε, or
ἐβράδει̯ασε, ὁ Θεός, say the peasants, ‘God has dawned’ or ‘has darkened.’
When it hails, it is God who ‘is plying his sieve,’ ῥεμμονίζει[83] ὁ Θεός.
When it thunders, ‘God is shoeing his horse,’ καλιγώνει τ’ ἄλογό του, or,
according to another version[84], ‘the hoofs of God’s horse are ringing,’
βροντοῦν τὰ πέταλα ἀπὸ τ’ ἄλογο τοῦ Θεοῦ. Or again the roll of the thunder
sometimes suggests quite another idea; ‘God is rolling his wine-casks,’ ὁ
Θεὸς κυλάει τ’ ἀσκιά του[85], or τὰ πιθάρι̯α του. And once again, because a
Greek wedding cannot be celebrated without a large expenditure of
gunpowder, the booming of the thunder suggests to some that ‘God is
marrying his son’ or ‘God is marrying his daughters,’ ὁ Θεὸς παντρεύει τὸν
ὑγιό του[86], or ταὶς θυγατέραις του[87].
Such expressions as these[88] are in daily use among the Greek peasantry:
and nothing could reveal more frankly the purely pagan and
anthropomorphic conception of God which everywhere prevails. The God
of Christendom is indistinguishable from the Zeus of Homer. A line from a
Cretan distich, in which God is described as ἐκεῖνος ἀποῦ συννεφιᾷ κι’
ἀποβροντᾷ καὶ βρέχει[89], ‘He that gathereth the clouds and thundereth and
raineth,’ exhibits a popular conception of the chief deity unchanged since
Zeus first received the epithets νεφεληγερέτης and ὑψιβρεμέτης, ‘cloud-
gatherer,’ ‘thunderer on high.’

But even in the province of the weather God has not undivided control. The
winds are often regarded as persons acting at their own will; and of the
north wind in particular men speak with respect as Sir Boreas (ὁ κὺρ
Βορε̯άς), for as in Pindar’s time he is still ‘king of the winds[90].’ So too the
whirlwind is the passing of the Nereids, and the water-spout marks the path
of the Lamia of the sea. Even the thunder is not always the work of God,
but some say that the prophet Elias is ‘driving his chariot,’ or ‘pursuing the
dragon.’ The more striking and irregular phenomena in short are governed
by the caprice of lesser deities—Christian saints or pagan powers—while
God directs the more orderly march of nature.
When however we turn from the external world to the life of man, we find
the functions of the supreme God even more closely circumscribed or—to
put it in another way—more generally delegated to others. The daily course
of human life with all its pursuits and passions is under the joint control of
the saints and some of the old Hellenic deities. Of the latter, as I have said,
another chapter must treat: but it should be remembered that the peasant
does not draw a hard and fast line of distinction between the two classes
with whom for clearness’ sake I am bound to deal separately. Thus Charon
in many of the folk-songs which celebrate his doings is made to represent
himself as a messenger of God, charged with the duty of carrying off some
man’s soul and unable to grant a respite[91]. He is occasionally addressed
even as Saint Charon[92]; and his name constantly occurs in the epitaphs of
country churchyards. A story too in Bernhard Schmidt’s collection[93]
illustrates well the way in which pagan and Christian elements are thus
interwoven:—
‘There was once an old man who had been good his whole life through. In
his old age therefore he had the fortune to see his good angel (ὁ καλὸς
ἄγγελός του); who said to him—for he loved him well—“I will tell thee
how thou mayest be fortunate. In such and such a hill is a cave; go thou in
there and ever onward till thou comest to a great castle. Knock at the gate,
and when it is opened to thee thou wilt see a tall woman before thee, who
will straightway welcome thee and ask thee of thine age and business and
estate. Answer only that thou art sent by me: then will she know the rest.”
Even so did the old man: and the woman within the earth gave unto him a
tablecloth and bade him but spread it out and say “In the name of the Father

and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” and lo! everything that he wished
would be found thereon. And thus it came to pass.
‘Now when the old man had oft made use of it, it came into his heart to bid
the king unto his house: who, when he saw the wonder-working cloth, took
it from the old man. But because he was no virtuous man, the cloth did not
its task in his hands; wherefore he threw it out of the window and
straightway it turned to dust. So the old man went again to the woman in
the hill, and she gave him this time a hen that laid a golden egg every day.
When the king heard thereof, he had the hen too taken away from the old
man. Howbeit in his keeping she laid not, and so he threw the hen also out
of window, and she likewise turned to dust. So in his anger he bade seize
the old man forthwith and cut off his head.
‘But scarce was this done when there appeared before the king the Mistress
of the Earth and of the Sea—for she was the woman in the hill—and when
she had told him in brief words what awaited him after this life in requital
for his wickedness, she stamped with her foot upon the ground, which
swallowed up the castle with the king and all that was therein. But the old
man that was slain had entered into Paradise.’
In this story the Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea (ἡ κυρὰ τσῆ γῆς καὶ
τσῆ θαλάσσης) is, as we shall see later[94], none other than Demeter: but
pagan as she is, she works in accord with the good angel (who is evidently
her inferior), and orders the old man to invoke the Trinity.
Thus the peasant does not conceive of any antagonism between his pagan
and his Christian objects of worship; and both classes are equally deserving
of study by those interested in ancient Greek religion. For while every
minutest trait or detail of the modern peasant’s conception of those ancient
deities, who, though despoiled of temples and organised worship, still
survive, may throw some new ray of light on the divine personalities and
the myths of old time, yet a more broad and comprehensive view of the
outlines of ancient religion may be obtained by contemplating the worship
of Christian saints who, though deficient often in personal significance,
nevertheless by their possession of dedicated shrines and of all the
apparatus of a formal cult occupy more exactly the position of the old gods
and heroes.

The saints then, as I have remarked above, have a large share in the control
of man’s daily life. The whole religious sense of the people seems to
demand a delegation of the powers of one supreme God to many lesser
deities, who, for the very reason perhaps that they are lower in the scale of
godhead, are more accessible to man. Under the name of saints lies, hardly
concealed, the notion of gods. In mere nomenclature Christianity has had its
way; but none of the old tendencies of paganism have been checked. The
current of worship has been turned towards many new personalities; but the
essence of that worship is the same. The Church would have its saints be
merely mediators with the one God; but popular feeling has made of them
many gods; their locality and scope of action are defined in exactly the old
way; vows are made to the patron-saint of such and such a place;
invocations are addressed to him in virtue of a designated power or
function.
Local titles are often derived merely from the town or district in which the
church stands, as Our Lady of Tenos, or S. Gerasimos of Cephalonia. In
other cases they have reference to the surroundings of the sanctuary. The
chapel of the Virgin in the monastery of Megaspelaeon consists of a large
cave at the foot of some towering cliffs, and the dedication is to our Lady of
the Golden Cave (Παναγία χρυσοσπηλαιώτισσα). In this case the word
‘golden’ is an imaginative addition, for the interior is peculiarly dark: but
the dedication has been borrowed, owing to the repute of the original
shrine, by churches which have not even a cave to show. In Amorgos S.
George has the title of Balsamites, derived from the balsam which covers
the hill-side on which stands his church. In Paros several curious
dedications are mentioned by Bent, which he renders as Our Lady of the
Lake, Our Lady of the Unwholesome Place, and S. George of the
Gooseberry[95]. In Athens there is a church of which the present dedication
is said to be due to a fire which blackened the icon of the Virgin, who is
known on this account as Our smoke-blackened Lady (Παναγία
καπνικαρέα), or, it may be, Our Lady of the smoky head, according as the
second half of the compound is connected with the Turkish word for ‘black’
or the now obsolete Greek word κάρα, ‘head[96].’
Titles denoting functions are equally numerous and quaint. In Rhodes the
Archangel Michael is invoked as πατητηριώτης, patron of the wine-
press[97]. S. Nicolas, who has supplanted Poseidon, often assumes the

simple title of ‘sailor’ (ναύτης). S. John the Hunter (κυνηγός) owns a
monastery on Mt Hymettus. In Cimolus there is a church of Our Guiding
Lady (Παναγία ὁδηγήτρια)[98]. SS. Costas and Damien, the physicians, are
known as the Moneyless (ἀνάργυροι), because their services are given
gratis. S. George at Argostóli has been dubbed the Drunkard (μεθυστής)[99]
—thus furnishing a notable parallel to the hero celebrated in old time at
Munychia as ἀκρατοπότης[100]—because on his day, Nov. 3rd, the new
wine is commonly tapped and there is much drinking in his honour.
In other cases the actual name of the saint has determined his powers or
character without further epithet. S. Therapon is invoked for all kinds of
healing (θεραπεύειν): S. Eleutherios (with an echo possibly of Eilythuia) to
give deliverance (ἐλευθερία) to women in childbirth: S. James, in Melos,
owing to a phonetic corruption of Ἰάκωβος into Ἄκουφος, to cure
deafness[101]. S. Elias, the successor of the sun-god (ἥλιος), has power over
drought and rain. S. Andrew (Ἀνδρέας) is implored to make weakly
children ‘strong’ (ἀνδρειωμένος). S. Maura, in Athens, requires that no
sewing be done on her day under pain of warts (locally known as μαύραις),
which if incurred can only be cured by an application of oil from her
lamp[102]. S. Tryphon resents any twisting (στρήφω) of thread, as in
spinning, on his day; and on the festival of S. Symeon expectant mothers
must touch no utensil of daily toil, above all nothing black; for S. Symeon
‘makes marks’ (ὁ Ἄϊ Συμεὼν σημειόνει), and a birth-mark would inevitably
appear on the child. If however a woman offend unwittingly, she must lay
her hands at once on that part of the body where the birth-mark will be least
disfiguring to the child.
These are only a small selection of the saints whom the peasant seeks to
propitiate, and it may be noted in passing that among them there are some
characters, as among the ancient deities, either immoral as S. George the
Drunkard, or unamiable as S. Maura, S. Tryphon, and S. Symeon. But a
better idea of the multitude of the popular deities may perhaps be conveyed
by giving a list of those worshipped in a single island with the functions
there ascribed to them. Here is the catalogue given by a native of
Cythnos[103]. The Virgin (Παναγία) is invoked on any and every occasion,
and the SS. Anargyri (Costas and Damien) in all cases of illness. S.
Panteleëmon is a specialist in eye-diseases, S. Eleutherios in obstetrics, S.

Modestes in veterinary work, S. Vlasios in ulcers etc. S. Charalampes and
S. Varvara (Βαρβάρα) deliver from pestilences, and S. Elias from drought.
The power of protecting children from ailments is ascribed to S. Stylianos,
and that of saving sailors from the perils of the sea to S. Nicolas, S. Sostes,
and the SS. Akindyni (ἀκίνδυνοι). S. Tryphon deals with noxious insects, S.
John the Baptist with ague, S. Menas with loss of goods, S. Paraskeve
(Friday) with headache: while S. Aekaterine (Catherine) and S. Athanasios
assist anxious mothers to marry off their daughters.
As in the multiplicity of the objects of worship, so too in the mental attitude
of the worshipper, there is little change since first were written the words
δῶρα θεοὺς πείθει, ‘Gifts win the gods.’ There are certain great occasions, it
is true, now as in old days, on which religious feeling attains a higher level,
and the mercenary expectation of blessings is forgotten in whole-hearted
adoration of the blesser. But in general a spirit of bargaining tempers the
peasant’s prayer, and a return is required for services rendered. A sketch of
the religious sentiments of the Sphakiotes given by the head of a Cretan
monastery is worth reproducing, for it is typical of the whole Greek folk.
‘The faith,’ he writes, ‘of these highlanders in Jesus Christ is sincere in
every way, reverent, deep-seated, and unshaken, but unfortunately it is not
free from superstitious fancies which mar this otherwise great merit. Many
of them are fully persuaded that God, Our Lady, and the Saints go to and fro
unseen above their heads, watch each man’s actions, and take part in his
quarrels, like the gods of Homer. They are under an obligation to work
constant miracles, to vindicate and avenge, to listen readily to each man’s
requests and petitions, whether they be just or no. Many of the people go off
cattle-lifting or on other wrongful enterprises, and at the same time call
upon Our Lady, or any other saints of repute as wonder-workers, to assist
them, and as payment for success promise them gifts! To some of the Saints
they attribute greater power and grace than to the God who glorified them.
In the same way they show greater reverence for this or that church or icon,
and bring presents from great distances, in the belief that it has miraculous
powers, without understanding that Faith works miracles equally in all
places[104].’
Such is the verdict of an educated priest of the Greek Church who deplores
the polytheism and idolatry of the common-folk among whom he lives, and
who in so doing speaks with the authority of intimate knowledge. Nor can

the justice of the verdict be questioned by any one who has entered one of
the more highly reputed churches of Greece and observed the votive
offerings which adorn or disfigure it. For these offerings are of two qualities
just as the motives which inspire them are twofold. There are the genuine
thank-offerings, selected for their beauty or worth, which commemorate
gratefully some blessing received; of such the treasury of the Church of the
Annunciation in Tenos is full—gold and silver plate, bibles and service-
books in rich bindings studded with jewels, embroideries of Oriental silk
unmatched in skill and splendour. But there is another class, the propitiatory
offerings designed to place the offerer in a special way under the protection
of the saint. Most characteristic among these are the shreds of infected
clothing sent by some sick person to the church of the particular saint
whose healing power he invokes. Just as in the province of magic the
possession of a strip of a man’s clothing gives to the witch a control over
his whole person, so in the religious sphere the dedication of some disease-
laden rag from the body of the sufferer places him under the special care of
the saint. In the church of ‘S. John of the Column’ at Athens the ancient
pillar round which the edifice has been built is always garnished with dirty
rags affixed by a daub of candle-grease; and if the saint cures those who
send these samples of their fevers, he must certainly kill some of those who
visit his sanctuary in person. To this class of offerings belong also the bulk
of the silver-foil trinkets which are so cheap that the poorest peasant can
afford one for his tribute, and so abundant that at Tenos out of this supply of
metal alone have been fashioned the massive silver candelabra which light
the whole church. These trinkets are models of any object which the
worshipper wishes to commend to the special attention of the saint. At
Tenos they most frequently represent parts of the human body, for there the
Virgin is above all a goddess of healing; but a vast assortment of models of
other objects committed to her care may also be seen—horses and mules,
agricultural implements, boats, sheaves of corn to represent the harvest,
bunches of grapes in emblem of the vintage; there is no limit to the variety;
anything for which a man craves the saint’s blessing is thus symbolically
confided to her keeping. Doubtless among them there are a number of
thank-offerings for mercies already received; I remember in particular a
realistic model of a Greek coasting steamer with a list attached giving the
names of the captain and crew who dedicated it in gratitude for deliverance
from shipwreck. It may even be that some few of the models of eyes and

limbs are thank-offerings for cures effected, and in beauty or worth are all
that the peasant’s artistic sense desires or his purse affords. But the majority
of them, as I have said, are the gifts of those whose prayers are not yet
answered and who thus keep before the eyes of the saint the maladies which
crave her healing care.
Other offerings again may be dedicated with either motive. Candles and
incense are equally suited to win a favour or to repay one. But whether the
motive be propitiation or gratitude, the whole system is a legacy of the
pagan world and permeated with the spirit of paganism. Everywhere the
Christian disguise of the old religion is easily penetrable; the Church for
instance has forbidden the use of graven images, and only in one or two
places do statues or even reliefs survive: but the painted icons which are
provided in their stead satisfy equally well the common-folk’s instinct for
idolatry.
Vows conditional upon the answering of some prayer usually conform
outwardly at least to Christian requirements. Scores of the small chapels
with which the whole country is dotted have been built in payment of such
a vow; and often a boy may be seen dressed in a miniature priest’s costume,
because in some illness his mother devoted him to the service of God or of
some saint for a number of years if only he should recover. But the idea of
bargaining by vows is more pagan than Christian, and sometimes indeed an
even clearer echo of ancient thought is heard, as when a girl vows to the
Virgin a silver girdle if she will lay her in her lover’s arms[105].
Miracles again are expected of the higher powers in return for man’s
services to them; for as the proverb runs, ἅγιος ποῦ δὲν θαυματουργεῖ, δὲν
δοξάζεται, ‘it is a sorry saint who works no wonders.’ And wonders are
worked as the people expect—some in appearance, some in fact.
A sham miracle is annually worked by the priests of a church near Volo in
Thessaly. Within the walls, still easily traced, of the old town of Demetrias
on a spur of Mount Pelion stands an unfinished church dedicated to the
Virgin. Here on the Friday after Easter there is a concourse from all
Thessaly to see the miracle. At the east end of the church, on the outside, a
square tank has been sunk ten or twelve feet below the level of the church
floor, exposing, on the side formed by the church wall, ancient foundations
—perhaps of some temple where the same miracle was worked two

thousand years ago. The miracle consists in the filling of this tank with
water; but seeing that under the floor of the church itself there are cisterns
to which a shaft in each aisle descends, and that the tank outside, sunk, as
has been said, to a lower level, undisguisedly derives its water from a hole
in the foundations of the church, there is less of the marvellous in the fact
that the priests by opening some sluice fill the tank than in the simple faith
with which the throng from all parts presses to obtain a cupful of the
miraculously fertilizing but withal muddy liquid. The women drink it, the
men carry it home to sprinkle a few drops on cornfield or vineyard.
Genuine miracles, at any rate of healing, seem to be well established. After
personal investigation and enquiry at the great festival of Tenos I concluded
that some faith-cures had actually occurred. Some travellers[106] indeed
have been inclined to scoff at these miracles and to write them down mere
fabrications of interested priests. But in an official ‘Description of some of
the miracles of the wonder-working icon of the Annunciation in Tenos’ the
total number claimed down to the year 1898 is only forty-four, that is to say
not an average even of one a year; and a large majority of the cases detailed
—including twelve cases of mental derangement, eleven of blindness, and
ten of paralysis, none of them congenital,—might I suppose come under the
category of nervous diseases for which a faith-cure is possible; while
several of the remainder, such as the case of a man who at first sight of the
icon coughed up a fish bone which had stuck in his throat for two years, do
not pass the bounds of belief; and even if the priests do sometimes set false
or exaggerated rumours afloat, it must be conceded that the peasant, who
has faith enough to believe their stories, has also faith enough, if faith-cures
ever occur, to render such a cure possible in his case. Indeed no one who
has been to the great centres of miraculous healing can fail to be impressed
by the unquailing faith of the pilgrims. Year by year they come in their
thousands, bringing the maimed and the halt and the blind, and, more pitiful
still, the hopelessly deformed, for whose healing a miracle indeed were
needed. Year by year these are laid to sleep in the church or in its precincts
on the eve of the festival. Year by year they are carried where the shadow of
the icon as it passes in procession may perchance fall on them. Year by year
they are sprinkled with water from the holy spring. And year by year most
of them depart as they came, maimed and halt and blind and horribly
misshapen. Yet faith abides undimmed; hope still blossoms; and they go
again and again until they earn another release than that which they crave.

The very dead, it is said, have ere now been brought from neighbouring
islands, but the icon has not raised them up. There are but few indeed whose
faith has made them whole; but for my part I do not doubt that a boy’s sight
was restored at Tenos in the year that I was there (1899), or that similar
occurrences are well established at such shrines as that of the Virgin at
Megaspelaeon, of S. George in Scyros, or of S. Gerasimos in Cephalonia.
Closely bound up with these miraculous cures is the old pagan practice of
ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in the sanctuary of the god whose healing touch is
sought. At Tenos the majority of the pilgrims who come for the festival of
Lady-day can only afford to stop for the one night which precedes it. The
sight then is strange indeed. The whole floor of the church and a great part
of the courtyard outside is covered with recumbent worshippers. With them
they have brought mattresses and blankets for those of the sick for whom a
stone floor is too hard; by their side is piled baggage of all descriptions,
cooking utensils, loaves of bread, jars of wine or water, everything in fact
necessary for a long night’s watch or slumber. And on this mass of close-
packed suffering worshippers the doors of the church are locked from nine
in the evening till early next morning. Shortly before the closing-hour I
picked my way with difficulty in the dim light over prostrate forms from the
south to the north door. The atmosphere was suffocating and reeked with
the smoke of wax tapers which all day long the pilgrims had been burning
before the icon. Every malady and affliction seemed to be represented; the
moaning and coughing never stopped: and I wondered, not whether there
would be any miraculous cures, but how many deaths there would be in the
six or seven hours of confinement before even the doors were again opened.
But this is the practice at its worst. Where there is more time available,
there is nothing insanitary in it. In the list of cures at Tenos, to which I have
alluded, there are many cases in which the patient spent not one night only
but several months in the church. As a typical case I may take that of a
sailor who while keeping look-out on a steamer in the harbour of Patras had
some kind of paralytic seizure. He was taken to Tenos and for four months
suffered terribly. Then about midday at Easter he had fallen asleep and
heard a voice bidding him rise. He woke up and asked those about him who
had called him; they said no one; so he slept again. This happened twice.
The third time on hearing the voice he opened his eyes and saw entering the
church a woman of unspeakable beauty and brilliance, and at the shock he

rose to his feet and began to walk; and the same day accompanied the
festival procession round the town to the astonishment of all the people.
When I was in Scyros I heard of an equally curious case of a long-deferred
cure which had recently taken place and was the talk of the town. For seven
consecutive years a man from Euboea had brought his wife, who was mad,
to the church of S. George to ‘sleep in’ for forty days. Shortly before I
arrived the last of these periods was just drawing to a close, when one night
both the man and his wife saw a vision of S. George who came and laid his
hand on her head; and in the morning she woke sane. Of her sanity when I
saw her—for they were still in the island, paying, I think, some vow which
the man had made—I had no doubt; and the evidence of the people of the
place who for seven years previously had seen her mad seemed irrefragable.
The instances which I have cited are from the records of churches which
have succeeded to the reputation possessed by Epidaurus in antiquity. These
owing to the enthusiasm which their fame inspires are probably the scenes
of more faith-cures than humbler and less known sanctuaries. But in every
church throughout the land the observance of the custom may occasionally
be seen; for in the less civilised districts at any rate it is among the
commonest remedies for childish ailments for a mother to pass the night
with her child in the village church.
We shall notice in later chapters the remnants of other pagan institutions
which the Greek Church has harboured—an oracle established in a
Christian chapel and served by a priest—a church-festival at which sacrifice
is done and omens are read—the survival of ancient ‘mysteries’ in the
dramatic celebration of Good Friday and Easter. For the present enough has
been said to show that, even within the domain of what is nominally
Christian worship, the peasant of to-day in his conception of the higher
powers and in his whole attitude towards them remains a polytheist and a
pagan. And as in this aspect of religion, so in that other which concerns
men’s care for the dead and their conception of the future life, the
persistence of pagan beliefs and customs is constantly manifest. The ancient
funeral usages are undisturbed; and in the dirges which form part of them
the heaven and the hell of Christianity seem almost unknown: ‘the lower
world’ (ὁ κάτω κόσμος), over which rules neither God nor the Devil but
Charon, is the land to which all men alike are sped.

But there is no need to dilate upon these matters yet. It is clear enough
already, I hope, that the fact of Greece being nominally a Christian country
should not preclude the hope of finding there instructive survivals of
paganism. The Church did not oust her predecessor. By a policy of
conciliation and compromise she succeeded indeed in imposing upon
Hellenic religion the name of Christianity and the Christian code of
morality and all the external appanages of Christian worship: but in the
essentials of religion proper she deferred largely to the traditional
sentiments of the race. She utilised the sanctuaries which other associations
had rendered holy; she permitted or adopted as her own the methods by
which men had approached and entreated other gods than hers; she
condoned polytheism by appropriating the shrines of gods whom men had
been wont to worship to the service of saints whom they inevitably would
worship as gods instead; and even so she failed to suppress altogether the
ejected deities. The result is that for the peasant Christianity is only a part of
a larger scheme of religion. To the outside observer it may appear that there
are two distinct departments of popular religion, the one nominally
Christian, devoted to the service of God and the Saints, provided with
sanctuaries and all the apparatus of worship, served by a regular priesthood,
limited by dogma and system; the other concerned with those surviving
deities of pre-Christian Greece to whom we must next turn, free in respect
of its worship alike from the intervention of persons and the limitations of
place, obedient only to a traditional lore which each may interpret by his
own feelings and augment by his own experience. But the peasant seems
hardly sensible of any such contrast. His Christian and his pagan deities
consort amicably together; prayer and vow and offering are made to both,
now to avert their wrath, now to cajole them into kindness; the professed
prophets of either sort, the priests and the witches, are endowed with
kindred powers; everywhere there is overlapping and intertwining. And
when the very authorities of the Greek Church have adopted or connived at
so much of pagan belief and custom, how should the common-folk
distinguish any longer the twin elements in their blended faith? Their
Christianity has become homogeneous with their paganism, and it is the
religious spirit inherited from their pagan ancestors by which both alike are
animated.

CHAPTER II.
THE SURVIVAL OF PAGAN DEITIES.

§ 1. The Range of Modern Polytheism.

Thus far we have considered paganism in its bearing and influence upon
modern Greek Christianity. We have seen how the Church, in endeavouring
to widen her influence, countenanced many practices and conciliated many
prejudices of a people whose temperament needed a multitude of gods and
whose piety could pay homage to them all, a people moreover to whom the
criterion of divinity was neither moral perfection nor omnipotence. From
the ethical standpoint some of the ancient gods were better, some worse
than men: in point of power they were superhuman but not almighty. Some
indeed claimed that there was no difference in origin between mankind and
its deities. ‘One is the race of men’ sang Pindar ‘with the race of gods; for
one is the mother that gave to both our breath of life: yet sundered are they
by powers wholly diverse, in that mankind is as naught, but heaven is
builded of brass that abideth ever unshaken[107].’ One in origin, they are
diverse in might. The test of godhead is power sufficing to defy death.
Rightly therefore did Homer make ‘deathless’ and ‘everbeing’ his constant
epithets for the gods. Immortality alone is the quality which distinguishes
them in kind and not merely in degree from men, and makes them worthy
of worship.
A people wedded to such conceptions were naturally ready enough to install
new immortals of whom they had not known before, but reluctant to depose
in their favour those whom they and their forefathers had known and
served. Dangers were to be apprehended from neglect; blessings were to be
secured by tendance. Greater honour might be paid to one god, less to
another; but from no immortal should service be wholly withheld: even
unconscious oversights should be remedied by offerings ‘to an unknown
god.’ Such in its essence was the popular religion, inconsistent it may be

and not deeply intellectual, but in sympathies very broad—broad enough to
encompass the worship of all immortals, broad as the earth and the sky and
the sea wherein they dwelt and moved.
So vital and so deep-seated in the hearts of the common-folk are these
religious tendencies, that even at the present day when the word ‘Christian’
has become a popular synonym for ‘Greek’ in contradistinction not only
with ‘Mohammedan,’ but even sometimes with ‘Western’ or ‘Catholic’ or
with ‘Protestant,’ and when horror would be excited by any imputation of
polytheism, there are yet recognised a large number of superhuman and for
the most part immortal beings, whom the Church has been able neither to
eradicate from the popular mind nor yet to incorporate under the form of
saints or devils in her own theological system. These beings, whether
benignant to man or maleficent, are all treated as divine. In ancient times
the common people had probably little appreciation of the various grades of
divinity; indeed it was one of the seven sages, we are told, who first
differentiated God and the lesser deities and the heroes[108]; and at the
present day the common-folk are certainly no more subtle of understanding
than they were then. God and the Saints and these pagan powers are all
feared and worshipped in the several ways traditionally suited to each; but
the fact of worship proclaims them all alike to be gods.
The origin of the non-Christian deities, even if we were unable to identify
any of them with the gods of classical Greece, would be clearly enough
proved by some of the general terms under which all of them are included.
Those who use these terms indeed no longer appreciate their significance;
for all sense of antagonism between the pagan and Christian elements in the
popular religion has, as we have seen, long been lost. But the words
themselves are a relic of the early days in which the combat of Christianity
with the heathen world was still stern. Among the most widespread of these
terms is the word ξωτικά[109] (i.e. ἐξωτικά), the ‘extraneous’ powers, clearly
an invention of the early Christians. The phrase ‘those that are without’ (οἱ
ἔξω or οἱ ἔξωθεν) was used by S. Paul first[110] and afterwards generally by
the Fathers of the Church to denote men of all other persuasions. In the
fourth century Basil of Caesarea employed the adjective ἐξωτικός also in a
corresponding sense[111]. This word no doubt became popular, and hence τὰ
ἐξωτικά, ‘the extraneous ones,’ became a convenient term by which to
denote comprehensively all those old divinities whose worship the Church

disallowed but even among her own adherents could not wholly suppress.
Another comprehensive term equally significant, if not so commonly used,
is τὰ παγανά[112], ‘the pagan ones.’ This is in use in the Ionian islands and
some parts of the mainland, but I have not met with it nor found it
understood in the Peloponnese or in the islands of the Aegean Sea[113]. In
Cephalonia it is chiefly, though not exclusively, applied to a species of
supernatural beings usually called callicántzari (καλλικάντζαροι) of whom
more anon: the reason of this restriction may be either the fact that these
monsters—to judge from the folk-stories of the island—so far outnumber
there all other kinds of ‘pagan’ beings that this one species has almost
appropriated to itself the generic name, or that in old time, when the word
παγανά, ‘pagan,’ was still understood in the sense which we attribute to it,
these monsters were deemed specially ‘pagan’ because, as we shall see
later, they delight in disturbing a season of Christian gladness. But
elsewhere the term, still employed in what must have been its original
meaning, comprises all kinds of non-Christian deities; and in earlier times
‘the pagan ones’ was probably as frequent an expression as its synonym ‘the
extraneous ones.’ To these may perhaps be added the rare appellation
recorded by Schmidt[114], τσίνια: for if the derivation from τζίνα, ‘fraud,’
‘deceit,’ be right, it will mean ‘the false gods.’
Besides these three names, which indicate the pre-Christian origin of these
deities, there are several others—some in universal usage, others local and
dialectic,—which represent them in various aspects. As a class of
‘divinities’ they are called δαιμόνια: as ‘apparitions,’ whose precise nature
often cannot be further determined, φάσματα or φαντάσματα and, in Crete,
σφανταχτά[115]: as swift and ‘sudden’ in their coming and going,
ξαφνικά[116]: as ghostly and passing like a vision, εἰδωλικά: as denizens, for
the most part, of the air, ἀερικά: and from their similarity to angels,
ἀγγελικά.
It may seem strange that the first and the last of these terms, δαιμόνια and
ἀγγελικά, should be practically interchangeable; for the Church at any rate
did her best in early days to make the former understood in the sense of
‘demons’ or ‘devils’ rather than ‘deities.’ But the attempted change of
meaning seems to have failed to make much impression on a people who
did not view goodness as an essential of godhead; and in later times the
Church herself, or many of her less educated clergy at any rate, surrendered

to the popular ideas. Father Richard[117], a Jesuit resident during the
seventeenth century in the island of Santorini, mentions the case of an old
Greek priest who had long made a speciality of exorcism and was prepared
to expel angels and demons alike from the bodies of those who were
afflicted by them. The priest when questioned by the Jesuit as to what
distinction he drew between demons and angels, replied that the demons
came from hell, while the angels were ἀερικόν τι, a species of aërial being;
but while he maintained a theoretical difference between them, his practice
betrayed a belief that both were equally harmful. Exorcism had to be
employed in cases of ‘angelic’ as well as of ‘demoniacal’ possession; and
Father Richard details the cruelties and tortures inflicted upon a woman
suspected of the former in order to make the pernicious angelic spirit within
her confess its name. The characters of δαιμόνια and ἀγγελικά are in fact
the same, and the subtle theological distinctions which might be drawn
between them are naturally lost on a people who see them treated even by
the priests as equally baneful.
A few other local or dialectic names remain to be noticed. Two of them,
στοιχει̯ά and τελώνια, denote properly two several species of supernatural
beings—the former being the genii of fixed places[118], and the latter aërial
beings chiefly concerned with the passage of men from this world to the
next[119]—and are only loosely and locally employed in a more
comprehensive sense. The name σμερδάκια, recorded from Philiatrá in
Messenia, is apparently a diminutive form from a root meaning
‘terrible[120].’ A Cretan word καντανικά is of less certain etymology, but if,
as has been surmised, it has any relation with the verb καντανεύω, ‘to go
down to the underworld,’ and hence ‘to fall into a trance,’ (‘entranced’
spirits being thought temporarily to have departed thither,) it may denote
either denizens of the lower world or beings who frighten men into a
senseless and trance-like state[121]. Next come the two words ζούμπιρα and
ζωντόβολα, of which I believe the interpretation is one and the same.
Bernhard Schmidt[122], whose work I have constantly consulted in this and
later chapters, would derive the former from a middle-Greek word
ζόμβρος[123], equivalent to the ancient τραγέλαφος, a fantastic animal of
Aristophanic fame; but it was explained to me in Scyros to be a jocose
euphemism as applied to supernatural beings and to denote properly
parasitic insects. The implied combination of superstitious awe in avoiding

the name of supernatural things with a certain broad humour in substituting
what is, to the peasant, one of the lesser annoyances of life is certainly
characteristic of the Greek folk; and the accuracy of the explanation given
to me is confirmed by the fact that in the island of Cythnos the other word,
ζωντόβολα, is recorded to bear also the meaning of ‘insects[124].’ The joke,
if such it be, must date from a long time back and in its prime must have
enjoyed a widespread popularity; for at Aráchova on the slopes of
Parnassus, a place far distant from Scyros, the word ζούμπιρα is employed
in the sense of supernatural beings by persons who apparently are quite
ignorant of its original meaning[125]. To these difficult terms must be added
a few euphemisms of a simple nature—τὰ πίζηλα (i.e. ἐπίζηλα) ‘the
enviable ones’ in one village of Tenos[126], and in many places such general
terms as οἱ καλοί ‘the noble,’—οἱ ἀδερφοί μας ‘our brothers,’—οἱ
καλορίζικοι ‘the fortunate ones,’—οἱ χαρούμενοι ‘the joyful ones.’ These
evasions of a more direct nomenclature are very frequent, and, since the
choice of epithet is practically at the discretion of the speaker, it would be
impossible to compile a complete list of them.
How far each of these names may be applied in general to all the classes of
pagan gods and demons and monsters whom I am about to describe is a
question which I cannot determine. On the one hand many of the names, as
we have seen, are purely local, confined to a few villages or districts or
islands and unknown and unintelligible elsewhere: and on the other hand
some of these supernatural beings themselves are equally local, and my
information concerning them has been gathered from widely separated
regions of the Greek world. Hence it follows that while the several terms
which I have explained are comprehensive in local usage and include all the
supernatural beings locally recognised, it is impossible to say whether the
users of them would think fit to extend them to the deities of other districts.
Probably they would do so; but only for the most widely current terms,
δαιμόνια and ἐξωτικά, can I claim with assurance anything like universal
application.
The surviving pagan deities fall naturally into two classes. There are the
solitary and individual figures such as Demeter, and there is the gregarious
and generic class to which belong for example the Nymphs. An exceptional
case may occur in which some originally single personality has been
multiplied into a whole class. The Lesbian maiden Gello, who, according to

a superstition known to Sappho[127], in revenge for her untimely death
haunted her old abodes preying upon the babes of women whose
motherhood she envied, is no longer one but many; the place of a maiden,
whom death carried off ere she had known the love of husband and
children, has been taken by withered witch-like beings who none the less
bear her name and resemble her in that they light, like Harpies, upon young
children and suck out their humours[128]. But in the main the division holds;
there are single gods and there are groups of gods. Of the former, in several
cases, there is very little to record. Such memory of them as still lingers
among the people is confined perhaps to a single folk-story out of the many
that have been preserved. In such cases I do not feel entire confidence that
the reference is a piece of genuine tradition; in spite of the popular form in
which the stories are cast, it is always possible that, owing to the spread of
education, some scholastic smatterings of ancient mythology have been
introduced by the story-teller. There are certainly plenty of tales to be heard
about Alexander the Great which are drawn from literary sources; and it is
possible that two stories published by Schmidt which contain apparent
reminiscences of Poseidon and of Pan are vitiated, from the point of view of
folklore, in the same way. Fortunately the cases in which this reserve must
be felt are few and in the nature of things unimportant: for, though proof of
genuine tradition would be interesting, yet a single modern allusion is not
likely to throw any light on the ancient conception of a deity or his cult.
Where on the other hand modern folklore is more abundant—and in the
case of the groups of lesser deities above all there is ample store of
information—it is possible that study of the popular conceptions of to-day
may illumine our understanding of ancient religion.

§ 2. Zeus.

Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα.
To Zeus, the ancient father of gods and men, belongs precedence; but there
is in truth little room for him in the modern scheme of popular religion. His
functions have been transferred to the Christian God, and his personality
merged in that of the Father whom the Church acknowledges. But though
he is no longer a deity, the ancient conception of him has imposed narrow
limitations upon the character of his successor. We have noted already that
the God now recognised exercises the same general control, as did formerly
Zeus, over all the changes and chances of this mortal life, but has, again
resembling Zeus, for his special province only the regulation of the more
monotonous phases of nature and the weather. The more unusual
phenomena, and among them sometimes even the thunder, to which S. Elias
has pretensions, are delegated to saints or to non-Christian deities; but for
the most part the thunder remains the possession of God, as it was always
that of Zeus; and its more important concomitant, the lightning, is never, I
think, attributed to S. Elias, but is wielded by God alone.
The very name of this weapon which the Christian God has inherited is
suggestive of the Olympian régime. Much has been heard lately of the
double-headed axe as a religious symbol which seems to have been
constantly associated, especially in Crete, with the worship of Zeus. The
modern Greek word for what we call the thunderbolt is ἀστροπελέκι (a
syncopated form of ἀστραποπελέκι by loss of one of two concurrent
syllables beginning with the same consonant), and means literally a
‘lightning-axe.’ The weapon therefore which the supreme God wields is
conceived as an axe-shaped missile; and, though in the ancient literature
which has come down to us we may nowhere find the word πέλεκυς used of
the thunderbolt, there is no reason why the modern word should not be the
expression of a conception inherited from antiquity and so furnish a clue to
what in itself seems a simple and suitable explanation of the much-
canvassed symbol.
Again the divine associations of the thunderbolt now as in the reign of Zeus
are attested by the awe in which men and cattle, trees and houses, which

have been struck by lightning, are universally held—awe of that primitive
kind which does not distinguish between the sacred and the accursed. It is
sufficient that particular persons or objects have come into close contact
with divine power; that contact sets them apart; they must not do common
work or be put to common uses. In old days any place which had been
struck was distinguished by the erection of an altar and the performance of
sacrifice, but at the same time it was left unoccupied and, save for
sacrificial purposes, untrodden[129]; it was both honoured and avoided. In
the case of persons however the sense of awe verged on esteem. ‘No one,’
says Artemidorus, ‘who has been struck by lightning is excluded from
citizenship; indeed such an one is honoured even as a god[130].’ The same
feeling is still exhibited. The peasant makes the sign of the cross as he
passes any scorched and blackened tree-trunk; but if a man has the fortune
to be struck and not killed, he may indulge a taste for idleness for the rest of
his life—his neighbours will support him—and enjoy at the same time the
reputation of being something more than human.
But in spite of the reverent awe which the victim of the lightning excites,
the thunderbolt is often viewed now, as in old time, as the instrument of
divine vengeance. The people of Aráchova, when they see a flash, explain
the occurrence in the phrase κάποιον διάβολον ἔκαψε, ‘He has burnt up
some devil,’ and the implied subject of the verb, as in most phrases
describing the weather, is undoubtedly God[131]. The same idea, in yet more
frankly pagan garb, is well exhibited in a story from Zacynthos[132], which
is nothing but the old myth of the war of the Titans against Zeus with the
names of the actors omitted. The gist of it is as follows.
The giants once rebelled against God. First they climbed a mountain and
hurled rocks at him; but he grasped his thunderbolts (τσακώνει τὰ
ἀστροπελέκι̯α του) and threw them at the giants, and they all fell down
from the mountain and many were killed. Then one whose courage was still
unshaken tied reeds together and tried to reach to heaven with them (for
what purpose, does not appear in the story; but folk-tales are often
somewhat inconsequent, and this vague incident is probably an imperfect
reminiscence of the legend of Prometheus); but the lightning burnt him to
ashes. Then his remaining companions made a last assault, but the lightning
again slew many of them, and the rest were condemned to live all their life
long shut in beneath a mountain.

This story is one of those which in themselves might be suspected of
scholastic origin or influence; but it so happens that practically the same
story has been recorded from Chios also, with the slight addition that there
the leader of the giants’ assault has usurped the name of Samson. Such
corroboration from the other end of the Greek world goes far to establish
the genuine nature of the tradition.
Thus though Zeus has been generally superseded by the Christian God, his
character and mythic attributes have left a strong and indelible mark upon
the religion of to-day. The present conception of God is practically identical
with the ancient conception of the deity who was indeed one among many
gods and yet in thought and often also in speech the god par excellence.
Christianity has effected little here beyond the suppression of the personal
name Zeus.
All this, no doubt, illustrates the fusion of paganism with Christianity rather
than the independent co-existence of deities of the separate systems. But
there are two small facts in virtue of which I have given to Zeus a place
among the pagan deities whose distinct personality is not yet wholly sunk in
oblivion. The men of Aráchova, as we have noticed above, still swear by the
‘god of Crete,’ who can be no other than Zeus; and in Crete itself there was
recently, and may still be, in use the invocation ἠκοῦτε μου Ζῶνε θεέ,
‘Hearken to me, O god Zeus[133].’ Such expressions, though their original
force is no longer known by those who use them, are none the less
indications that perhaps not many generations ago Zeus was still locally
recognised and reverenced as a deity distinct from the Christian God, to
whom indeed everywhere he can only gradually have ceded his position and
his attributes.

§ 3. Poseidon.

For the survival of any god of the sea in the imagination of the Greek
people I cannot personally vouch. Though I have been among the seafaring
population in many parts, I have never heard mention of other than female
deities. That which I here set down rests entirely on the authority of
Bernhard Schmidt.
In his collection of folk-stories there is one from Zacynthos, entitled
‘Captain Thirteen,’ which runs as follows[134]:—A king who was the
strongest man of his time made war on a neighbour. His strength lay in
three hairs on his breast. He was on the point of crushing his foes when his
wife was bribed to cut off the hairs, and he with thirteen companions was
taken prisoner. But the hairs began to grow again, and so his enemies threw
him and his companions into a pit. The others were killed by the fall, but he
being thrown in last, fell upon them and was unhurt. Over the pit his
enemies then raised a mound. He found however in the pit a dead bird, and
having fastened its wings to his hands flew up and carried away mound and
all with him. Then he soared high in the air until a storm of rain washed
away the clay that held the feathers to his hands, and he fell into the sea.
‘Then from out the sea came the god thereof (ὁ δαίμονας τῆς θάλασσας)
and struck him with a three-pronged fork (μία πειροῦνα μὲ τρία διχάλια)’
and changed him into a dolphin until such time as he should find a maiden
ready to be his wife. The dolphin after some time saved a ship-wrecked
king and his daughter, and the princess by way of reward took him for her
husband and the spell was broken.
Other characteristics of this trident-bearing sea-god are, according to the
same authority[135], that he is in form half human and half fish; that his
wealth, consisting of all treasures lost in the sea, is so great that he sleeps on
a couch of gold; and that he rides upon dolphins. Thus Poseidon, it appears,
(or it may be Nereus,) has survived locally in the remembrance of the Greek
people as a deity unconnected with Christianity. Far more generally
however his functions have been transferred to S. Nicolas, whose aid is
invariably invoked by seamen in time of peril, and who has acquired the
byname of ‘sailor’ (ναύτης)[136].

The allusion to the sea-god and his trident in the story which I have
repeated must, I think, be accepted with some reserve as being possibly a
scholastic interpolation. I cannot find confirmation of it in any other folk-
story, and moreover the latter part of the tale is familiar to me in another
form. The hero is usually a young prince who goes out to seek adventures in
the world, not a king who has already a wife at home; and his
transformation into a dolphin is effected by some malicious witch into
whose toils he falls. But while for these reasons I do not put the story
forward as certain evidence of the survival of Poseidon in the popular
memory, I have recounted it at some length because it is an excellent type
of current folk-tales, and from a study of it, if we may now leave Poseidon
and make a brief digression, we may appreciate the relation existing
between such stories and the myths of antiquity.
The king who was the strongest man of his time has a classical prototype in
the Messenian leader Aristomenes. He too was thrown with his comrades
into a pit by his enemies, the Spartans, and alone escaped death from the
fall, being borne up on the wings of eagles. Again, the idea of a man’s
strength residing in a certain hair or hairs is well known in ancient
mythology; and although it is by no means peculiar to the Greeks, but is
common to many peoples of the world, we may fairly suppose that the
modern Greek has not borrowed it from outside, but has inherited it from
those ancestors among whose myths was the story of Scylla and Nisus.
Lastly, in the incident of the hero fastening wings to his arms with clay and
his subsequent fall into the sea there are all the essentials of the legend of
Icarus.
Here then combined in one modern folk-story we find the motifs of three
separate ancient myths. And from it and others of like nature—for in the
collection from which I have borrowed it there are several stories in which
such figures as Midas, the Sphinx, and the Cyclopes are easily recognised—
an inference may be drawn as to the real relation of ancient mythology to
modern folk-stories. Certain themes must have existed from time
immemorial, and these have been worked up into tales by successive
generations of raconteurs with ever-varying settings. Fresh combinations of
motifs have been and are still being tried; fresh embroidery of detail may be
added by each artist; only the theme in its plainest form, the mere
groundwork of story, remains immutable. This at the same time explains the

wide variations of the same myth even among the ancients themselves, and
warns us not to judge of the value of a modern folk-story or folk-song by
the closeness of its resemblance to any ancient myth which may have been
preserved to us in literature. It was naturally the most finished and artistic
presentment of the story which appealed to the taste of educated men and
thus became the orthodox classical version; but there is every likelihood
that before the story reached the stage of acknowledged perfection much
that was primitive had been suppressed as inartistic, and much that was not
traditional had been added by the poet’s imagination. The unlettered story-
teller, endowed with less fancy and ignorant of the conventions of art, is a
far trustier vehicle of pure tradition; for though he feels himself at liberty to
compose variations of the original theme, he certainly has less power and
generally less inclination to do so; for it is on exactness of memory and
even verbal fidelity to the traditional form of the story that the modern
story-teller chiefly prides himself. Hence the modern folk-story, straight
from the peasant’s lips in a form almost verbally identical with that in
which successive generations of peasants before him narrated it, may
contain more genuinely primitive material than a literary version of it which
dates from perhaps two thousand years or more ago.

§ 4. Pan.

A story, again from the same collection[137], runs in brief as follows:—Once
upon a time a priest had a good son who tended goats. One day ‘Panos’
gave him a kid with a skin of gold. He at once offered it as a burnt-offering
to God, and in answer an angel promised him whatsoever he should ask. He
chose a magic pipe which should make all hearers dance. So no enemy
could come near to touch him. The king however sent for him, and the
goatherd, after making the envoys dance more than once, voluntarily let
himself be taken. The king then threw him into prison, but he had his flute
still with him, and when he played even houses and rocks danced, and fell
and crushed all save him and his. ‘The whole business,’ concludes the story,
‘was arranged by Panos to cleanse the world somewhat of evil men.’
Here the pastoral scene and the gift of the magic pipe (not by Panos
himself, it is true, but indirectly thanks to him) suggest a genuine
remembrance of Pan. It was from him that ‘bonus Daphnis’ learnt the art of
music. The form which the name has assumed is the chief difficulty. The
modern nominative, if formed in the same way as in other words of the
same declension, would naturally be Panas (Πάνας), and the unusual
termination arouses some suspicion that the narrator of the story had heard
of Pan from some literary source and, as often happens in such cases, had
got the name a little wrong. But if the tale be a piece of genuine tradition,
the conclusion of it is remarkable. The moral purpose ascribed to the deity
seems to indicate a loftier conception of him than that which is commonly
found in ancient art and literature. But the popular tradition embodied in the
legend is not therefore necessarily at fault; indeed it may be more true to the
conception of Pan which prevailed among the common-folk in old days
than were the portraits drawn and handed down by the more educated of
their contemporaries. The patron-god of Arcadian shepherd-life would
naturally have seemed a rude being to the cultured Athenians of the fifth
century, who but for his miraculous intervention in the battle of Marathon
would never have honoured him with a temple. But among his original
worshippers it may well be that, besides presiding over the increase of their
flocks, as did Demeter over the increase of their fields, he was deemed to

resemble her also in the possession of more exalted attributes, so that there
was cause indeed for lamentation over that strange message ‘Great Pan is
dead[138].’
But perchance Pan is not dead yet, or if dead not forgotten. And as this
solitary modern story, if it be genuine, testifies to a longlived remembrance
of his better qualities, so in the demonology of the middle ages a sterner
aspect of his ancient character still secured to him men’s awe.
Theocritus[139] gave voice to a well-known superstition when he made the
goat-herd say: ‘Nay, shepherd, it may not be; in the noontide we may not
pipe; ’tis Pan that we fear’; for in his rage if roused from his midday
slumber he was believed to strike the intruder with ‘panic’ terror: and it was
this superstition which influenced the translators of the Septuagint when
they rendered the phrase, which in our Bible version of the Psalms[140]
appears as ‘the destruction that wasteth at noonday,’ by the words
σύμπτωμα καὶ δαιμόνιον μεσημβρινόν. By the latter half of this phrase the
memory of Pan was undoubtedly perpetuated; for in certain forms of prayer
quoted by Leo Allatius[141] in the seventeenth century, among the perils
from which divine deliverance is sought is mentioned more than once this
‘midday demon’; and a corresponding ‘daemon meridianus[142]’ found a
place of equal dignity among the ghostly enemies of Roman Catholics.
Perhaps even yet in the pastoral uplands of Greece some traveller will hear
news of Pan.

§ 5. Demeter and Persephone.

Of few ancient deities has popular memory been more tenacious than of
Demeter; but in different districts the reminiscences take very different
forms. There are many traces of her name and cult, and of the legends
concerning both her and her daughter; but in one place they have been
Christianised, in another they have remained pagan.
In so far as she has affected the traditions of the Church, a male deity, S.
Demetrius, has in general superseded her. Under the title of στερεανός,
‘belonging to the dry land,’ he has in most districts taken over the patronage
of agriculture; while his inherited interest in marriage receives testimony
from the number of weddings celebrated, especially in the agricultural
districts, on his day. But at Eleusis, the old home of Demeter’s most sacred
rites, the people, it seems, would not brook the substitution of a male saint
for their goddess, and yielded to ecclesiastical influence only so far as to
create for themselves a saint Demetra (ἡ ἁγία Δήμητρα) entirely unknown
elsewhere and never canonised. Further, in open defiance of an iconoclastic
Church, they retained an old statue of Demeter, and merely prefixing the
title ‘saint’ to the name of their cherished goddess, continued to worship her
as before. The statue was regularly crowned with garlands of flowers in the
avowed hope of obtaining good harvests, and without doubt prayer was
made before it as now before the pictures of canonical saints. This state of
things continued down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then, in
1801, two Englishmen, named Clarke and Cripps, armed by the Turkish
authorities with a license to plunder, perpetrated an act unenviably like that
of Verres at Enna, and in spite of a riot among the peasants of Eleusis
removed by force the venerable marble; and that which was the visible form
of the great goddess on whose presence and goodwill had depended from
immemorial ages the fertility of the Thriasian plain is now a little-regarded
object catalogued as ‘No. xiv, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, (much
mutilated)[143].’
Saint Demetra however, though lost to sight, was yet dear to the memory of
the village-folk; and in spite of the devastation of old beliefs and legends
which the much-vaunted progress and education of Greece have committed

in the more civilised districts without conferring any sensible
compensation, the antiquarian Lenormant found in 1860 an old
Albanian[144] priest who when once reassured that no ridicule was intended,
recited to him the following remarkable legend[145]: ‘S. Demetra was an old
woman of Athens, kind and good, who devoted all her little means to
feeding the poor. She had a daughter who was beautiful past all imagining;
since “lady Aphrodite” (κυρὰ ’φροδίτη) none had been seen so lovely. A
Turkish lord of the neighbourhood of Souli, who was a wicked man and
versed in magic, saw her one day combing her hair, which was of golden
hue and reached to the very ground, and became passionately enamoured of
her. He bided his time, and having found his chance of speaking with her
tried to seduce her. But she being as prudent as she was beautiful, repulsed
all the miscreant’s advances. Thereupon he resolved to carry her off and put
her in his harem. One Christmas night, while Demetra was at church, the
Turk (ὁ ἀγᾶς) forced the door of her house, seized the girl who was at home
alone, carried her off in spite of her cries of distress, and holding her in his
arms leapt upon his horse. The horse was a wonderful one; it was black in
colour; from its nostrils it breathed out flames, and in one bound could pass
from the East unto the West. In an instant it had carried ravisher and victim
right to the mountains of Epirus.
When the aged Demetra came back from church, she found her house
broken into and her daughter gone; great was her despair. She asked her
neighbours if they knew what had become of her daughter; but they dared
not tell her aught, for they feared the Turks and their vengeance. She turned
her enquiries to the tree that grew before her house; but the tree could tell
her nothing. She asked the sun, but the sun could give her no help; she
asked the moon and the stars, but from them too she learnt nothing. Finally
the stork that nested on the house-top said to her: “Long time now we have
lived side by side; thou art as old as I. Listen; thou hast always been good to
me, thou hast never disturbed my nest, and once thou didst help me to drive
away the bird of prey that would have carried off my nestlings. In
recompense I will tell thee what I know of the fate of thy daughter; she was
carried off by a Turk mounted on a black horse, who took her towards the
West. Come, I will set out with thee and we will search for her together.”
Accompanied by the stork, Demetra started; the time was winter; it was
cold, and snow covered the mountains. The poor old woman was frozen and

could hardly walk; she kept asking of all those whom she met, whether they
had seen her daughter, but they laughed at her or did not answer; doors were
shut in her face and entrance denied her, for men love not misery; and she
went weeping and lamenting. In this manner however she dragged her
limbs as far as Lepsína (the modern form of the name Eleusis); but, arriving
there, she succumbed to cold and weariness and threw herself down by the
roadside. There she would have died, but that by good luck there passed by
the wife of the khodja-bachi (or head man of the village), who had been to
look after her flocks and was returning. Marigo—such was her name—took
pity on the old woman, helped her to rise and brought her to her husband,
who was named Nicolas[146]. The khodja-bachi was as kind as his wife;
both welcomed as best they could the poor sorrow-stricken woman, tended
her and sought to console her. To reward them S. Demetra blessed their
fields and gave them fertility.
Nicolas, the khodja-bachi, had a son handsome, strong, brave, and
practised, in a word the finest pallikar of all the country side. Seeing that
Demetra was in no condition to continue her journey, he offered to set to
work to recover her daughter, asking only her hand in recompense. The
offer was accepted, and he set out accompanied by the faithful stork who
would not abandon the undertaking.
The young man walked for many days without finding anything. At last one
night, when he was in a forest right among the mountains, he caught sight
of a great bright light at some distance. Towards this he hastily bent his
steps, but the point from which the light came was much further off than he
had at first imagined; the darkness had deceived him. Eventually however
he arrived there, and to his great astonishment found forty dragons lying on
the ground and watching an enormous cauldron that was boiling on the fire.
Undismayed by the sight, he lifted the cauldron with one hand, lit a torch,
and replaced the vessel on the fire. Astounded by such a display of strength,
the dragons crowded round him and said to him, “You who can lift with one
hand a cauldron which we by our united efforts can scarcely carry, you
alone are capable of carrying off a maiden whom we have long been trying
to lay our hands on, and whom we cannot seize because of the height of the
tower wherein a magician keeps her shut up.” The son of the khodja-bachi
of Lepsína perceived the impossibility of escape from these monsters.
Accompanied by the forty dragons, he approached the tower, and after

having examined it, he asked for some large nails, which he took and drove
into the wall, so as to form a kind of ladder, and which he kept pulling out
again as he ascended to prevent the dragons from following him. Having
arrived at the top and with some difficulty entered at a small window there,
he invited the dragons to ascend as he had done, one by one, which they
did, thus giving him time to kill each as it arrived while the next was
climbing up, and to throw it over the other side of the tower, where there
were a large court, a splendid garden, and a fine castle. Thus rid of his
dangerous guardians, he went down into the interior of the tower and found
there S. Demetra’s daughter, whose beauty at once inspired him with the
most ardent love.
He was kneeling at her feet when suddenly the magician appeared, and in a
fury of anger threw himself upon the young man, who met him bravely. The
former was of superhuman strength, but Nicolas’ son was not inferior to
him. The magician had the power to transform himself into any thing he
might choose; he changed successively into a lion, into a serpent, into a bird
of prey, into fire—hoping under some one of these forms to wear his
adversary out; but nothing could shake the courage of the young man. For
three days the combat continued. The first day the magician seemed beaten,
but the next he regained his advantage; at the end of the day’s struggle he
killed his young opponent, and cut his body into four quarters, which he
hung on the four sides of the tower. Then elated by his victory, he did
violence to Demetra’s daughter, whose chastity he had hitherto respected.
But in the night the stork flew away to a great distance to fetch a magic
herb which it knew, brought it back in its beak, and rubbed with it the
young man’s lips. At once the pieces of his body came together again and
he revived. Great was his despair when he learnt what had taken place after
his defeat; but he only threw himself upon the magician with the greater
fury the third day, to punish him for his crime.
Once again the young man, it seemed, was on the point of being
vanquished, when suddenly he conceived the happy idea of invoking the
Panagia, vowing that if victorious he would become a monk at the
monastery of Phaneroméne[147]. The divine protection which he had
invoked gave him strength and he succeeded in throwing his adversary: the
stork, who had aided him so much, at once attacked the fallen magician and
picked out his eyes; then with its beak pulled out a white hair noticeable

among the black curls that covered his head. On this hair depended the life
of the Turkish magician, who immediately expired.
His conqueror, taking with him the girl, brought her back to Lepsína, just at
the season when spring was coming and the flowers were beginning to
appear in the fields. Then he went, as he had vowed, and shut himself up in
the monastery. S. Demetra, having received back her daughter, went away
with her. What became of them afterwards, no one knows; but since that
time the fields of Lepsína, thanks to the blessing of the Saint, have not
ceased to be fertile.’
It would be superfluous to point out the numerous details of this legend
which accord explicitly with the account of the rape of Persephone in the
Homeric hymn. The interspersion of Christian ideas and reminiscences of
Turkish domination and stories of fabulous monsters may strike oddly on
the ear unacquainted with the vagaries of Greek folk-stories. Yet the most
sceptical could not doubt that the tradition which forms the groundwork of
the legend is none other than the old myth, or that the four chief actors in
the drama are none other than Demeter and Core, Pluto and Triptolemus.
Pluto, masked as a Turkish agha, is perhaps the least readily recognisable;
yet in one way as a relic of ancient tradition the part he plays is the most
remarkable in the whole legend. It is to Souli in Epirus that he carries off
the maiden. Now this is the district of the ancient Cocytus and Acheron;
here was one of the descents to the lower world; here Aidoneus held sway;
and here, in one version of the myth[148], was laid the scene of the rape of
Persephone by that god. Hence the claims of two separate localities to the
same mythological distinction seem by some means to have become
incorporated in the single modern legend.
In the same part of Epirus, according to Lenormant, a similar story to that
which he heard at Eleusis concerning S. Demetra’s daughter, is told, mutatis
mutandis, of S. Demetrius: but since either a sense of propriety or a want of
knowledge prevented him from publishing the details of it, the mere
statement that it existed is of no great value. But the legend which he
narrates in full may I think be accepted as genuine without corroboration on
the grounds of its own structure. Lenormant has indeed been accused of
mala fides in his own department of archaeology and of tampering with
some of the inscriptions which he published; but even if this charge could
be substantiated, I should doubt whether he had either the inclination to

invent a legend which he only mentions in a cumbrous foot-note, or the
ability to fuse ancient and modern ideas into so good an imitation of the
genuine folk-story. In my judgement the construction of the legend is
practically proof of its genuinely popular origin.
Thus Eleusis and, in a lesser degree, the many places where S. Demetrius
has succeeded to the chief functions of Demeter have hardly yet lost touch
with the ancient worship of the goddess, Christianised in form though it
may be. But Arcadia too, where alone of all the Peloponnese the indigenous
population were secure from the Achaean and Dorian immigrations and
maintained in seclusion the holiest of Pelasgian cults, preserves to the
present day in story and in custom some vestiges of the old religion; and
here they are less tinged with Christian colour.
Near the city of Pheneos, which according to Pausanias[149] was the scene
of mysteries similar to those enacted at Eleusis, there are some underground
channels by which the waters of Lake Pheneos are carried off, soon to
reappear as the river Ladon. These channels were believed by Pausanias
himself to be artificial—the work of Heracles, it was said, who also
constructed a canal close by, traces of which are still visible: but according
to another authority[150] they were the passage by which Pluto carried off
Persephone to the infernal regions. Some memory of the latter belief seems
still to linger among the people of Phoniá (the modern form of Pheneós),
who call these subterranean vents ἡ τρούπαις τοῦ διαβόλου, ‘the holes of
the devil,’ and who further believe that it is through them that the spirits of
the dead pass to the lower world. My guide informed me also that the rise
or fall of the waters of the lake—the level varies to an extraordinary degree
—furnishes an augury as to what rate of mortality may be expected in the
village. If the water is high, the lower world is for the time being congested
and requires no more inhabitants; if it sinks, the lower world is empty, and
thirsts for fresh victims. The connexion of such beliefs with the cult of
Persephone, though vague, is probably real; but how general they may be
among the present villagers I cannot say; Dodwell[151] apparently heard
nothing of them except the name of ‘the devil’s holes,’ and the explanation
of this name which was given to him took the form of a story about a
conflict between the devil and a king of Phoniá, in which the former hurled
explosive balls of grease at his adversary, one of which set him on fire and
drove his body right through the base of the mountain which rises from the

lake’s edge, leaving thereafter an escape for the waters. There is certainly
nothing in common between this story, which Leake also heard in a slightly
different version[152], and the beliefs communicated to me; and I suspect
that it is a comparatively modern aetiological fable designed perhaps to
satisfy the curiosity of children concerning the name. The belief that the
subterranean channel is a descent to the lower world is more clearly a
vestige of the old local cult of Kore.
Again in the neighbourhood of Phigalia there is current among the
peasantry a curious story which I tried in vain to hear recited in full, but
only obtained in outline at second-hand. I cannot consequently vouch for its
accuracy, but such as it is I give it. There once were a brother and sister, of
whom the former was very wicked and a magician, while the latter was
very virtuous and beautiful. Her beauty was indeed so wonderful, that her
brother became enamoured of her. In her distress she fled to a cave near
Phigalia, hoping to elude his pursuit; but the magician straightway
discovered her. Then being at her wits’ end how to save herself from the
unholy passion which her beauty inspired, she prayed to be turned into
some beast. Her prayer was straightway granted, but the wicked magician
had power to change himself likewise. So when they had both been changed
into several shapes he at length overcame her. But no sooner was the
infamous deed done, than the Panagia caused an earthquake, and the roof of
the cave fell and destroyed both brother and sister together.
A story of incest necessarily ends at the present day among the highly moral
countryfolk of Greece with punishment inflicted by some Christian deity:
but for the rest the story is practically the same as that which Pausanias
heard concerning Poseidon and his sister Demeter in the same district[153].
In the old version, which Pausanias gives very briefly, there is only one
transformation mentioned, that of Demeter into a mare and of Poseidon into
a horse; but it is at least noteworthy that the statue of horse-headed Demeter
which commemorated this incident is said to have had ‘figures of snakes
and other wild animals’ fixed on its head; and possibly, if Pausanias had
given a fuller version of the myth, we should find that these figures related
to other transformations which Demeter had tried in vain before in equine
form she was finally forced to yield. The mention of the cave in the modern
story is also significant; for though the cave in the ancient version is not the
scene of the rape, it was there that Demeter hid herself in her anger

afterwards and there too that the statue of horse-headed Demeter was set up.
It would be interesting to know whether the horse is one of the forms
assumed in the modern story; perhaps some other traveller will be fortunate
enough to hear the tale in full.
In northern Arcadia I also learnt that the flesh of the pig, in respect of which
the ordinary Graeculus fully deserves the epithet esuriens, is taboo; and the
result of eating it is believed to be leprosy. It might be supposed that this
superstition has resulted from contact with Mohammedans; but such an
explanation would not account for the confinement of it to one locality—
and that a mountainous and unprofitable district where intercourse with the
Turks must have been small; and further the Greek would surely have found
a malicious pleasure, the most piquant of sauces, in eating that which
offended the two peoples whom he most abhors, Turks and Jews. On the
other hand, if we suppose this fear of swine’s flesh to be a piece of native
tradition, its origin may well be sought in the ritual observances of the old
cult of Demeter and her daughter, to whom the pig was sacred and in whose
honour it was sacrificed once only in each year, at the festival of the
Thesmophoria[154]. There are many instances among different peoples of
the belief that skin diseases, especially leprosy, are the punishment visited
upon those who eat of the sacred or unclean animal; for the distinction
between sacred and unclean is not made until a primitive sense of awe is
inclined by conscious reasoning in the direction either of reverence or of
abhorrence[155]. Thus in Egypt, the land from which the Pelasgians, if
Herodotus[156] might be believed, derived the worship of Demeter, it was
held that the drinker of pig’s milk incurred leprosy[157]; and we may
reasonably suppose that the same punishment threatened those Egyptians
who tasted of pig’s flesh save at their one annual festival when this was
enjoined[158]. Now the Thesmophoria resembled this Egyptian festival in
that it was an annual occasion for sacrificing pigs and for partaking
therefore of their flesh; if then the worshippers of Demeter, like the
Egyptians, were forbidden to use the pig for food at other times, and if the
penalty for disobedience in Greece too was believed to be leprosy, the
present case of taboo in Arcadia—the only one known to me in modern
Greece—may be a survival from the ancient cult.
But apart from these traces of the worship of Demeter and Kore in Christian
worship, in folk-story, and in custom, traces which constitute in themselves

cogent proof of the firm hold on the popular mind which the goddesses
twain must long have kept, there exists in the belief of the Greek peasantry
a personal Power, a living non-Christian deity, who still inspires awe in
many simple hearts and who may reasonably be identified with one or
rather perhaps with both of them.
For it must not be forgotten that the mother and the daughter were in origin
and symbolism one. The idea of life’s ebb and flow, of nature’s sleeping and
waking, is expressed in them severally as well as conjointly. It would be
impossible to analyse the complete myth and, even if a purely physical
interpretation were sought, to express in physiological terms the two
persons and the parts which they play: for certain ideas find duplicate
expression. Either Demeter’s retirement to some dark cave or the descent of
Persephone to the underworld might have represented alone and unaided
the temporary abeyance of earth’s productive powers. Yet it was with good
reason that the myth expanded as it were spontaneously until the spirit of
life, that pervades not only the cornfield but all that is animal and human
too, was pourtrayed in double form; not because the mere physical fact of
the decay and the revival of vegetation needed larger symbolism for its due
expression, but because in the tie of mother and daughter and all that it
connotes was fitly represented that by which the life-spirit works among the
higher orders of created things, that which goes before life’s manifestations
and outlasts its vanishings, the spirit of love.
Of all such ideas as these the modern peasant, needless to say, is wholly
innocent. He has learnt from his ancestors of a woman beautiful, reverend,
deathless, who dwells within a mountain of his land, and who by her
dealings with mankind has proved her real and divine puissance. Her name
is no more uttered, perchance because it is too holy for men of impure lips;
they speak only of ‘the Mistress.’ She is a real person, not the
personification of any natural force. The tiller of the land foresees his yearly
gain from cornfield and vineyard; the shepherd on the mountain-side
expects the yearly increase of his flock; but by neither is any principle
inferred therefrom, much less is such a principle personified; the blessing
which rests on field and fold is the work of a living goddess’ hands. Flesh
and blood she is, even as they themselves, but immortal and very mighty,
nobler than many of whom the priests preach, stronger to help the good and
to punish the wicked. Simple people they are, who still believe such things,

and ignorant; yet less truly ignorant than some half-educated pedants of the
towns who vaunt their learning in chattering of ‘Ceres’ rather than of
‘Demeter’ and, misled by Roman versifiers who at least had an excuse in
the exigencies of metre, misinterpret the name as a mere synonym for corn.
Happily however the influence of the schools—for it is amongst the
schoolmasters that the worst offenders in this respect are to be found—is
not yet all-reaching, and in the remoter villages tradition is still untainted.
There without fear of ridicule men may still confess their faith in the great
compassionate goddess.
It was in Aetolia that I first recognised the popular belief in this deity. There
I heard tell of one who was called ἡ κυρὰ τοῦ κόσμου, ‘the mistress of the
world.’ Her dwelling was in the heart of a mountain, the means of access to
it a cave, but where situated, the peasants either did not know or feared to
tell. Her character indeed was ever gracious and kindly, but it may be they
thought she would resent a foreigner’s approach. In her power was the
granting of many boons, but her special care was the fertility of the flocks
and the abundance of the crops, including in that district tobacco.
This revelation convinced me of the accuracy of what I had previously
suspected only in North Arcadia and in Messenia. In both those regions I
had heard occasional mention among the peasants of one whose title was
simply ἡ δέσποινα, ‘the Mistress.’ The word had always struck me as
curious, for in ordinary usage it is obsolete and the mistress of a house or
whatever it may be is always ἡ κυρά (i.e. κυρία). Knowing however that the
Church had preserved the title ἡ δέσποινα among those under which the
Virgin may be invoked, I was disposed at first to think that the dedication of
some church in the neighbourhood had influenced the people to use the rare
name ἡ δέσποινα instead of the ordinary ‘Panagia.’ But when I enquired
where the church of ‘the Mistress’ was, the answer was ‘she has none’: and
yet, on making subsequent enquiries of other persons, I found that there was
a church of the Panagia close by. Clearly then it was not in the ecclesiastical
sense that the title ἡ δέσποινα was being used. More than this I failed to
elicit—the peasants of the Peloponnese are on the whole more suspicious
and secretive than those of northern Greece—but I have little doubt that this
goddess is the same as she who in Aetolia bears a title more colloquial in
form but identical in meaning.

The existence of this deity among the survivals of the old religion has
never, I think, been observed by any writer on the subject of Greek folk-
lore. But in Bernhard Schmidt’s collection of popular stories and songs
there is evidence, whose value he himself did not recognise, to corroborate
it. One of the songs[159] from Zacynthos contains the lines:

Ἔκαμ’ ὁ Θεὸς κι’ ἡ Παναγι̯ὰ κι’ ἡ Δέσποινα τοῦ κόσμου,
καὶ ἐπολέμησα με Τούρκους, μ’ Ἀρβανίταις·
χίλιους ἔκοψα, χίλιους καὶ δυ̯ὸ χιλιάδες.

‘They wrought in me, even God and the Virgin and the Mistress
of the world, and I fought with Turks and with Albanians: a
thousand I slew, a thousand yea and two thousand.’
The editor of this song omits from his translation and does not even
mention in his notes the last phrase of the first line, assuming, I suppose,
that the Virgin is mentioned twice over under two different titles; but it is at
least possible that three persons are intended. God and the Virgin belong to
the category of Christian deities; the third may be the pagan goddess
already discovered in Messenia, Arcadia, and Aetolia; if so, the collocation
of her name along with those of the highest Christian powers is strong
testimony to the reverence with which the people of Zacynthos too were
wont, and perhaps still continue, to regard her.
In Schmidt’s stories again yet another variation of the title occurs. In one,
which has already been narrated in full[160], ‘the Mistress of the earth and of
the sea’ (ἡ κυρὰ τσῆ γῆς και τσῆ θάλασσας) rewards a poor man, on the
recommendation of his good angel, with miraculous gifts, and when he is
slain by an envious king, herself appears and sends down the tyrant quick
into the pit where punishment for his wickedness awaits him. Another, in
which the same ample appellation is used, runs in brief as follows[161]:
‘Once upon a time a king on his return from a journey gave to his eldest son
as a present a picture of “the Mistress of the earth and of the sea.” The
prince was so dazzled by her beauty that he resolved to seek her out and
make her his wife. He accordingly consulted a witch who told him how to
find the palace where the Mistress of earth and sea lived, and warned him
also that before he could secure the fulfilment of his desire two tasks would
be set him, the first to shatter a small phial carried by a dove in its beak

without injuring the bird, the second to obtain the skin of a three-headed
dragon. She also provided him with a magic bow wherewith to perform the
first labour, and with two hairs from the dragon’s head, by means of which
he would be magically guided to the monster’s lair. Arrived there he should
glut it with a meal of earth which he was to carry with him, and then slay it
as it slept.
Thus forewarned and forearmed the prince set out and passing through a
cave, of which the witch had told him, came to the palace. The Mistress
having enquired of him his errand at once set him to perform the two tasks.
These he accomplished, and she returned with him as his wife to his own
land. But they did not live peaceably together, and one day the Mistress of
earth and sea in her anger bade the waters overflow the whole land, so that
all mankind was drowned while she herself hovered above in the air and
looked on. Then when the waters subsided, she descended to the earth and
made new men by sowing stones; and thereafter she ruled again as before
over the whole world.’
Both these stories hail, as does the song of which a few lines are cited
above, from Zacynthos, and there is therefore good reason for believing that
in that island the same ‘Mistress’ was recently acknowledged as at this very
day is venerated in those parts of the mainland which I have mentioned.
Taking the common factors in these several traditions and beliefs, we are
led at once to identify the goddess to whom they relate with Demeter.
First, the simplest form of her title, ἡ δέσποινα, of which the others are
merely elaborations, is that which Demeter commonly shared with
Persephone in old time; and that the title has been handed down from
antiquity is shown clearly by the fact that the word is in ordinary usage
obsolete. Since then it is unlikely that in the course of tradition such a title
should be transferred (save, owing to Christian influence, in the case of the
Virgin, who has locally no doubt superseded one of the goddesses twain and
appropriated her byname), the word itself declares in favour of the
identification of this still living deity with Demeter.
Secondly, her dwelling-place is consistently in the modern accounts the
heart of a mountain, and the passage to it a cave. Such precisely, according
to Pausanias, was the habitation of Demeter in Mt Elaïon[162]; and the same
idea is reflected in her whole cult; for, though in the classical period she had

temples built like those of other deities, yet her holy of holies, as befitted a
Chthonian deity, was always a subterranean hall (μέγαρον) or palace
(ἀνάκτορον), an artificial and glorified cavern.
Thirdly, the modern deity is in character benevolent, therein differing
markedly from many of the pagan powers whom we have yet to consider
and also from several of the Christian saints. Once only, in the second of the
stories from Zacynthos, does she appear in angry mood, when she destroys
all mankind by a flood. To the actual means of destruction employed too
much importance must not be attached. The motif of the flood is common in
modern Greek folk-tales. In the islands of the Aegean I encountered it
several times, the fullest version being one which I heard in Scyros. The
story as told there was exactly that of Deucalion, save that in deference to
biblical tradition he was named Noah and, by a slight anachronism, it was
the Panagia instead of Themis who counselled him to create fresh men by
throwing stones over his shoulder. I was also taken to see the place where
the flood was at its highest, a narrow glen through which runs a small
stream, whose high sloping banks are certainly a mass of half-fossilised
animal and vegetable matter; and I was escorted to the hill-top on which
Noah’s caïque finally rested. Such a theme is easily worked into a story of
the deity, usually benevolent though she be, who is ‘Mistress of the earth
and of the sea’; and apart from the means of punishment so appropriately
adopted by a goddess who rules the sea, this single outburst of somewhat
unreasonable anger on the part of the modern deity against all mankind is
singularly like the old-time Demeter’s resentful retirement into the depths
of her cave, until ‘all the produce of earth was failing and the human race
was perishing fast from famine[163].’ Yet otherwise the ancient goddess too
was benevolent and gracious to man.
Fourthly, in Aetolia at any rate and probably also in the Peloponnese, where
however I failed to extract definite information, the modern goddess is the
quickener of all the fruits of the earth, and in functions therefore
corresponds once more with the ancient conception of Demeter. On these
grounds the identification seems to me certain.
This being granted, the permanence of tradition concerning the dwelling-
place of Demeter raises a question which I approach with diffidence, feeling
that an answer to it must rest with others more competent than myself in
matters archaeological. First, is the tradition as old as that of the personality

of the goddess? It is hard to suppose otherwise; for the primitive mind
would scarcely conceive of a person without assigning also an habitation;
and the habitation actually assigned is of primitive enough character—a
cave in a mountain-side. Where then was Demeter worshipped by the
Pelasgians in the Mycenaean age? That she was a deity much reverenced by
the dwellers in the Argive plain is certain; small idols believed to represent
Demeter Kourotrophos have been found at Mycenae[164]; others, of which
the identification is more certain, at Tiryns[165]; and at Argos, in later times,
Demeter continued to be worshipped under the title Pelasgian[166]. Was a
mere cavern then her only home? Or did Mycenae lavish some of its gold
on building her a more worthy temple? May not the famous bee-hive
structures which have passed successively for treasuries and for tombs of
princes prove to be μέγαρα, temples of Chthonian deities such as Demeter?
It is true that in some humbler structures of the same type, such as those at
Menídi and Thoricus, clear evidences of inhumation have been found; but I
question whether it is permissible to draw from this fact the inference that
those magnificent structures also, the so-called Treasuries of Atreus and of
Minyas, were in reality tombs. It would seem reasonable to suppose that
dwelling-places for the dead beneath the earth and for earth-deities may
have been constructed on the same plan, but that the abodes dedicated to
immortals were more imposing than those destined for dead men. This
hypothesis appears to me more consistent with the evidence of the actual
sites at Mycenae and Orchomenos than the commonly accepted view that
the inner chamber of the ‘Treasury of Atreus’ was a place of burial. ‘In the
centre of the Mycenaean chamber,’ says Schuchhardt[167], ‘there is an
almost circular depression three feet in diameter and two feet in depth, cut
into the rocky ground. In spite of its unusual shape, we must recognise in it
the actual site of the grave.’ Was it a royal posture to lie curled up like a
cat? And if so, what of a similar depression in the floor of the ‘Treasury of
Minyas’ at Orchomenos? ‘Almost in the centre of the treasure-room’—I
again quote Schuchhardt[168]—‘was a long hole in the level rock, nine
inches deep, fifteen inches broad and nineteen inches long, which’—must
be recognised as the sepulchre of a royal baby? No, our faith is not to be so
severely taxed;—‘which must have served to secure some monument.’ May
we not, with more consistency, extend the same explanation to Mycenae?
And what then were the monuments? May they not have been images of the

deity set up in the most natural place, the centre of the outer or the inner
sanctuary?
Again, the actual shape of the buildings is important. Ethnologists tell us
that it is ultimately derived from a type of dwelling commonly occupied by
primitive man, a circular wattle-hut with conical top; or even more directly,
as some would have it, from a similarly shaped abode which the ancient
Phrygians used to excavate in the ground, constructing the top of withies
laced over beams converging to the apex and covered over with earth, while
they tunnelled out an approach from one side where the ground sloped
conveniently away[169]. From this it is argued that the domed chambers of
Mycenae must be tombs, on the ground that ‘men in all ages have fashioned
the dwellings of the dead in accordance with those of the living; but the
dead are conservative, and long after a new generation has sought a new
home and a new pattern for its houses, the habitations of the dead are still
constructed in ancestral fashion[170].’ I readily admit conservatism in all
religious matters; but how does the argument touch Mycenae?
Archaeologists, and among them Schuchhardt himself[171], are agreed that
the shaft-graves in the citadel are earlier in date than the bee-hive structures
of the lower town. There was therefore a breach in the continuity of the
ancestral fashion. Reversion to a disused fashion is a very different thing
from conservatism in upholding an unbroken usage.
But even supposing that there were good evidence of the uninterrupted
continuity of this type of sepulchre, may not the temples of Chthonian
deities have been built on the same plan? The use of the old word μέγαρον
suggests that the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, though
subterranean, was modelled on the dwellings of men, and, to borrow an
argument, religious conservatism may well have preserved for the gods’
abodes the hut-like shape of primitive man’s dwellings long after a new
type of house had become general among mortals. Concrete instances of
this actually existed in much later times[172]. In Rome the temple of Vesta
was of this primitive shape, and so also most probably was the Prytaneum
of Athens, which, though not a temple, contained the sacred hearth of the
whole community and a statue of Hestia[173]. Demeter then, as one of the
deities of primitive Greece, might well have been provided with a temple
constructed on the same primitive pattern as that of Vesta, but subterranean,
as would befit a Chthonian deity, and thus analogous to the cave wherein

she had been wont to dwell. The large domed chamber would be her
megaron, wherein her worshippers assembled just as guests assembled in
the megaron of a prince. The small square apartment, where such exists,
opening on one side of the main room, might be the παστάς or
‘bedchamber,’ an inner sanctuary which temples of later ages also
possessed. The approach or ‘dromos’ would represent the natural cave
which had given access to her fabled palace in the bowels of the earth.
Finally, on such a view of these buildings, it would not be difficult to
explain Pausanias’ belief that they were treasuries[174]. Treasuries only, we
may be sure, they were not; for they would not have been built outside the
walls of the citadel. But temples in later times were used as depositories for
treasure; the would-be thief shrank apparently from the further crime of
sacrilege; and it is not unlikely that in a more primitive age, when
superstitious awe was certainly no less strong, while robbery far from being
a crime was an honourable calling, men should have secured their treasure
by storing it in some inviolable sanctuary. Indeed it may be to such a
custom that Homer alludes in speaking of ‘all that the stone threshold of the
archer, even Phoebus Apollo, doth enclose within at rocky Pytho[175].’ If
then this practice prevailed in Mycenaean, as it did in later, times, Pausanias
would be recording a tradition which was partially right; and it is not hard
to see how, when Mycenae’s greatness had suddenly, as it seems, declined
and her population perhaps had migrated for the most part to Argos, later
generations, familiar in their new settlements with that different type of
temple only which afterwards became general, might have forgotten the
sacred character of the bee-hive structures and have remembered only the
proverbial wealth once stored by the kings of Mycenae within them.
There remains one point to which I may for the moment direct attention
here, reserving the development of the religious idea contained in it for a
later chapter. The main theme of the second of the stories from Zacynthos
was the seeking of the Mistress in marriage by a young prince. Now if this
story stood alone, it would not be right to lay much stress upon it; for the
adventures of a young prince in search of some far-famed bride form the
plot of numerous Greek folk-tales; and it would be possible to suppose that
the real divine personality of the Mistress had been partially obscured in the
popular memory before such a story became connected with her name. But
the same motif as it happens is repeated in two stories, one Greek and the

other Albanian, in von Hahn’s collection[176]. The name of ‘the Mistress’
does not indeed occur; the deity is called in both ‘the beautiful one of the
earth[177].’ But her identity is made quite clear in the Albanian story, which
evidently must have been borrowed from the Greek and is therefore
admissible as good evidence, by the mention of ‘a three-headed dog that
sleeps not day nor night’ by which she is guarded. This is undoubtedly the
same monster as the hero of the Zacynthian story was required to kill—the
three-headed snake; and while the Albanian story, in making the beast a
guardian of the subterranean abode whom the adventurer must slay before
he can reach ‘the beautiful one,’ is better in construction and, incidentally,
more faithful to old tradition[178] than the Greek version which makes the
slaying an useless task arbitrarily imposed, yet in both portraits of the
monster we can recognise Cerberus—half dog, half snake. But of him more
anon; ‘the beautiful one of the earth’ whom he guards can be none other
than Persephone.
Thus there are three modern stories which record the winning of Demeter or
Persephone in marriage by a mortal lover. Is this a relic of ancient tradition?
There was the attempt of Pirithous to seize Persephone for his wife; but that
failed, and moreover was judged an impious deed for which he must suffer
punishment. Yet there is also the story of Iasion who was deemed worthy of
Demeter’s love. Wedlock then even with so great a deity as Demeter or her
daughter was not beyond mortals’ dream or reach. Thus much I may notice
now; when I come to examine more closely the ancient worship of these
goddesses, I shall argue that the idea of a marriage-union between them and
human kind was the most intimate secret of the mysteries, and that in such
folk-tales as those which I have here mentioned is contained the germ of a
religious conception from which was once evolved the holiest of ancient
sacraments.

§ 6. Charon.

There is no ancient deity whose name is so frequently on the lips of the
modern peasant as that of Charon. The forms which it has now assumed are
two, Χάρος and Χάροντας, analogous to the formations γέρος and γέροντας
from the ancient γέρων: for in late Greek at any rate the declension of
Χάρων followed that of γέρων[179]. The two forms do not seem to belong to
different modern dialects, for they often appear in close juxtaposition in the
same folk-song. The shorter form however is the commoner in every-day
speech, and I shall therefore employ it.
About Charos the peasants will always, according to my experience,
converse freely. Neither superstitious awe nor fear of ridicule imposes any
restraint. They feel perhaps that the existence of Charos is one of the stern
facts which men must face; and even the more educated classes retain
sometimes, I think, an instinctive fear of making light of his name, lest he
should assert his reality. For Charos is Death. He is not now, what classical
literature would have him to be, merely the ferryman of the Styx. He is the
god of death and of the lower world.
Hades is no longer a person but a place, the realm over which Charos rules.
But the change which has befallen the old monarch’s name is the only
change in the Greek conception of that realm. It is still called ‘the lower
world’ (ὁ κάτω κόσμος or ἡ κάτω γῆ), and even the name Tartarus (now τὰ
Τάρταρα, with the addition frequently of τῆς γῆς) still may be heard. Nor is
the character of the place altered. Its epithet ‘icy-cold,’ κρυοπαγωμένος, is
well-nigh as constant in modern folk-songs as was the equivalent κρυερός
in Homer’s allusions to Hades’ house, while the picturesque word
ἀραχνιασμένος, ‘thick with spiders’-webs,’ repeats in thought the Homeric
εὐρωείς, ‘mouldering.’ Such is Charos’ kingdom, and hither he conveys
men’s souls which he has snatched away from earth.
Here with him dwells his mother, a being, as one folk-song tells[180], more
pitiful than he, who entreats him sometimes, when he is setting out to the
chase, to spare mothers with young children and not to part lovers new-
wed. He has also a wife, Charóntissa or Chárissa, who as the name itself

implies is merely a feminine counterpart of himself without any distinct
character of her own. A son of Charos is also mentioned in song, for whose
wedding-feast ‘he slays children instead of lambs and brides as
fatlings[181],’ and to whose keeping are entrusted the counter-keys of
Hades[182]. Adopted children are also counted among his family, but these
are of those whom he has carried from this world to his own home[183]. The
household is completed by the three-headed watch-dog, of whom however
remembrance is very rare. Yet in two stories in the last section we
recognised Cerberus, and even the less convincing of the embodiments
there presented, that which represented him as a three-headed snake rather
than dog, is not devoid of traces of ancient tradition. The hero who would
slay the monster has to cross a piece of water—the sea instead of the river
Styx—in order to reach an island where is the monster’s lair; and there
arrived, he sees ‘looking out from a hole three heads with eyes that flash
fire and jaws that breathe flames[184].’ This is Cerberus without doubt; and
if the story calls him ‘serpent’ rather than ‘dog,’ ancient mythology and art
alike justify in part the description; for his mother was said to be Echidna,
and he himself is found pourtrayed with the tail of a serpent and a ring of
snakes about his neck. Schmidt himself appears to have overlooked the
testimony of this story and of that also from the collection of von Hahn in
which, as I have pointed out, we have a modern picture of Cerberus
guarding the realm of Persephone; for he speaks of some remarkable lines
from a song which he himself heard in Zacynthos as an unique mention of
Cerberus, and questions the genuine nature of the tradition. All doubt is
however removed by the corroborative evidence contained in the two
stories already mentioned and by the fact that a three-headed dog belonging
to Charos was recently heard of by a traveller in Macedonia[185]. The lines
themselves are put in the mouth of Charos:—

Ἔχω ὀχτρὸ ἐγὼ σκυλὶ, π’ ούλους μας μᾶς φυλάει,
κῂ ἄντας με ἰδῇ ταράζεταικὴ καὶ θέλει νά με φάῃ.
εἶναι σκυλὶ τρικέφαλο, ποῦ καίει σὰ φωτία,
ἔχει τὰ νύχια πουντερὰ καὶ τὴν ὠρὰ μακρύα.
βγάνει φωτιὰ ’φ’ τὰ μάτια του, ἀπὸ τὸ στόμα λάβρα,
ἡ γλῶσσα του εἶναι μακρυά, τὰ δόντια του εἶναι μαῦρα[186].

‘A savage dog have I, who guards us all, and when he sees me
he rages and fain would devour me. A three-headed dog is he,
and he burns like fire; his claws are sharp and his tail is long;
from his eyes he gives forth flame and from his mouth burning
heat; long is his tongue and grim his teeth.’
Here at least recognition of Cerberus must be immediate; every detail of the
description, save for the characteristically modern touch which makes
Charos afraid of his own dog, is in accord with classical tradition.
Such is the household of Charos, so far as a description may be compiled
from a few scattered allusions; his own portrait varies more, in proportion
as there are more numerous attempts in every part of Greece to draw it.
Sometimes he is depicted as an old man, tall and spare, white of hair and
harsh of feature; but more often he is a lusty warrior, with locks of raven-
black or gleaming gold—just as Hades in old time was sometimes
κυανοχαίτης, sometimes ξανθός,—who rides forth on his black steed by
highway or lonely path to slay and to ravage: ‘his glance is as lightning and
his face as fire, his shoulders are like twin mountains and his head like a
tower[187].’ His raiment is usually black as befits the lord of death, but anon
it is depicted bright as his sunlit hair[188], for though he brings death he is a
god and glorious.
His functions are clearly defined. He visits this upper world to carry off
those whose allotted time has run, and guards them in the lower world as in
a prison whose keys they vainly essay to steal and to escape therefrom. But
the spirit in which he performs those duties varies according as he is
conceived to be a free agent responsible to none or merely a minister of the
supreme God. Which of these is the true conception is a question to which
the common-folk as a whole have given no final answer; and the character
of Charos consequently depends upon the view locally preferred.
Those who regard him as simply the servant and messenger of God, find no
difficulty in accommodating him to his Christian surroundings; for, as I
have said, the peasant does not distinguish between the Christian and the
pagan elements in his faith which together make his polytheism so
luxuriant. We have already seen Charos’ name with the prefix of ‘saint[189]’;
and though this Christian title is not often accorded him, yet his name

appears commonly on tomb-stones in Christian churchyards. At Leonídi, on
the east coast of the Peloponnese, I noted the couplet:

καὶ μένα δὲν λυπήθηκε ὁ Χάρος νά με πάρῃ,
ποῦ εἴμουνα τοῦ οἴκου μου μονάκριβο βλαστάρι.

‘Me too Charos pitied not but took, even me the fondly-
cherished flower of my home.’
So too in popular story and song he is represented as working in concord
with the Angels and Archangels, to whom sometimes falls the task of
carrying children to his realm[190]. Indeed one of the archangels, Michael,
who as we saw above has ousted Hermes, the escorter of souls, and
assumed his functions, is charged with exactly the same duties as Charos in
the conveyance of men’s souls to the nether world, so that in popular
parlance the phrases ‘he is wrestling with Charos’ (παλεύει μὲ τὸ Χάρο)[191]
and ‘he is struggling with an angel’ (ἀγγελομαχεῖ)[192] are both alike used of
a man in his death-agony.
This Christianised conception of Charos has not been without influence in
softening the lines of the character popularly ascribed to him. The duties
imposed upon him by the will of God are sometimes repugnant to him, and
he would willingly spare those whom he is sent to slay. One folk-story
related to me exhibits him even as a friend of man:—
‘Once upon a time there were a man and wife who had had seven children
all of whom died in infancy. When an eighth was born, the father betook
himself to a witch and enquired of her how he might best secure the boy’s
life. She told him that the others had died because he had chosen unsuitable
godparents, and bade him on this occasion ask the first man whom he
should meet on his way home to stand sponsor for the child. He accordingly
departed, and straightway met a stranger riding on a black horse, and made
his request to him. The stranger consented, and the baptism at once took
place; but no sooner was it over than he was gone without so much as
telling his name.
Ten years passed, and the child was growing up strong and healthy. Then at
last the father again encountered the unknown stranger, and reproached him
with having been absent so long without ever making enquiry after his

godson. Then the stranger answered, “Better for thee if I had not now come
and if thou neededst not now learn my name. I am Charos, and because I
am thy friend[193], am come to warn thee that thy days are well-nigh spent.”
Thereupon Charos led him away to a cave in the mountain-side, and they
entered and came to a chamber where were many candles burning. Then
said Charos, “See, these candles are the lives of men, and yonder are thine
and thy son’s.” Then the man looked, and of his own candle there were but
two inches left, but his son’s was tall and burnt but slowly. Then he
besought Charos to light yet another candle for him ere his own were burnt
away, but Charos made answer that that could not be. Then again he
besought him to give him ten years from the life of his son, for he was a
poor man, and if he died ere his son were grown to manhood, his widow
and orphan would be in want. But Charos answered, “In no way can the
decreed length of life be changed. Yet will I show thee how in the two years
that yet remain to thee thou mayest enrich thyself and leave abundant store
for thy wife and child. Thou shalt become a physician. It matters not that
thou knowest nought of medicine, for I will give thee a better knowledge
than of drugs. Thine eyes shall ever be open to see me; and when thou goest
to a sick man’s couch, if thou dost see me standing at the bed-head, know
then that he must die, and say to them that summoned thee that no skill can
save him; but if thou dost see me at the foot of the bed, know that he will
recover; give him therefore but pills of bread if thou wilt, and promise to
restore him.” Then did the man thank Charos, and went away to his home.
Now it chanced that the only daughter of the king lay grievously sick, and
all the doctors and magicians had been called to heal her, but they availed
nothing. Then came the poor man whom Charos had taught, and went into
the room where the princess lay, and lo! Charos stood at the foot of her bed.
Then he bade the king send away the other physicians, for that he alone
could heal her. So he himself went home and mixed flour and water and
came again and gave it to the king’s daughter, and soon she was recovered
of her sickness. Then the king gave him a great present, and his fame was
spread abroad, and many resorted to him, and soon he was rich.
Thus two years passed, and at the end thereof he himself lay sick. And he
looked and saw Charos standing at the head of his bed. Then he bade his
wife turn the bed about, but it availed nothing; for Charos again stood at his

head, and caught him by the hair, and he opened his mouth to cry out, and
Charos drew forth his soul[194].’
Again the unwillingness of Charos to execute the harsh decrees of God is
illustrated in numerous folk-songs. Most often it is some brave youth,
shepherd or warrior, a lover of the open air, who excites his compassion; for
the same notes of regret which Sophocles made melodious in the farewell
of Ajax to the sunlight, to his house in Salamis, even to the streams and
springs of the Trojan land which brought his death, ring clear and true in
modern folk-song too from the lips of dying warriors. Such were the last
words of the outlaw-patriot (κλέφτης) Zedros:

‘Farewell, Olympus, now farewell, and all the mountain-summits,
Farewell, my strongholds desolate, and plane-trees rich in shadow,
Ye fountains with your waters cool, and level plains low-lying.
Farewell I bid the swift-winged hawks[195], farewell the royal
eagles,
Farewell for me the sun I love and the bright-glancing moonlight,
That lighted up my path wherein to walk a warrior worthy[196].’

Such laments are not lost upon Charos, the servant of God, but he must
needs turn a deaf ear to prayers for a respite. Clear and final comes his
answer, almost in the same words in every ballad[197],

δὲν ἠμπορῶ, λεβέντη μου, γιατ’ εἶμαι προσταμμένος,
ἐμένα μ’ ἔστειλ’ ὁ Θεὸς νὰ πάρω τὴ ψυχή σου.

‘No respite can I give, brave sir, for I am straitly chargèd;
’Tis God that sent me here to thee, sent me to take thy spirit.’

Sometimes then the doomed man will seek to tempt Charos with meat and
drink, that he may grant a few hours’ delay, but against offers of hospitality
he is obdurate. Or again his victim refuses to yield to death ‘without
weakness or sickness’ and challenges him to a trial of athletic skill, in
wrestling or leaping, whereon each shall stake his own soul. And to this
Charos sometimes gives consent, for he knows that he will win. So they
make their way to the ‘marble-paved threshing-floor,’ the arena of all manly
pursuits; and there the man perchance leaps forty cubits, yet Charos

surpasses him by five; or they wrestle together from morn till eve, but at the
last bout Charos is victor. One hero indeed is known to fame, whose
exploits make him the Heracles of modern Greece, Digenes the Cyprian,
who wrestled with Charos for three nights and days and was not
vanquished. But then ‘there came a voice from God and from the
Archangels, “Charos, I sent thee not to engage in wrestlings, but that thou
should’st carry off souls for me[198].”’ And at that rebuke Charos
transformed himself into an eagle and alighted on the hero’s head and
plucked out his soul.
The other and more pagan conception of Charos excludes all traits of
kindness and mercy; and men do not stint the expression of their hatred of
him. He is ‘black,’ ‘bitter,’ ‘hateful’ (μαῦρος[199], πικρός, στυγερός). He is
the merciless potentate of the nether world, independent of the God of
heaven, equally powerful in his own domain, but more terrible, more
inexorable: for his work is death and his abode is Hades. Thence he issues
forth at will, as a hunter to the chase. ‘Against the wounds that Charos deals
herbs avail not, physicians give no cure, nor saints protection[200].’ His
quarry is the soul of man; ‘where he finds three, he takes two of them, and
where he finds two, takes one, and where he finds but one alone, him too he
takes[201].’ Sometimes he is enlarging his palace, and he takes the young
and strong to be its pillars; sometimes he is repairing the tent in which he
dwells, and uses the stout arms of heroes for tent-pegs and the tresses of
bright-haired maidens for the ropes; sometimes he is laying out a garden,
and he gathers children from the earth to be the flowers of it and young men
to be its tall slim cypresses; more rarely he is a vintager, and tramples men
in his vat that their blood may be his red wine, or again he carries a sickle
and reaps a human harvest.
But most commonly he is the warrior preëminent in all manner of prowess
—archer, wrestler, horseman. Once a bride boasted that she had no fear of
Charos, for that her brothers were men of valour and her husband a hero;
then came Charos and shot an arrow at her, and her beauty faded; a second
and a third arrow, and he stretched her on her death-bed[202]. Often in the
pride of strength have young warriors laughed Charos to scorn; then has he
come to seize the strongest of them, and though the warrior strain and
struggle as in a wrestling-match, yet Charos wearies not but wins the
contest by fair means or foul: for he is no honourable foe, but dishonest

above thieves, more deceitful than women[203]: he seizes his adversary by
the hair and drags him down to Hades. Even more striking is the picture of
Charos as horseman riding forth on his black steed to the foray, and it is this
conception which has inspired one of the finest achievements of the popular
muse:—

Why stand the mountains black and sad, their brows enwrapped in
darkness?
Is it a wind that buffets them? is it a storm that lashes?
No, ’tis no wind that buffets them, nor ’tis no storm that lashes;
But ’tis great Charos passing by, and the dead passing with him.
He drives the young men on before, he drags the old behind him,
And at his saddle-bow are ranged the helpless little children.
The children cling and cry to him, the old men call beseeching,
“Good Charos, at some hamlet halt, halt at some cooling fountain;
There let the young men heave the stone, the old men drink of
water,
There let the little children go agathering pretty posies.”
“No, not at hamlet will I halt, nor yet at cooling fountain,
Lest mothers come draw water there and know their little children,
Lest wife and husband meet again and there be no more parting.”

Such is the more pagan presentment of the modern Charos, a tyrant as
absolute in his own realm as God in heaven, a veritable Ζεὺς ἄλλος[204] as
was Hades of old, but hard of heart, heedless of prayer, delighting in
cruelty.
At first sight then the Charos of modern Greece would seem to have little in
common with the Charon of ancient Greece beyond the name and some
connexion with death: and Fauriel, in the introduction to his collection of
popular songs, pronounces the opinion that in this case the usual tendencies
of tradition have been reversed, in that it is the name that has survived,
while the attributes have been changed[205]. To this judgement I cannot
subscribe. I suspect that in ancient times the literary presentation of Charon
was far more circumscribed than the popular, and that out of a profusion of
imaginative portraitures as varied as those seen in the folk-songs of to-day
one aspect of Charon became accepted among educated men as the correct
and fashionable presentment. Hades was, in literature, the despot of the

lower world, and for Charon no place could be found save that of ferryman.
But this, I think, was only one out of the many guises in which the ancient
Charon was figured by popular imagination; for at the present day the
remnants of such a conception are small, in spite of the fact that there has
remained a custom which should have kept it alive—the custom of putting a
coin in the mouth of the dead.
Only in one folk-song, recorded from Zacynthos, can I find the old literary
representation of Charon as ferryman of the Styx unmistakably reproduced.
The following is a literal rendering:—‘Across the river that none may ford
Charos was passing, and one soul was on the bank and gave him greeting.
“Good Charos, long life to thee, well-beloved; take me, even me, with thee,
take me, dear Charos! A poor man’s soul was I, even of a poor man and a
beggar; men left me destitute and I perished for lack of a crumb of barley-
bread. No last rites did they give me, they gave me none, poor soul, not
even a farthing in my mouth for thee who dost await me. Poor were my
children, poor and without hope; destitute were they and lay in death
unburied, poor souls. Them thou did’st take, good Charos, them thou did’st
take, I saw thee, when thy cold hand seized them by the hair. Take me too,
Charos, take me, take me, poor soul; take me yonder, take me yonder, no
other waiteth for thee.” Thus cried to him the poor man’s soul, and Charos
made answer, “Come, soul, thou art good, and God hath pitied thee.” Then
took he the soul and set her on the other bank, and spreading then his sail he
sped far away[206].’
In another song[207] of the same collection, hailing also from Zacynthos,
there may be a reminiscence of the same old tradition. In it Charos has a
caïque with black sails and black oars and goes to and fro—whence and
whither is not told—with cargoes of the dead. But more probably the
imagery is borrowed from seafaring; the Greek peasant would hardly
imagine a caïque plying on a river; the streams of his own country will
seldom carry even a small bark. A sea-voyage on the other hand is,
especially in the imagination of islanders, the most natural method of
departure to a far-off country. From the sea certainly comes the metaphor in
a funeral dirge from Zacynthos in which the mourner asks of the dead,

σὲ τὶ καράβι θὰ βρεθῇς καὶ ’σ τὶ πόρτο θ’ ἀράξῃς;[208]

‘In what boat wilt thou be and at what haven wilt thou land?’
This too is claimed by Schmidt[209] as a reminiscence of Charon’s ferry—
somewhat unfortunately; for the next line continues,

γιὰ νἄρθῃ ἡ μανοῦλα σου νά σε ξαναγοράσῃ,

‘That thy mother may come and ransom thee again.’

Now in another dirge[210] also heard by Schmidt in the same island, this
idea is worked out even more fully: the mother cries to the master of the
ship that bears away her lost son not to sell him, and offers high ransom for
him; but the dead man in answer bids her keep her treasure; ‘not till the
crow doth whiten and become a dove, must thou, mother mine, look for me
again.’ Clearly the imagery is borrowed not from the ferry-boat of Charon
plying for hire, but from a descent of pirates who carry men off to hold
them to ransom or to sell them for slaves. In neither dirge is Charos actually
named, but doubtless he is understood to be the captain of the pirates; for in
more than one dirge of Laconia and Maina he is explicitly called
κουρσάρος, a corsair[211].
Here then we have yet another presentation of the modern Charos; but of
Charon the ferryman there is no sure remembrance except in one song from
Zacynthos. Nor again, save in that one song, is the river of death imagined
as an impassable barrier; it is rather a stream of Lethe: no boatman is
needed to carry the dead across; but mention is made only of ‘the loved
ones, that pass the river and drink the water thereof, and forget their homes
and their orphan children[212]’—just as in the mountains there are ‘springs
in marble grots, whereat the wild sheep drink and remember no more their
lambs[213].’ It is the drinking of the water, not the passing of the stream,
which frees the dead from aching memories: the picture is wholly different
from that of a river which cannot be crossed but by grace of the ferryman.
The general oblivion into which the ancient conception of Charon has fallen
is the more remarkable, as I have said, in view of the survival of a custom
which in antiquity was closely associated with it. In parts of Macedonia,
Thrace, and Asia Minor the practice prevails[214], or till recently prevailed,
of placing in the mouth (or more rarely on the breast) of the dead a small

coin, which in the environs of Smyrna is actually known as τὸ περατίκι,
passage-money[215]. In the Cyclades and in parts of the Greek mainland I
myself have met aged persons who could recall the existence of the custom:
a century or two ago it was probably frequent. But there is less evidence
that the coin was commonly intended for Charos. Protodikos indeed, the
authority for the existence of the custom in Asia Minor, writing in 1860,
says expressly that the coin was designed for Charos as ferryman; and the
name of ‘passage-money’ locally given to the coin tends to confirm the
statement of a writer whom I have found in some other matters inaccurate.
Another authority[216] moreover, writing also in 1860, states that at
Stenimachos in Thrace ‘until a short time ago’ the coin was laid in the
mouth of the dead actually for Charos; nor can there be any question that
the classical interpretation of the custom survived long in Zacynthos, as is
evidenced by the complaint of the poor man’s soul in the song translated
above,

’στερνὰ ἐμὲ δὲ μοὔδωκαν, δε μοὔδωκαν τσῆ καϋμένης,
μήτε λεφτὸ ’στὸ στόμα μου γιὰ σὲ ποῦ περιμένεις,

‘No last rites did they give me, they gave me none, poor soul,
not even a farthing in my mouth for thee (Charos) who awaitest
me.’
Yet Schmidt, who recorded these lines from Zacynthos, found that the
actual custom was barely remembered there. He met indeed, in 1863, one
old woman aged eighty-two, who as a child had known the practice of
putting a copper in the mouth of the dead as also that of laying a key on the
corpse’s breast; but of the purpose of the coin she knew nothing; the key
she believed to be useful for opening the gates of Paradise. For myself,
though I have heard mention of the use of the coin, I have never known it to
be associated with Charos. I incline therefore to the opinion that in most
places where the custom is or has recently been practised, it has outlived the
interpretation which was in classical times put upon it.
But was the classical interpretation a true index to the origin of the custom?
Was it anything more than an aetiological explanation of a custom whose
significance even in an early age had already become obscured by lapse of
time? One thing at least has been made certain by the modern study of

folklore, namely that a custom may outlive not only the idea which gave it
birth but even successive false ideas which it has itself engendered in the
minds of men who have sought vainly to explain it. When therefore
Lucian[217] stated that ‘they put an obol in the dead man’s mouth as boat-
fare for the ferryman,’ it is possible that he was recording a late and
incorrect interpretation of a custom which had existed before the rôle of
ferryman had ever been invented for Charon. Further if that interpretation
had been in the main a literary figment, it would have been natural for the
original meaning of the custom to be still remembered among the unlettered
common-folk of outlying districts. There are plenty of cases in modern
Greece in which different explanations of the same custom are offered in
different localities. In spite therefore of the fact that one view only found
expression in classical literature, there is no antecedent improbability in the
supposition that an older view may have been handed down even to recent
generations in the purer oral traditions of the common-folk.
Once only, from a fellow-traveller in the Cyclades, did I obtain any
explanation at all of the use of the coin, εἶναι καλὸ γιὰ τἀερικά[218], ‘it is
useful because of the aërial ones.’ This sounds vague enough, but nothing
more save gestures of uncertainty could I elicit. Was the coin useful, in his
view, as a fee to be paid to ‘the aërial ones’ on the soul’s journey from this
world to the next, or as a charm against the assaults of such beings? That
was the question to which I sought an answer from him, but in vain. For
myself I cannot determine in which sense the dark saying was actually
meant. The former would accord well with one local belief of the present
day, if only my informant had specified one particular kind of aërial beings
who are believed to take toll of departing souls; but to this I shall return in a
later section of this chapter[219]. The second interpretation of the words,
however, whether they were intended in that sense by the speaker or not,
furnishes what will be shown by other evidence to be the key to the origin
of the custom.
A coin is often used as a charm against sinister influences[220]. In this case
then it may have been a prophylactic against aërial spirits. Why then is it
generally put in the dead man’s mouth? Not, I think, because the mouth is a
convenient purse, as seems to be assumed in the classical interpretation of
the custom, but because the mouth is the entrance to the body. The peasants
of to-day believe as firmly as men of the Homeric age that it is through the

mouth that the soul escapes at death. The phrase μὲ τὴ ψυχὴ ’στὰ δόντια,
‘with the soul between the teeth,’ is the popular equivalent for ‘at the last
gasp’; and in the folk-songs the same idea constantly recurs; ‘open thy
mouth,’ says Charos to a shepherd whom he has thrown in wrestling, ‘open
thy mouth that I may take thy soul[221].’ Now the passage by which the soul
makes its exit, is naturally the passage by which evil spirits (or the soul[222],
if it should return,) would make their entrance; and, as we shall see later,
there is a very real fear among the peasantry that a dead body may be
entered and possessed by an evil spirit. Clearly then the mouth, by which
the spirit would enter, is the right place in which to lay the protective coin.
The interpretation which I suggest gains support from some points in
modern usage. In Macedonia, according to one traveller[223], the coin which
formerly used to be laid in the corpse’s mouth was Turkish and bore a text
from the Koran, an aggravation of the pagan custom which was made a
pretext for episcopal intervention[224]. Now clearly, if the coin had in that
district been designed as payment for the services of Charos as ferryman,
there would have been no motive for preferring one bearing an inscription
from the Mohammedan scriptures, which assuredly could not enhance the
coin’s value in the eyes of Charos: but if the coin was itself employed as a
charm against evil spirits, the sacred text might well have been deemed to
add not a little to its prophylactic properties. Thus the character of the
particular type of coin chosen indicates that the coin in itself too was at one
time viewed as a charm; a charm moreover whose effect would be precisely
that of the key which in the island of Zacynthos was also laid upon the dead
man’s breast; for the key was certainly not designed, as Schmidt’s
informant would have it, to open the gates of Paradise, but, like any other
piece of iron, served originally to scare away spirits. The use of a coin as
well as of a key in that island was merely meant to make assurance doubly
sure.
Again, in many places throughout Greece, where this use of a coin is no
longer known, a substitute of more Christian character has been found. On
the lips of the dead is laid either a morsel of consecrated bread from the
Eucharist[225], or more commonly a small piece of pottery—a fragment it
may be of any earthenware vessel—on which is incised the sign of the cross
with the legend Ι. Χ. ΝΙ. ΚΑ. (‘Jesus Christ conquers’) in the four

angles[226]. Here the choice of the inscribed words of itself seems to
indicate the intention of barring the dead man’s mouth against the entrance
of evil spirits; and as final proof of my theory I find that in both Chios[227]
and Rhodes[228], where a wholly or partially Christianised form of the
custom prevails, the charm employed is definitely understood by the people
to be a means of precaution against a devil entering the dead body and
resuscitating it. Nor must the mention of a devil in this connexion be taken
as evidence that the Chian and Rhodian interpretation of the custom is not
ancient. I shall be able to show in a later chapter that the idea of a devil
entering the corpse is only the Christian version of a pagan belief in a
possible re-animation of the corpse by the soul[229].
But there is yet another variety of the custom, in which no coin and no
Mohammedan nor Christian[230] symbol is used, but a charm whose magic
properties were in repute long before Mohammed, long before Christ,
probably long before coinage was known to Greece. Again a piece of
pottery is used, but the symbol stamped upon it is the geometrical figure ,
the ‘pentacle’ of mediaeval magic lore. In Greece it is now known as τὸ
πεντάλφα, but of its properties, beyond the fact that it serves as a
charm[231], the people have nothing to say. In the mediaeval and probably in
the yet earlier magic of Europe and the East it is one of the commonest
figures, appearing sometimes as Solomon’s seal, sometimes as the star
which led the wise men to Bethlehem, sometimes, in black colouring, as a
symbol of the principle of evil, and correspondingly, in white, as the symbol
of the principle of good. But though the figure has been known to the
magicians of many nations and many epochs, there is no reason to suppose
that it is in recent times or from other races that the Greeks have learnt it:
for it was known too by the ancient Greeks, who noted among its more
intelligible properties the fact that the five lines composing it can be drawn
without removing pencil from paper. The Pythagoreans, who called it the
πεντάγραμμον[232], are known to have attached to it some mystic value.
There is a reasonable likelihood therefore that the symbol has been handed
down in Greece as a magical charm—for we have seen how many other
methods of magic have survived—from the time of Pythagoras. Further
back we cannot penetrate; yet—vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, and there
were professors of occult sciences before Pythagoras. Was it then he who
first discovered the figure’s mystic value? Or did he merely adopt and

interpret in his own way a symbol which for long ages before him had been
endowed with magical powers? Was it perhaps this figure, graven on some
broken potsherd, which long before coinage supplied a more ready charm
protected the corpse from possession by evil spirits, or rather, in those days,
from reanimation by the soul? Who shall say? The belief, which has found
its modern expression in the engraving of Christian or Mohammedan texts
on prophylactic coins or pottery and in barring with them the door of the
lips which gives access to the corpse, is certainly primitive enough in
character to date from the dimmest prehistoric age.
If my suggestion as to the origin of the custom is correct, it was only the
accident of a coin being commonly used as the prophylactic charm, which
caused the classical association of the custom with Charon; and, once
disembarrassed of this association, the popular conception of Charon in
antiquity is more easily studied.
The literary presentation of him in the guise of a ferryman only is a
comparatively late development. The early poets know nothing of him
whatever in any character. The first literary reference to him was apparently
in the Minyad, an epic poem of doubtful but not early date, of which two
lines referring to the descent of Theseus and Pirithous to the lower world
ran thus: ‘There verily the ship whereon the dead embark, even that which
the aged Charon as ferryman doth guide, they found not at its
anchorage[233].’ These are the lines by which Pausanias believed that
Polygnotus had been guided when painting the figure of Charon in his
famous representation of the nether world at Delphi. Thenceforth this was
the one orthodox presentation of Charon in both literature and art. Euripides
and Aristophanes in numerous passages[234] both alike conform to it, and
the painters of funeral vases were equally faithful.
But there is evidence to show that this was not the popular conception of
Charon, or at any rate not the whole of it. Phrases occur (and were probably
current in classical times) which seem to imply a larger conception of
Charon’s office and functions. The ‘door of Charon’ (Χαρώνειος θύρα[235]
or Χαρώνειον[236]) was that by which condemned prisoners were led out to
execution. The ‘staircase of Charon’ (Χαρώνειος κλίμαξ[237]) was that by
which ghosts in drama ascended to the stage, as if they were appearing from
the nether world. To Charon likewise were ascribed in popular parlance

many caverns of forbidding aspect, particularly those that were filled with
mephitic vapours—Χαρώνεια βάραθρα[238], σπήλαια[239], ἄντρα[240].
Finally Χαρωνῖται is Plutarch’s[241] rendering of the Latin Orcini, the
sobriquet given to the low persons whom Caesar brought up into the
Senate. These uses point to a popular conception of Charon larger than
classical art and literature reveal, and justify Suidas’ simple identification of
Charon with death[242].
Moreover once in Euripides, for all his strict adherence to the conventional
literary characterisation of Charon, a glimpse of popular thought is reflected
in the person of Death (Θάνατος) and the part which he plays in the
Alcestis. First, in the altercation between Apollo and Death over the fate of
Alcestis, there occur the words, ‘Take her and go thy way; for I know not
whether I should persuade thee’; to which Death answers, ‘Persuade me to
slay those whom I must? nay, ’tis with this that I am charged’ (τοῦτο γὰρ
τετάγμεθα[243]). Can it be a mere coincidence that, in modern folk-song,
when some doomed man seeks to persuade Charos to grant a respite, he
answers, ‘Nay, brave sir, I cannot; for I am straitly charged’? The very word
‘charged,’ προσταμμένος, the modern form of προστεταγμένος, repeats the
word placed by Euripides in the mouth of Death. Secondly, Death appears
in warrior-guise, just as does Charos most commonly in modern folk-songs;
he is girt with a sword[244], and it is by wrestling[245] that Heracles
vanquishes him and makes him yield up his prey. Is this again a mere
coincidence? Or was Euripides, in his personification of Death, utilising the
character popularly assigned to Charon? It looks indeed in one line as if the
poet had almost forgotten that he was not using the popular name also;
otherwise there is no excuse for the inelegance of making Death inflict
death[246]. It is hardly surprising that the copyist of one[247] of the extant
manuscripts of the Alcestis was so impressed with the likeness of Death to
Charon as he knew him, that he altered the name of the dramatis persona
accordingly.
In the Anthology again Charon appears several times[248] acting in a more
extended capacity than that of ferryman; as in modern folk-songs, he
actually seizes men and carries them off to the nether world. One epigram is
particularly noticeable as seeming to have been suggested by a passage of
the Alcestis. ‘Is there then any way whereby Alcestis might come unto old

age?’ asks Apollo; and Death answers, ‘There is none; I too must have the
pleasure of my dues.’ ‘Yet,’ says Apollo, ‘thou wilt not get more than the
one soul,’—be it now or later. And similarly the epigram from the
Anthology, save that Death is frankly named Charon. ‘Charon ever
insatiable, why hast thou snatched away Attalus needlessly in his youth?
Was he not thine, an he had died old?’
Clearly, it would seem, Euripides knew a popular conception of Charon
other than that which literary and artistic tradition had crystallised as the
orthodox presentation, but rather than break through the conventions by
bringing Charon on the stage otherwise than as ferryman, he had recourse to
a purely artificial personification of death.
But the conception of Charon as lord of death can be traced yet further back
than the time of Euripides. Hesychius states that the title Ἀκμονίδης[249]
was shared by two gods, Charon and Uranus. Charon therefore, as son of
Acmon and brother of Uranus, is earlier by two long generations of gods
than Zeus himself, and belongs to the old Pelasgian order of deities. Was
Charon then the god of death among the old Pelasgian population of
Greece, before ever the name of Hades or Pluto had been invented or
imported? Yes, if the corroboration from another Pelasgian source, the
Etruscans, is to count for anything. On an Etruscan monument figures the
god of death with the inscription ‘Charun’[250]; and the same person is
frequently depicted on urns, sarcophagi, and vases[251]. Usually the door of
the nether world is to be seen behind him; either he is issuing forth to seek
his prey, or he is about to enter there with a victim who stands close beside
him, his hand clasped in that of wife or friend to whom he bids
farewell[252]. In appearance he is most often an old bearded man (though a
more youthful type is also known) bearing an axe or mallet, and more rarely
a sword as well, wherewith he pursues men and slays them[253]. In effect the
Etruscan Charun closely corresponds with the modern Greek Charos in
functions as well as in name. The coincidence allows of one explanation
only. The Greeks of the present day must have inherited their idea of Charos
from ancestors who were closely connected with the Etruscans and to
whom Charon was the god of death who came to seize men’s souls and
carry them off to his realm in the nether world. These ancestors can only
have been the original Pelasgian population of Greece. In classical times the
primitive conception of Charon was in abeyance. Hades had assumed the

reins of government in the nether world; and a literary legend, which
confined Charon to the work of ferryman, had gained vogue and supplanted
or rather temporarily suppressed the older conception. But this version, it
appears, never gained complete mastery of the popular imagination, and to
the common-folk of Greece from the Pelasgian era down to this day Charon
has ever been more warrior than ferryman, and his equipment an axe or
sword or bow rather than a pair of sculls. More is to be learnt of the real
Charon of antiquity from modern folk-lore than from all the allusions of
classical literature.

§ 7. Aphrodite and Eros.

In the story of S. Demetra communicated to Lenormant at Eleusis and
narrated above, we have already had one instance of the preservation of
Aphrodite’s name. ‘Since the lady Aphrodite (ἡ κυρὰ ‘φροδίτη) none had
been seen so lovely’ as S. Demetra’s daughter. Another story related to
Perrot[254] by an Attic peasant in the year 1858 contains both the name of
the goddess and some reminiscences of her worship. The gist of it is as
follows. There once was a very beautiful queen, by name Aphrodite, who
had a castle at Daphni (just half-way on the road from Athens to Eleusis)
and also owned the heights of Acro-Corinth; these two places she had
caused to be connected by a subterranean way which passed under the sea.
Now there were two kings both of whom were smitten with her beauty and
sought her hand in marriage. She herself favoured one of them and hated
the other; but not wishing to declare her preference and so arouse the anger
of the rejected suitor, she announced that she was about to build a palace on
the height of Acro-Corinth, and would set her suitors each a task to
perform; one should build the fortifications round the summit, the other
should sink a well to provide the castle with water[255]; and she promised
her hand to the suitor who should first complete his task. Now she supposed
the sinking of the well to be the lighter task and therefore assigned it to the
suitor whom she favoured; but he met with unforeseen difficulties, and his
rival meanwhile made steady progress with the walls. At last they were
wellnigh built, and it remained only to put in place the keystone over the
main gate. Then Aphrodite, marking the danger, went with winning words
and smiles and bade the builder lay aside his tools, for the prize was now
safely in his grasp, and led him away to a grassy spot where she beguiled
him so long with tender words and caresses, that the other suitor meanwhile
redoubling his efforts pierced the rock and found water in plenty.
In this story the character, as well as the name, of the queen is that of the
ancient goddess; but there are other points too deserving of notice. Perrot
points out that in the neighbourhood of the modern monastery at Daphni
there stood in antiquity a temple of Aphrodite[256]; and to this fact
Schmidt[257], in commenting on the story, adds that on the summit of Acro-

Corinth also there was a sanctuary of the goddess[258], while he accounts for
the mention of that place in an Attic story by the fact that Corinth was
specially famous for the worship of Aphrodite.
No other vestiges of the actual name, so far as I know, are to be found, save
that among certain Maniote settlers in Corsica the corrupt derivative,
Ἀφροδήτησσα[259] (which would perhaps be better spelt Ἀφροδίτισσα) was
until recent times at any rate applied to an equally corrupt class of women,
votaries of Ἀφροδίτη Πάνδημος. In a few stories however from
Zacynthos[260] the same goddess is prettily described as ἡ μάνα τοῦ
Ἔρωτα[261], ‘the Mother of Love,’ a title competent in itself to establish her
identity.
The first of these stories tells how a poor maiden fell in love with a youth of
high degree, and went to the Mother of Love to ask her help. The latter
promised to ask the assistance of her son Eros (Ἔρωτας) when he came
home. Next morning went Eros with bow and arrows and sat at the
maiden’s door till the swain passed by. Then suddenly he shot his arrow at
him, and the young man loved the maiden and took her to wife.
Another yet more remarkable story introduces us to the garden of Eros,
whither a prince once went to fetch water to cure the blindness of the king,
his father. ‘There at the entrance he beheld a woman that was the fairest
upon earth; she sat at the gate and played with a boy who had wings and in
his hand held a bow and many arrows. The garden was full of roses, and
over them hovered many little winged boys like butterflies. In the midst of
this garden was a spring, whence the healing water flowed. As the king’s
son drew near to this spring, he espied therein a woman white as snow and
shining as the moon; and it was in very truth the moon that bathed there.
Beside the spring sat a second woman of exceeding beauty who was the
Mother of Eros (ἡ μάνα τοῦ Ἔρωτα).’ She gave him the water and her
blessing, and his father was healed.
The distinct reminiscence of Artemis in this story will be noticed later[262];
here we need only notice a few points in the story relating to Eros and his
mother. The description of the ‘boy who had wings and in his hand held a
bow and many arrows’ is simply and purely classical, according exactly
with the Orphic address to him as τοξάλκη, πτερόεντα[263]. The ‘woman at
the gate who was the fairest upon earth’ is in all probability the same as ‘the

Mother of Eros’ beside the spring, the single personality, by some vagary in
the transmission of the story, having become duplicated. The roses, of
which the garden was full, are the flower always sacred to Aphrodite, the
sweetest emblem of love; and over these it is fitting that the ‘little winged
boys’ should hover, brothers as it were of Eros, ever-fresh embodiments of
love, to all of whom, in antiquity, Aphrodite was mother[264].
These folk-tales present sufficient evidence that the memory of the name
and attributes of Aphrodite survived locally until recent times to warrant the
conclusion that her worship, like that of other pagan deities, possessed
vitality enough to compete for a long while with Christianity for the favour
of the common-folk; but as a personality she is no longer present, I think, to
their consciousness; she is at most only a character in a few folk-stories—if
indeed the present generation has not forgotten even these. For my part, I
never heard mention of her in story or otherwise, although her son, the
winged Eros, is often named in the love-songs which form a large part of
the popular poetry.
Vows and offerings which would in former days have been made to
Aphrodite are now made either to suitable saints who have taken her place,
such as S. Catharine[265], or to the Fates (Μοίραις), who were from of old
associated with her. According to a fragment of Epimenides[266], ‘golden
Aphrodite and the deathless Fates’ were daughters of Cronos and Euonyme.
Their sisterly relation was recognised also in cult. Near the Ilissus once
stood a temple containing an old wooden statue (ξόανον) of Heavenly
Aphrodite with an inscription naming her ‘eldest of the Fates’ (πρεσβυτέρα
τῶν Μοιρῶν)[267]. So venerable a shrine must in old time have witnessed
many a petition for success in love; and when we bear in mind the ancient
inscription of the statue, it is interesting to find that among the girls of
Athens until recent times the custom prevailed of visiting the so-called
‘hollow hill[268]’ (τρύπιο βουνό) in the immediate neighbourhood to offer to
the Fates cakes with honey and salt and to consult them as to their destined
husbands[269].
Sacred also to Aphrodite in old days was a cave in the neighbourhood of
Naupactus, frequented particularly by widows anxious to be remarried[270].
At the present day a cave at the foot of Mt Rigani, which may probably be

identified as the old sanctuary, is the spot to which girls repair in order to
consult the Fates on the all-absorbing question[271].
Thus it seems that ‘golden Aphrodite’ has disappeared from the old sisterly
group of deities, and that ‘the deathless Fates’ alone remain to receive
prayers and to grant boons which once fell within the province rather of
Aphrodite. To the Fates we must now turn.

§ 8. The Fates.

The custom of taking or sending offerings to a cave haunted by the Fates, of
which we have just seen two examples, is widely extended among the
women of Greece. In Athens, besides the ‘hollow hill,’ two or three of the
old rock-dwellings round about the Hill of the Muses were formerly a
common resort for the same purpose, and the practice though rarer now is
not yet extinct[272]. Among the best-known of these resorts is the so-called
Prison of Socrates. Dodwell, in his account of his travels in Greece at the
beginning of last century, states that he found there ‘in the inner chamber, a
small feast consisting of a cup of honey and white almonds, a cake on a
little napkin, and a vase of aromatic herbs burning and exhaling an
agreeable perfume[273]’; and the observance of the custom is known to have
continued in that place down to recent years[274]. The same practice, I was
informed at Sparta, is known at the present day to the peasant-women of the
surrounding plain, who will undertake even a long and wearisome journey
to lay a honey-cake in a certain cave on one of the eastern spurs of
Taÿgetus. Other places in which to my own knowledge the custom still
continues are Agrinion in Aetolia and neighbouring districts, the villages of
Mt Pelion in Thessaly, and the island of Scyros; and from the testimony of
many other observers I conclude that it is, or was till recently, universal in
Greek lands.
Nor does there seem to be much variety in the subjects on which the
peasant-women consult the Fates: with the girls matrimony, with the
married women maternity, is the perpetually recurring theme. Everywhere
also honey in some form is an essential part of the offering by which the
Fates’ favour is to be won. The acceptance of this offering, and therefore
also the success of the prayers which accompany it, are occasionally, as in
the cave near Sparta which I have mentioned, inferred from omens provided
by the dripping of water from the roof of the cave; but more usually the
realisation of the conjugal aspirations is not assured, unless a second visit to
the sanctuary, three days or a month later, proves that the sweetmeats have
been accepted by the Fates and are gone. This, I am told, occurs with some
frequency. Dodwell mentions that his donkey ate some[275]; and considering

the character of the offerings—cakes and honey for the most part, for only
in the ‘hollow hill’ at Athens was salt added thereto—it is not surprising if
the Fates find many willing proxies, human and canine as well as asinine.
At the moment when these delicacies are proffered, an invocation is recited.
This may take the form of a metrical line,

Μοίραις μου, μοιράνετέ με, καὶ καλὸ φαγὶ σας φέρνω,

‘Kind Fates, ordain my fate, for I bring you good fare,’

or may be a simple prose formulary,
Μοίραις τῶν Μοιρῶν καὶ τῆς τάδε ἡ Μοῖρα, κοπιάστε νὰ φᾶτε
καὶ νὰ ξαναμοιράνετε τὴν τάδε νἄχῃ καλὴ μοῖρα[276],
‘Fates above all Fates, and Fate of N., come ye, I pray, and eat,
and ordain anew the fate of N., that she may have a good fate.’
Various other versions are also on record, one of which will be considered
later; but these two examples illustrate sufficiently for the present the
simple Homeric tenour of such prayers.
The words which I have quoted, it must be admitted, give clear expression
to the hope that the Fates may revise the decrees which they have already
pronounced on the fortunes of the suppliant. Nevertheless that such a hope
should be fulfilled is contrary to the general beliefs of the people. The
Fates, they know, are inexorable so far as concerns the changing of any of
their purposes once set; for, as their proverb runs, ὅτι γράφουν ᾑ Μοίραις,
δὲν ξεγράφουν, ‘what the Fates write, that they make not unwritten[277].’
They are not, it would appear, subordinate, as Charon is sometimes deemed
to be, even to the supreme God; I can find no song or story that would so
present them. They are absolute and irresponsible in the fashioning of
human destiny. But the Greek peasants are not the first who have at the
same time believed both in predestination and in the efficacy of prayer.
Perhaps all unconsciously they reconcile the ideas as did Aeschylus of old:

τὸ μόρσιμον μένει πάλαι,
εὐχομένοις δ’ ἂν ἔλθοι[278],

‘Destiny hath long been abiding its time, but in answer to prayer
may come.’
But even without any intuition of so hard a doctrine the peasant-women
may justify their prayers and offerings by the hope that, though the Fates
will detract nothing from the fulfilment of whatsoever they have spoken or
written, they may be willing to add thereto such supplement as shall modify
in large measure the issue. For the Fates are as Greek in character as their
worshippers, and stories are not wanting to illustrate the shifts to which they
have stooped in order practically to invalidate without formally cancelling
their whilom purpose.
‘Once upon a time a poor woman gave birth to a daughter, and on the third
night after the birth the Fates came to ordain the child’s lot. As they entered
the cottage they saw prepared for them a table with a clean cloth and all
manner of sweetmeats thereon. So when they had partaken thereof and were
content, they were kindly disposed toward the child. And the first Fate gave
to her long life, and the second beauty, and the third chastity. But as they
went forth from the cottage, the first of them tripped against the threshold,
and turning in wrath towards the infant pronounced that she should be
always an idler.
Now when she was grown up, she was so beautiful that the king’s son
would have her to wife. As the wedding-day drew near, her mother and her
friends chided her because she delayed to make her wedding dress; but she
was idle and heeded not. Soon came the eve of the wedding, and she wept
because the prince would learn of her idleness and refuse to take her to
wife. Now the Fates loved her, and saw her tears and pitied her. Therefore
they came suddenly before her, and asked why she wept; and she told them
all. Then sat they down there and spun and weaved and embroidered all that
night, and in the morning they arrayed her in a bridal dress decked with
gold and pearls such as had never been seen.
Presently came the prince, and there was much feasting and dancing, and
she was far the most beautiful of all the company. And because he saw her
lovely dress and knew how much toil it must have cost her to array herself
thus for him, he granted her the favour of doing no more work all her
days[279].’

This story, besides illustrating well the finality of every word pronounced
by the Fates and the means which they may employ to mitigate their own
severity, is typical too of the ideas generally accepted concerning the Fates.
Their number is three[280], and they are seen in the shape of old women, one
of whom at least is always engaged in spinning. Of the remaining two, one
is sometimes seen bearing a book wherein to record in writing the decrees
which the three jointly utter, while the other carries a pair of scissors
wherewith to cut the thread of life at the appointed time; or again
sometimes these two also are spinning, one of them carrying a basket of
wool or a distaff and the other fashioning the thread. This association of the
Fates with spinning operations is commemorated in certain popular phrases
by the comparison of man’s life to a thread. ‘His thread is cut’ or ‘is
finished’ (κόπηκε or σώθηκε ἡ κλωστή του) is a familiar euphemism for ‘he
is dead’: and again, with the same ultimate meaning but a somewhat
different metaphor, the people of Arachova use the phrase μαζώθηκε τὸ
κουβάρ’ του[281], ‘his spindle is wound full,’—an expression which seems
to imply the idea that the Fates apportion to each man at birth a mass of
rough wool from which they go on spinning day by day till the thread of life
is completed.
According to Fauriel[282], a reminiscence of the Fates is also to be found in
a personification of the plague (ἡ πανοῦκλα), which in the tradition of some
districts is not represented as a single demon but has been multiplied into a
trio of terrible women who pass through the towns and devastate them, one
of them carrying a roll on which to write the names of the victims, another a
pair of scissors wherewith to cut them off from the living, and the third a
broom with which to sweep them away. He assigns however no reason for
identifying the deadly trio with the Fates, and it is more natural, if any link
with antiquity here exists, to connect them with the Erinyes[283] or other
similar deities. In fact their resemblance to the Fates, save for some
superficial details, is small. The Fates, though inexorable when once their
decree is pronounced, are never wantonly cruel. Their displeasure may
indeed be aroused by neglect, as we shall shortly see, to such an extent that
they will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. But, when men treat
them with the consideration and the reverence due to deities, they are
unfailingly kindly, and deserve the title by which they are sometimes
known, ᾑ καλοκυράδες, ‘the good ladies.’ For this name is not an

euphemism concealing dread and hatred, but an expression of genuine
reverence; such at any rate is my judgement, based on many conversations
with the common-folk in all parts of Greece—for on this topic for some
reason there is far less reticence than on many others. And indeed if the
character of the Fates were believed to be cruel, their aspect also would be
represented as grim and menacing; whereas they are actually pourtrayed as
deserving almost of pity rather than awe by reason of their age and their
infirmity.
The occasion on which the Fates have most often been seen by human eyes
and on which, even though invisible, they never fail to be present, is the
third night (or as some say the fifth night[284]) after the birth of a child.
Provision for their arrival is then scrupulously made. The dog is chained up.
Any obstacles over which the visitors might trip in the darkness are
removed. The house-door is left open or at any rate unlatched. Inside a light
is kept burning, and in the middle of the room is set a low table with three
cushions or low stools placed round it—religious conservatism apparently
forbidding the use of so modern an invention as chairs, for at the lying-in-
state before a funeral also cushions or low stools are provided for the
mourners. On the table are set out such dainties as the Fates love, including
always honey; in Athens formerly the essentials were a dish of honey, three
white almonds, a loaf of bread, and a glass of water[285]; and ready to hand,
as presents from which the goddesses may choose what they will, may be
laid all the most costly treasures of the family, such as jewellery and even
money, in token that nothing has been spared to give them welcome. These
preparations made, their visit is awaited in solemn silence; for none must
speak when the Fates draw near. Most often they are neither seen nor heard;
but sometimes, it is said, a wakeful mother has seen their forms as they bent
over her child and wrote their decrees on its brow—for which reason moles
and other marks on the forehead or the nose are in some places called
γραψίματα τῶν Μοιρῶν[286], ‘writings of the Fates’; sometimes she has
heard the low sound of their voices as they consulted together over the
future of the child; nay more, she has even caught and understood their
speech; yet even so her foreknowledge of the infant’s fate is unavailing; she
may be aware of the dangers which await its ripening years, but though
forewarned she is powerless to forearm; against destiny once pronounced
all weapons, all wiles, are futile.

Neglect of any of the due preparations for the visit of the Fates may excite
their wrath and cause them to decree an evil lot for the child. This idea is
the motif of many fables current in Greece. A typical example is furnished
by the following extract from a popular poem in which a man whose life
has brought him nothing but misery sees in a vision one of the Fates and
appeals to her thus:

‘I beg and pray of thee, O Fate, to tell me now, my lady,
Then when my mother brought me forth, what passèd at my
bearing?’

And she makes answer:

‘Then when thy mother brought thee forth, ’twas deep and bitter
winter,
Eleven days o’ the year had run when anguish came upon her.
Thereon[287] I robed me and did on this raiment that thou seëst,
And had it in my heart to cry “Long life to thee and riches.”
Ah, but the night was deep and dark, yea wrappèd thick in darkness,
And hail and snow were driving hard, and angry rain was lashing;
From mire to mud, from mud to mire, so lay my road before me,
And as I went,—a murrain on’t,—against your well I stumbled;
Nay, sirrah, an thou believest not, scan well the scars I carry.
Two cursed hounds ye had withal, hounds from the Lombard
country,
And fierce upon me sprang the twain, and fierce as wolves their
baying.
Then cursèd I thee full bitterly, a curse of very venom,
That no bright day should ever cheer thy miserable body,
That thou shouldst burn, that thou shouldst burn, and have no hope
of riddance,
That joy should ever ’scape thy clasp, and sorrow dog thy goings,
That thine own kin should slander thee and thy friends rail upon
thee,
Nor strangers nor thy countrymen know aught of love toward thee.
Yet, hapless man, not thine the sin; thy parents’ was the sinning,

That chainèd not those hounds right fast to a corner of their
dwelling;
Well is it said by men of old, well bruit they loud the saying,
“The fathers eat of acid things, and the bairns’ teeth fall aching.”
Have patience then, O hapless man, a year or twain of patience,
And there shall come a happy day when all thy woes shall vanish;
For all thy bitterness of soul thou shalt find consolation,
Thy dreams of beauty and of wealth thou shalt at last
encompass[288].’
The Fates, it has been already said, are three in number; why so, it seems
impossible to determine. It may be that the functions discharged by them
fell readily into a three-fold division; thus in the district of Zagorion in
Epirus, one Fate ‘spins the thread’ (κλώθει τὸ γνέμα) which determines the
length of life, the second apportions good fortune, and the third bad[289]. Or
again, the division may have been made in such a way that one Fate should
preside over each of the three great events of human experience, birth,
marriage, and death. The term ‘fate’ (μοῖρα)[290] is often used by women as
a synonym for marriage (γάμος)—in curious contrast with the man’s more
optimistic description of his wedding as χαρά, ‘joy’; and a Greek proverb,
used of a very ignorant man, δὲν ξέρει τὰ τρία κακὰ τῆς Μοίρας του, ‘he
does not know the three evils of his Fate,’ to wit birth, marriage, and death,
carries the connexion of fate with these three events a little further. But such
distributions of functions are probably posterior to the choice of the
number. Three was always a sacred number, and the ancients delighted in
trinities of goddesses[291].
But besides the three great Fates we must recognise also in modern Greece
the existence of lesser Fates, attached each to a single human life. This is a
slight extension of the main belief, and consists really in the personification
of the objective fate which the three great Fates decree. Just as each man is
believed to have his good guardian-angel and, by antithesis but with less
biblical warranty, his bad angel, so too he is accompanied by his own
personal Fate. But these lesser Fates are only faint replicas of the great
trinity, and I doubt whether they are believed to have any independent
power of their own; they would seem to be mere ministers who carry out
the original decrees of the three supreme Fates.

Often in the popular songs it is impossible to tell whether it is the lesser
personal Fate or one of the great trio who is addressed. For in such lines as,

Παρακαλῶ σε, Μοῖρα μου, νὰ μή με ξενιτέψῃς,
Κι’ ἂν λάχῃ καὶ ξενιτευτῶ, θάνατο μή μου δώσῃς[292],

‘I pray thee, good Fate, send me not to a strange land, but if it be
my lot to be sent, let me not die there,’
the form of address Μοῖρα μου (literally ‘my Fate’) implies no personal
possession, but is the same as that employed in praying to God or the
Virgin, Θεέ μου, Παναγία μου. But in definite forms of incantation,
composed for recitation along with propitiatory offerings, the great Fates
and the lesser Fate of the individual suppliant are coupled in a way which
shows the difference in importance between them. The former are called
‘the Fates over all Fates’ (ἡ Μοίραις τῶν Μοιρῶν), as in the plain prose
formulary quoted above; the latter is merely the Fate of this or that person.
Whether these inferior Fates were known also in the classical period is a
question which I am unable to answer; but that the belief in them is
certainly of no recent growth is proved by an incantation more elaborate
than those given above and on internal evidence very old:—

’π’ τὸν Ὄλυμπον, τὸν κόλυμβον,
τὰ τρία ἄκρα τοὐρανοῦ,
ὁποῦ ᾑ Μοίραις τῶν Μοιρῶν
καὶ ἡ ’δική μου Μοῖρα,
ἂς ἀκούσῃ καὶ ἂς ἔλθῃ[293].

‘From Olympus, even from the summit, from the three heights
of heaven, where dwell the Fates of all Fates and my own Fate,
may she hearken and come.’
The version of the formula which I have given is only one out of several
which have been recorded from various parts of Greece[294], and there can
be no doubt that the original was a widely-esteemed incantation. I have
given the most intelligible; but the mere fact that some of the others,
through verbal corruption in the course of tradition, have become almost
meaningless, is strong proof of the antiquity of the original. There are

however two clear marks of antiquity in the version before us. The mention
of Olympus as the abode of deities carries us back at once to the classical
age; and the word κόλυμβος in the sense of ‘summit’ is no less suggestive
of a very early date. The ancient word κόρυμβος, used in this sense by
Aeschylus[295] and by Herodotus[296], is obsolete now in the spoken
language. But κόλυμβος is evidently either a dialectic form of it (with the
common interchange of λ and ρ) or else a corrupt form, not understood by
those who continued to use it in this incantation, and assimilated, by way of
assonance, to Ὄλυμπος. Further one of the other versions gives the word as
κόρυβο[297], where the original ρ is retained but the μ lost before β, which
now universally has the sound of the English v. A comparison of the two
forms therefore establishes beyond question the fact that the somewhat rare
classical word κόρυμβος, in its known meaning of ‘summit,’ was the
original form. Hence the incantation, containing both a mention of Olympus
as the seat of deities and an old classical word long since disused, cannot
but date from very early times. Possibly therefore the belief in subordinate
Fates, attached each to one human being, was known to the common-folk of
the classical age.
But, be this as it may, the popular conception of the great Trinity of Fates
has persisted unchanged for more than a score of centuries—and who shall
say for how many more? Here the literary tradition of classical times was
evidently faithful to popular traditions. The number of the Fates is still the
same as in Hesiod’s day[298]; they are still depicted as old and infirm
women, as they were by the poets at any rate in antiquity, though in ancient
art, for beauty’s sake, they are apt to be figured as more youthful; it is still
their task ‘to assign to mortal men at their birth,’ as Hesiod knew, ‘both
good and ill[299]’; the functions of Clotho who spun the thread of life, of
Lachesis who apportioned destiny, and of Atropos whom none might turn
from her purpose, are still the joint functions of the great Three; the book,
the spindle, and an instrument for cutting the thread of life are still their
attributes.
There is little new therefore to be learnt from the study of the Fates in
modern folk-lore. The lesson which it teaches rather is the continuity of the
present with the past. But there is one point to which special attention may
perhaps be directed—the belief that the Fates invariably visit each child that
is born in order to decree its lot. I do not wish to engage in the controversy

which has raged round the identification of the figures in the east pediment
of the Parthenon; but those who would recognise among them the three
Fates may fairly draw a fresh argument from the strength of this popular
belief. It is only fitting that at the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus the
Fates should be present; for even Zeus himself, said Aeschylus[300], might
not escape their decree.

§ 9. The Nymphs.

Of all the supernatural beings who haunt the path and the imagination of the
modern Greek peasant by far the most common are the Nymphs or
‘Nereids’ (Νεράϊδες). The name itself occurs in a multitude of dialectic
varieties[301], but its meaning is everywhere uniform, and more
comprehensive than that of the ancient word. It is no longer confined to
nymphs of the sea, but embraces also their kindred of mountain, river, and
woodland. There is no longer a Nereus, god of the sea, to claim the Nereids
as his daughters, denizens like himself of the deep; and the connexion of
their name with the modern word for ‘water’ (νερό) is not understanded of
the common-folk. Hence there has been nothing to restrain the extension of
the term Νεράϊδα, and it has entirely superseded, in this sense, the ancient
νύμφη, which in modern speech can only mean ‘a bride.’
The familiarity of the peasants with the Nereids is more intimate than can
be easily imagined by those who have merely travelled, it may be, through
the country but have no knowledge of the people in their homes. The
educated classes of course, and with them some of the less communicative
of the peasants, will deny all belief in such beings and affect to deride as old
wives’ fables the many stories concerning them. But in truth the belief is
one which even men of considerable culture fail sometimes to eradicate
from their own breasts. A paper on the Nereids (the nucleus of the present
chapter) was read by me in Athens at an open meeting of the British School;
and no sooner was it ended than an Athenian gentleman whose name is well
known in certain learned circles throughout Europe rose hurriedly crossing
himself and disappeared without a word of leave-taking. As for the
peasants, let them deny or avow their belief, there is probably no nook or
hamlet in all Greece where the womenfolk at least do not scrupulously take
precautions against the thefts and the malice of the Nereids, while many a
man may still be found ready to recount in all good faith stories of their
beauty and passion and caprice. Nor is it a matter of faith only; more than
once I have been in villages where certain Nereids were known by sight to
several persons (so at least they averred); and there was a wonderful
agreement among the witnesses in the description of their appearance and

dress. I myself once had a Nereid pointed out to me by my guide, and there
certainly was the semblance of a female figure draped in white and tall
beyond human stature flitting in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted
boles of an old olive-yard. What the apparition was, I had no leisure to
investigate; for my guide with many signs of the cross and muttered
invocations of the Virgin urged my mule to perilous haste along the rough
mountain-path. But had I inherited, as he, a belief in Nereids together with a
fertile gift of mendacity, I should doubtless have corroborated the highly-
coloured story which he told when we reached the light and safety of the
next village; and the ready acceptance of the story by those who heard it
proved to me that a personal encounter with Nereids was really reckoned
among the possible incidents of every-day life.
The awe in which the Nereids are held is partially responsible, without
doubt, for the many adulatory by-names by which they are known. Now
and again indeed a peasant, when he is suffering from some imagined injury
at their hands, may so far speak his mind concerning them as to call them
‘evil women’ (κακαὶς or ἄσχημαις γυναῖκες): but in general his references
are more diplomatic and conciliatory in tone. He adopts the same attitude
towards them as did his forefathers towards the Furies; and, though the
actual word ‘Eumenides’ is lost to his vocabulary, the spirit of his address is
unchanged. ‘The Ladies’ (ᾑ κυρᾶδες), ‘Our Maidens’ (τὰ κουρίτσι̯α μας),
‘Our good Queens’ (ᾑ καλαὶς ἀρχόντισσαις), ‘The kind-hearted ones’ (ᾑ
καλόκαρδαις), ‘The ladies to whom we wish joy’ (ᾑ χαιράμεναις), or most
commonly of all ‘Our good Ladies’ (ᾑ καλοκυρᾶδες or καλλικυρᾶδες)[302],
—such is the wonted style of his adulation, in which the frequent use of the
word κυρᾶδες (the plural of κυρά, i.e. κυρία) is a heritage from his
ancestors who made dedications ‘to the lady nymphs’ (κυρίαις νύμφαις).
Yet it may be questioned whether these by-names are wholly euphemistic;
for mingled with the awe which the Nereids inspire there is certainly an
element of admiration and, I had almost said, of affection in the feelings of
the common-folk toward them.
The Nereids are conceived as women half-divine yet not immortal, always
young, always beautiful, capricious at best, and at their worst cruel. Their
presence is suspected everywhere; grim forest-depth and laughing valley,
babbling stream and wind-swept ridge, tree and cave and pool, each may be
their chosen haunt, the charmed scene of their dance and song and godlike

revelry. The old distinctions between the nymphs according to their
habitations still to some extent hold good; there are nymphs of the sea and
nymphs of the streams, tree-nymphs and mountain-nymphs; but in
characteristics these several classes are alike, in grace, in frolic, in
wantonness. Of all that is light and mirthful they are the ideal; of all that is
lovely the exquisite embodiment; and their hearts beneath are ever swayed
by fierce gusts of love and of hate.
The beauty of the Nereids, the sweetness of their voices, and the grace and
litheness of their movements have given rise to many familiar phrases
which are eloquent of feelings other than awe in the people’s minds. ‘She is
fair as a Nereid’ (εἶνε ὤμορφη σὰ νεράϊδα), ‘she has the eyes, the arms, the
bosom of a Nereid’ (ἔχει μάτια, χέρια, βυζιὰ νεράϊδας), ‘she sings, she
dances, like a Nereid’ (τραγουδάει, χορεύει, σὰ νεράϊδα),—such are the
compliments time and again passed upon a bride, whose white dress and
ornaments of gold seem to complete the resemblance. Possibly the twofold
usage in antiquity of the word νύμφη is responsible for a still surviving
association of bridal dress with the Nereids; it is at any rate to the peasants’
mind an incontestable fact that white and gold are the colours chiefly
affected by Nereids in their dress[303].
Only in one particular is the beauty of the Nereids ever thought to be
marred; in some localities they are said to have the feet of goats or of
asses[304]; as for instance the three Nereids who are believed to dance
together without pause on the heights of Taÿgetus. But this is a somewhat
rare and local trait, and must have been transferred to them, it would seem,
from Pan and his attendant satyrs, with whom of old they were wont to
consort; in general they are held to be of beauty unblemished.
Their accomplishments include, besides singing and dancing, the humbler
arts of the good housewife. ‘She cooks like a Nereid’ (μαγειρεύει σὰ
νεράϊδα) and ‘she does house-cleaning like a Nereid’ (παστρεύει σὰν
ἀνεράϊδα) are phrases of commendation[305] occasionally heard. But chiefly
do they excel in the art of spinning[306]; and so well known is their dexterity
therein that a delicate kind of creeper with which trees are often festooned
is known in the vulgar tongue under the pretty name of νεραϊδογνέματα,
‘Nereid-spinnings.’ The attribute indeed is natural and obvious; for the
popular conception of the nymphs is but an idealisation of the peasant-

women, to whom, whether sitting in the sunlight at their cottage-door or
tending their sheep and goats afield, the distaff is an ever constant
companion. But, easy though it is to account for the trait, some interest, if
no great measure of importance, attaches to its consonance with the ancient
characterisation of Nymphs. To the Nereids proper[307] a golden spindle was
specially assigned; and in the cave of the Naiads in Ithaca might be seen, in
Odysseus’ day, the kindred occupation of weaving, for ‘therein were great
looms of stone whereon the nymphs wove sea-purple robes, a wonder to
behold[308].’
As might be expected of beings so divinely feminine, their relations with
men and with women are very different; in the one case there is the
possibility of love; in the other the certainty of spite. It is necessary
therefore to examine their attitude towards either sex separately.
The marriage of men with Nereids not only forms the theme of many folk-
stories current in Greece, but in the more remote districts is still regarded as
a credible occurrence. Even at the present day the traveller may hear of
families in whose ancestry of more or less remote date is numbered a
Nereid. A Thessalian peasant whom I once met claimed a Nereid-
grandmother, and little as his looks warranted the assumption of any grace
or beauty in so near an ancestor—he happened to have a squint—his claim
appeared to be admitted by his fellow-villagers, and a certain prestige
attached to him. Hence the epithet ‘Nereid-born’ (νεραϊδογεννημένος or
νεραϊδοκαμωμένος) frequently heard in amatory distichs[309] may formerly
have been not merely an exaggerated compliment to the lady’s beauty, but a
recognition of high birth calculated to conciliate the future mother-in-law.
Nor is it men only whose susceptibilities are stirred by the beauty of the
Nereids; even animals may fall under their spell. A shepherd of Scopelos
told me that in the neighbouring island of Ioura, which he frequented with
his flocks for pasturage, he once tamed a wild goat, which after a time
began to behave very oddly. All night long it would remain with the rest of
his flock, but in the daytime it persistently strayed away from the pasture to
the neighbourhood of a Nereid-haunted cave on the bare and rocky hillside,
and from want of food became very thin. The goat, he believed, was
enamoured of a Nereid and pining away from unrequited love.

But it is from the old folk-stories rather than from the records of
contemporary or recent experience that the character of the Nereids as
lovers or wives is best learnt. And herein they are not models of
womanhood; passion indeed they feel and inspire; they suffer, they even
seek the caresses of the young and brave; but true wives they will not long
remain. Constancy and care are not for them; the longing for freedom and
the breezes of heaven, the memory of rapid tuneful dance, are hot within
them; they leave the men whose strength and valour snared their hearts,
they forsake their homes and children, and on the wings of the wind are
gone, seeking again their etherial unwearied fellows. Yet they do not
altogether forget their children; for motherhood is presently more to them
than mirth; ever and anon they steal back to visit their homes and bless their
children with the gifts of beauty and wealth which their touch can bestow,
and even stay to mend their husbands’ clothes and clean the house,
vanishing again however before the man’s return. Only in one case have I
heard of a nymph’s continued intimacy with a man throughout his life, and
that strangely enough not in a folk-story but in recent experience. Their
relations, it must be acknowledged, were illicit, for he had a human wife
and family; but it was commonly reported that his rise from penury to
affluence and the mayoralty of his native village was the work of a Nereid
in a cave near by, who of her love for him enriched the produce of his land
and shielded his flocks from pestilence.
In the popular stories which deal with the marriages of Nereids, the bridal
fashion of their dress, which has already been noticed, is often an essential
feature of the plot. In one tale it is said explicitly that the supernatural
quality of the Nereids lies not in their persons but in their raiment[310]; and
for this reason a prince, smitten with love of the youngest of three sister
Nereids but knowing not how to win her, is counselled by a wise woman, to
whom he confides his perplexity, to lie in wait when they go to bathe in
their accustomed pool and to steal the clothes of his inamorata, who would
then follow him to recover her loss and so be in his power to take to wife.
But there is greater delicacy and, as we shall see, more certain antiquity also
in the commoner version of the episode, in which a kerchief alone is
possessed of the magic powers ascribed above to the whole dress. And in
this detail of costume the resemblance of bride and Nereid still holds good;
for no wedding-dress would be complete without a kerchief either wrapped

about the bride’s head or pinned upon her breast or carried in her hand to
form a link with her neighbour in the chain of dancers[311].
Of the stories which have for their motif the theft of such a kerchief from a
Nereid[312] the following Messenian tale is a good example.
‘Once upon a time there was a young shepherd who played the pipes so
beautifully that the Nereids one night carried him off to the threshing-floor
where they danced and bade him play to them. At first he was much afraid
and thought that some evil would overtake him from being in their
company and speaking with them. But gradually, as he grew accustomed to
his strange surroundings and the Nereids showed themselves kind to him
and grateful for his piping, he took courage again and night after night
made his way to the spot which they haunted and made music till cock-
crow.
Now it so happened that one of the Nereids was beautiful beyond the rest,
and the shepherd loved her and determined to make her his wife. But
inasmuch as the Nereids danced all night long without pause while he
piped, and at dawn vanished to be seen no more until the next night’s dance
began, he knew not what to do.
So at last he went to an old woman and told her his trouble, and she said to
him, “Go again to-night and play till dawn is near; then before the cock
crows[313], make a dash and seize the kerchief in the Nereid’s hand, and
hold it fast. And though she change into terrible shapes, be not afraid; only
hold fast until she take again her proper form; then must she do as thou
wilt.”
The young man therefore went again that night and played till close on
dawn. Then as the Nereid passed close beside him, leading the dance, he
sprang upon her and grasped the kerchief. And straightway the cock crew,
and the other Nereids fled; but she whose kerchief he had seized could not
go, but at once began to transform herself into horrible shapes in hope to
frighten the shepherd and make him loose his hold. First she became a lion,
but he remembered the witch’s warning and held fast for all the lion’s
roaring. And then the Nereid turned into a snake, and then into fire[314], but
he kept a stout heart and would not let go the kerchief. Then at last she
returned to her proper form and went home with him and was his wife and

bore him a son; but the kerchief he kept hidden from her, lest she should
become a Nereid again.’
In this story there are two ancient traits especially noteworthy. The power of
transformation into horrible shapes is precisely the means of defence which
the Nereid Thetis once sought to employ against Peleus; the forms of wild
beast and of fire, which she assumed according to ancient myth, are the
same as Nereids now adopt; and the instructions now given to hold fast
until the Nereid resume her proper shape are the same as Chiron, the wise
Centaur, gave once to Peleus[315]. It is true that in the ancient story it is the
person of Thetis that Peleus was bidden to grasp, while in the modern tale
the shepherd’s immediate object is to retain hold of the kerchief only. But
this feature of the story too is an interesting witness to antiquity, although in
Thetis’ history it does not appear. Ancient art has left to us several
representations[316] of nymphs with veil-like scarves worn on the head or
borne in the hand and floating down the breeze; and the magic properties
inherent in them are exemplified by Ino’s gift, or rather loan, to Odysseus.
The scarf imperishable (κρήδεμνον ἄμβροτον) which she bade him gird
about his breast and have no fear of any suffering nor of death, was not his
own to keep after he reached the mainland; in accordance with her behest
‘he loosed then the goddess’ scarf from about him, and let it fall into the
river’s salt tide, and a great wave bore it back down the stream, and readily
did Ino catch it in her hands’[317]. Here Ino’s anxiety and strait command as
to the return of her veil are most easily understood by the aid of the modern
belief which makes the possession of the scarf or kerchief the sole, or at
least the chief, means of godlike power. In Cythnos at the present day it is
the μπόλια, or scarf worn about the head, which alone is believed to invest
Nereids with their distinctive qualities[318]; and if the modern scarf is a
lineal descendant of the Homeric type such as Ino wore—for even in
feminine dress fashions are slow to change in the Greek islands[319]—the
epithet ‘imperishable’ may have unsuspected force, as implying that the
scarf confers a semblance of divinity on its owner and not vice versa.
In such of the stories of the above type as do not end with the marriage of
the Nereid[320] the sequel is not encouraging to other adventurers. For
though she be a good wife in commonplace estimation—and the Greek
view of matrimony is in general commonplace to the verge of sordidness—

though her skill in domestic duties be as proverbial as her beauty, she either
turns her charms and her cunning to such account as to discover the hiding-
place of her stolen kerchief, or, failing this, so mopes and pines over her
work that her husband worn down by her sullenness and persistent silence
decides to risk all if he can but restore her lightheartedness. Then though he
have taken an oath of her that she will not avail herself of her recovered
freedom, but will abide with him as his wife, her promise is light as the
breeze that bears her away with fluttering kerchief, and he is alone.
But fickleness is not the worst of the Nereids’ qualities in their dealings
with men. In malice they are as wanton as in love. Woe betide him who
trespasses upon their midday carnival or crosses their nightly path;
dumbness, blindness, epilepsy, and horrors of mutilation have been the
penalties of such intrusion, though the man offend unwittingly; for the
Nereids are tiger-like in all, in stealth and cruelty as in grace and beauty;
and none who look upon their radiance can guess the darkness of their
hearts. Terrible was the experience of a Melian peasant, who coming
unawares upon the Nereids one night was bidden by them to a cave hard by,
where they feasted him and made merry together and did not deny him their
utmost favours; but when morning broke, they sent him to his home
shattered and impotent.
If such be sometimes the results of their seeming goodwill and proffered
companionship, how much more fearful a thing must be their enmity! Let a
man but intrude upon their revels in some sequestered glen, or sleep
beneath the tree that shelters them, or play the pipe beside the river where
they bathe, and in such wrath they will gather about him[321], that the eyes
which have looked upon them see no more, and the voice that cries out is
thenceforth dumb, and madness springs of their very presence.
But if the Nereids are fickle and treacherous in their dealings with men,
towards women they are consistently malicious. Especially on two
occasions must every prudent peasant-woman be on her guard against their
envy—at marriage and in child-birth. For though the Nereids themselves
prove no true wives, so jealous are they of the joys of wedlock, that if a
bride be not well secured from their molestation, they will mar the fruition
of her love, or else, where they cannot prevent, they will endeavour at the
least to cut short the happiness of motherhood, slaying with fever the

woman whose bliss has stirred their malevolence, yet sparing always the
child and even blessing it with beauty and wealth.
The means by which women most commonly protect themselves on these
occasions are the wearing of amulets; the fastening of a bunch of garlic over
the house-door; the painting of a cross in black upon the lintel (this custom
may be a Christianised form of the ancient practice, mentioned by
Photius[322], of smearing houses with pitch at the birth of children as a
means of driving away powers of evil); and, if any strange visitants are
heard about the house at night, the maintenance of strict silence. But steps
are also sometimes taken to appease the Nereids; offerings of food, in
which honey is the essential ingredient, are set out for them, and formerly in
Athens[323] to this a bride used to add two chemises out of her trousseau.
Such precautions after a confinement are regularly continued for forty days.
It would appear that in ancient times this was the period during which
women were held to be specially exposed to the evil eye and all other
ghostly and sinister influences[324], including probably, as now, the assaults
of nymphs; and in modern usage the duration of the time of peril is so well
established that the word σαραντίζω, literally to ‘accomplish forty
(σαράντα) days,’ is used technically of the churching of women at the end
of that period; while a more frankly pagan survival is to be found in the fact
that for forty days no right-minded mother will cross the threshold of her
own house to go out, nor enter a neighbour’s house, without stepping on the
door-key, that being the most easily available piece of iron, a metal, which
in the folk-lore of ancient Greece[325], as in that of many other countries,
was a charm and safeguard against the supernatural.
It is not however the mothers only, who need protection from the Nereids,
but the children also, and that too throughout their childhood; yet not
against the same perils; for the mother is liable to malicious injuries; the
child is safe indeed from wilful hurt, but it may be stolen by Nereids. We
have already seen how Nereids who have wed with mortal men, though
faithless to their husbands, are yet drawn home now and again by love of
their children. And such of them too as have never yielded to human
embrace are yet instinct with a strange yearning to possess a mortal
woman’s prettiest little ones; on one child they exert a fascination which
unhappily proves fatal to it; another they seize with open violence; or again

they set stealthily in some cradle a babe of pure Nereid birth—a changeling
that by some weird fatality is weakly and doomed to die—and carry off to
the woods and hills the human infant, in whom they delight, to be their
playmate and their fosterling. In a history of the island of Pholegandros, the
writer, a native of the place, accounts for the multitude of small chapels in
the island on the ground of the peasants’ anxiety each to have a saint close
to his property to defend him from such raids by Nereids and other kindred
beings[326].
The wife of a priest at Chalandri in Attica related to Ross[327] a story in
point. ‘I had a daughter,’ she said, ‘a little girl between twelve and thirteen
years old, who showed a very strange disposition. Though we all treated her
kindly, her mood was always melancholy, and whenever she got the chance
she ran off from the village up the wooded spurs of the mountain
(Brilessos). There she would roam about alone all day long, from early
morning till late evening; often she would take off some of her clothes and
wear but one light garment, so as to be less hindered in running and
jumping. We dared not stop her, for we saw quite well that the Nereids had
allured her, but we were much distressed. It was in vain that my husband
took her time after time to the church and read prayers over her. The
Panagia (the Virgin) was powerless to help. After the child had been thus
afflicted a considerable while, she fell into yet deeper despondency, and at
last died—a short time ago. When we buried her, the neighbours said, “Do
not wonder at her death; the Nereids wanted her; it is but two days since we
saw her dancing with them.”’
Such was the view taken by a Greek priest and his wife concerning the
cause of their daughter’s death about two generations ago; and at the
present day the traveller may hear of similar events in recent experience. An
important point to notice is that the child’s death was thought to be due, not
to any malevolence on the part of the Nereids, but to their desire to have her
for their own, a desire more happily gratified in cases of which I have
several times heard where the child has not died but has simply
disappeared. Thus in Arcadia I was once assured that a small girl had been
carried off by Nereids in a whirlwind, and had been found again some
weeks after on a lonely mountain side some five or six hours distant from
her home in a condition which showed that she had been well fed and well
cared for in the interval.

But certainly the snatching away of children by the Nereids, whether this
mean death or only disappearance, is still a well-accredited fact in the
minds of many of the common-folk. They still remain too simple and too
closely wedded to the beliefs of their forefathers to need the old
exhortation[328],

‘Trust ye the fables of yore: ’tis not Death, but the Nymphs of the
river
Seeing your daughter so sweet stole her to be their delight.’

They believe still that the Nereids have befriended their children, even
while they weep for their own loss.
Whatever mischief the Nereids work upon man, woman, or child, be it
death or loss of faculties or merely deportation from home to some haunted
spot, ‘seized’ (παρμένος or πιασμένος) is the word applied to the victim.
The compound ἀναρᾳδοπαρμένος[329], ‘Nereid-seized,’ also occurs, exactly
parallel in form as well as equivalent in meaning to the ancient
νυμφόληπτος as used by Plato. ‘Now listen to me,’ says Socrates to
Phaedrus[330], ‘in silence; for in very truth this seems to be holy ground, so
that if anon, in the course of what I say, I suffer a “seizure” (νυμφόληπτος
γένωμαι), you must not be surprised.’ Such speech, save for its disregard of
the acknowledged peril, might be held in all seriousness by a peasant of to-
day. In Socrates’ mouth it is intended merely as a happy metaphor; but its
point and appropriateness are lost on those who do not both know the
superstition to which he alludes and at the same time recall the mise-en-
scène[331] of the dialogue. The two friends have crossed the Ilissus and are
stretched on a grassy slope in the shade of a lofty plane-tree, beneath which
is a spring of cool water pleasant to their feet as is the light breeze to their
faces in the heat of the summer noon. The spot must surely be a favourite
haunt of the rural gods, and indeed the statues close at hand attest its
dedication to Pan and to the Nymphs. In such a situation there would be,
according to modern notions, three distinct grounds for apprehending a
‘seizure.’ The neighbourhood of water is throughout Greece dreaded as the
most dangerous haunt of Nereids[332], so that few peasants will cross a
stream or even a dry torrent-bed without making the sign of the cross.
Hardly less risky is it to rest in the shade of any old or otherwise

conspicuous tree. If in addition to this the time of day be noon, it is not
merely venturesome to trespass on such spots, but inexcusably foolhardy;
for the hour of midday slumber is fraught with as many terrors as the
night[333]. Any or all of these popular beliefs may have been present to
Plato’s mind as he wrote this passage; for the ancients numbered among
those Nymphs, by whom Socrates was likely to be ‘seized,’ both Naiads and
Dryads, who might be expected to resent and to punish any intrusion upon
their haunts in stream or tree; while, as regards the hour of noon, the fear
felt in old time of arousing Pan[334] from his siesta may well have extended
also to Nymphs, who on this spot beside the Ilissus, as commonly
elsewhere, were named his comrades.
The same kind of ‘seizure’ was denoted formerly by the phrase ἔχει ἀπ’
ἔξω[335], ‘he has it (i.e. a stroke or seizure) from without,’ and the modern
compound ’ξωπαρμένος[336] bears obviously a kindred meaning. The exact
significance of ἔξω in this relation is difficult to determine. Either it is only
another example of the usage already noted in discussing the term ἐξωτικά
and implies the activity of one of those supernatural beings who exist side
by side with the powers of Christianity and are by their very name proved
to be pagan; or else it indicates a difference in the mode of injury by two
classes of supernatural foes, the difference between ‘seizure’ and
‘possession.’ Certainly no story is known to me of ‘possession’ by Nereids
in the same sense as by devils. The latter take up their abode within a man
and are subject to exorcism; the seizure by Nereids is conceived rather as an
external act of violence. This is made clear by several terms locally used of
seizure. ‘He has been struck’ (βαρέθηκε or χτυπήθηκε), ‘he has been
wounded’ (λαβώθηκε), ‘he has had hands laid upon him’ (ἐγγίχτηκε) are
typical expressions, to which is sometimes added ‘by Nereids’ or ‘by evil
women[337].’ Such phrases clearly convict the Nereids of assault and battery
rather than of undue mental influence upon their victims.
Moreover the Nereids, and with them all the surviving pagan deities, are
pictured by the peasant in corporeal form, whereas the angels—and there
are bad angels, who ‘possess’ men, as well as good—are in common speech
as well as in the formal dedications of churches known as οἱ ἀσώματοι, ‘the
Bodiless ones.’ There is then an essential difference in the nature of these
two classes of beings, which justifies the supposed distinction in their
methods of working. For ‘possession’ proper is the injury inflicted, or rather

infused, by spirits pure and simple; external ‘seizure’ is the work of
corporeal beings. And this distinction was recognised in comparatively
early times; for John of Damascus[338] in speaking of στρίγγαι, a peculiarly
maleficent kind of witch (of whom more anon), notes as singular the fact
that sometimes they appear clothed in bodily form and sometimes as mere
spirits (μετὰ σώματος ἢ γυμνῇ τῇ ψυχῇ). It is then to the second
interpretation of the phrase ἔχει ἀπ’ ἔξω, as implying external and bodily
violence, that the balance of argument, I think, inclines.
The precautions which may be taken against injury by Nereids have already
been briefly noticed. Amulets, garlic, the sign of the cross, the invocation of
saints—all these are common and suitable prophylactics. But above all, in
the actual moment when imminent danger is suspected, the lips, as
Phaedrus was reminded by Socrates, and also the eyes should be close shut;
for in general the principle obtains that the particular organ by which there
is converse or contact with the Nereids is most likely to be impaired or
destroyed. Apart from this, there is no precaution more specially adapted for
self-defence against the Nereids than against the evil eye or any other
baneful influence; and with these I have already dealt[339].
But when these precautions are neglected or fail, the mischief wrought by
the Nereids is not necessarily permanent; there are several cures which may
be tried. Sometimes prayers (but not, so far as I know, a formal exorcism
such as the Greek Church provides for diabolic possession) are recited by a
priest over the sufferer in the church of some suitable saint; or a trial may
be made of sleeping in a church which possesses a wonder-working icon.
Sometimes an offering of honey-cakes sent or carried to the spot where the
misfortune occurred suffices to turn the Nereids from their wrath and wins
them to undo the hurt that they have done; on such an errand however the
bearer of the offering must beware of looking back to the place where he
has once deposited it, lest a worse fate overtake him than that which he is
trying to dispel[340]. Theodore Bent[341] gives full details of such an offering
made in the island of Ceos. ‘For those,’ he writes, ‘who are supposed to
have been struck by the Nereids when sleeping under a tree, the following
cure is much in vogue. A white cloth is spread on the spot, and on it is put a
plate with bread, honey, and other sweets, a bottle of good wine, a knife, a
fork, an empty glass, an unburnt candle, and a censer. These things must be
brought by an old woman who utters mystic words and then goes away, that

the Nereids may eat undisturbed, and that in their good humour they may
allow the sufferer to regain his health.’ How mystic may be the words of a
Cean witch, I cannot say; but the formula to be used by mothers in Chios in
the event of a similar misfortune to a child is extremely simple: ‘Good day
to you, good queens, eat ye the little cakes and heal my child’—καλημέρα
σας, καλαὶς ἀρχόντισσαις, φᾶτε σεῖς τὰ κουλουράκια καὶ ’γιάνετε τὸ παιδί
μου[342]. But the most frequent and most efficacious method of cure (with
which the offering of honeycakes may be combined) is for the sufferer to
revisit the scene of his calamity at the same hour of the same day in week,
month, or year, when by some capricious reversal of fate the presence of the
Nereids is apt to remove the hurt which it formerly inflicted.

Thus far I have dealt with the main characteristics of nymphs in general: it
remains to consider the several classes into which they were anciently
divided; and though for the most part the old appellations, Nereids, Naiads,
Oreads, and Dryads, have either disappeared or else changed their form or
meaning, we shall find that the old division of them into these four main
classes according to their habitation still to some extent survives.
The Nereids, whose name is now extended to comprise all kinds of nymphs,
are in the ancient and proper sense of the term among the rarest of whom
the peasant speaks. But here and there mention is made of genuine sea-
nymphs, and also of their queen, the Lamia of the Sea[343], who has
superseded Amphitrite. In 1826 a villager of Argolis described to Soutzos,
the historian of the Greek revolution[344], a true Nereid. Her hair was green
and adorned with pearls and corals; often by moonlight she might be seen
dancing merrily on the surface of the sea, and in the daytime she would
come to dry her clothes upon the rocks near the mills of Lerna. These, I
may add from my own knowledge, are reputed to be haunted by Nereids
down to this day. Happily a peasant of that period cannot be suspected of
any education; he was not recalling a piece of repetition mastered at school
when he spoke of

viridis Nereidum comas[345],

but knew by tradition from his ancestors what Horace learnt of them by
study.
In the Greek town of Sinasos also, in Cappadocia, a class of sea-nymphs is
popularly recognised and distinguished under the name Ζαβέται, a word
said by the recorder of it to be derived from a Cappadocian word zab
meaning the ‘sea[346].’ But of the districts known to me the most fertile in
stories of sea-nymphs is the province of Maina, the middle of the three
peninsulas south of the Peloponnese. One such story attaches to a fine
palm-tree growing on the beach at Liméni, a small port on the west coast of
the peninsula. A full version of it has been published[347], but as it is long
and not peculiarly instructive, I content myself with an abridgement of it.
A fisherman of Liméni was sleeping one summer night in his boat; at
midnight he suddenly awoke to find Nereids rowing him out to sea, but
happily, remembering at once that Nereids drown any one whom they catch
looking at them, he lay quiet as if asleep. The boat travelled like lightning,
and soon they reached Arabia; and having shipped a cargo of dates, the
Nereids started home again. As they were returning, one Nereid proposed to
drown the man; but the others replied that he had not opened his eyes to see
them, and that they owed him a debt besides for the use of his boat. Finally
they arrived at some unknown place and unloaded the dates; and then in a
flash the fisherman found himself back at the shore by the monastery of
Liméni, and ‘the she-devils, the Nereids,’ gone. As he baled out his boat, he
found one date; but suspecting that it had been left intentionally by the
Nereids to cause him trouble, he threw it, not into the sea, for fear his
fishing should suffer, but ashore. And since the date had been handled by
supernatural beings (’ξωτικά), it could not perish, but took root where it
fell; and hence the palm-tree on the shore to this day.
These same sea-nymphs—θαλασσιναὶς νεράϊδες—play also a part in the
daily life of the people of this district[348]. It is said that every Saturday
night these Nereids join battle with the Nereids of the mountains, and
according as these or those win, their protégés, the upland or the maritime
population, are found on Sunday morning in higher or lower spirits, booty-
laden or despoiled. It is indeed an imaginative folk which can thus make its
deities responsible for drunken brawls and sober thefts; but some of them
have humour enough to smile at their own imaginings.

A class of maleficent beings known to the inhabitants of Tenos, Myconos,
Amorgos, and other islands of the same group under the name of
ἀγιελοῦδες or γιαλοῦδες[349], have been reckoned as sea-nymphs by several
writers, who would derive the name from ’γιαλός (i.e. αἰγιαλός), the ‘sea-
shore[350].’ But there is no evidence advanced to show that the common-
folk regard them as a species of Nereid; and there is, on the contrary,
evidence of their identity with certain female demons whose name more
commonly appears in the form γελλοῦδες[351], and with whom I shall deal
later.

The Oreads are no longer known under their old name, but their existence is
still recognised throughout the mainland of Greece. Their change of name is
the result merely of a change in the ordinary word for ‘mountain.’ Anciently
ὄρος was usual, βουνός rare; now the peasant uses commonly βουνό, and
ὄρος although understood everywhere and occurring in popular poetry
comes less readily to his lips. Hence the Oreads are now called ᾑ
Βουνήσι̯αις[352] (sc. νεράϊδες) or τὰ κουρίτσια τοῦ βουνοῦ[353] (‘the
mountain-nymphs’ or ‘the maidens of the mount’). These mountain-nymphs
delight in dance and merriment even more than their kin of the rivers and of
the sea. In Maina indeed they seem to have become infected with the
pugnacious character of the people, for as we have seen they there do battle
with the sea-nymphs each Saturday night. But in general frolic is more to
their taste than fighting. On the heights of Taÿgetus are three Oreads, well
known to the dwellers in the plain of Sparta, who dance together without
pause. On the summit of Hymettus too there is a flat space, called in the
modern Attic dialect a πλάτωμα and in shape ‘round like a threshing-floor,’
where Nereids of the mountain dance at midday[354]. Above all in the
uplands of Acarnania and Aetolia many are the hollows or tree-encircled
level spaces which the shepherds will point out as νεραϊδάλωνα, ‘threshing-
floors’ where the nymphs make merry; for a threshing-floor, it must be
remembered, is the usual resort for dancing, wrestling, and all those
amusements for which a level space is required.

Nymphs of the same kind are known also in Crete. A curious story of a
wedding procession in which they took part was there narrated to
Pashley[355], and his informant’s words are recorded by him in the original
dialect. ‘Once upon a time a man told me that two men had once gone up to
the highest mountain-ridges, where wild goats live, and sat by moonlight in
a grassy hollow[356] (διασέλι), in the hopes of shooting the goats. And there
they heard a great noise, and supposed that there were men come to get
loads of snow to carry to Canea. But when they drew nearer, they heard
violins and cithers and all kinds of music, and such music they had never
heard. So they knew at once that these were no men but an assemblage of
divine beings (δαιμονικὸ συνέδριον). And they watched them and saw them
pass at a short distance from where they were sitting, clothed in all manner
of raiment, and mounted some on grey horses and some on horses of other
colours, and they could make out that there were men and women, afoot or
riding, a very host. And the men were white as doves, and the women very
beautiful like the rays of the sun. They saw too that they were carrying
something in the way that a dead body is carried out. Forthwith the
mountaineers determined to have a shot at them as they passed before them.
They had heard also a song of which the words were

“Go we to fetch a bride, a lady bride,
From the steep rock, a bride that is alone.”

And they made up their minds and fired a shot at them. Thereupon those
that were in front cried out with one voice, “What is it?” and those behind
answered, “Our bridegroom is slain, our bridegroom is slain.” And they
wept and cried aloud and fled.’
In regard to this story it may be noted that a male form of Nereid
(Νεραΐδης) is sometimes mentioned, and here such are undoubtedly
implied. The necessity of finding husbands for the Nereids naturally
presents itself to the minds of the old women who are the chief story-tellers,
and the demand is met by an assorted supply of young men, male Nereids,
and devils. As consorts of the last-mentioned, the Nereids enjoy in many
places the title of διαβόλισσαις, ‘she-devils’; and it was on the ground of
such unions that a peasant-woman of Acarnania once explained to me the
belief, held in her own village, that Nereids were seen only at midday. How

should the devils their husbands let such beautiful women be abroad at
night?
It is on the mountain-nymphs also that the peasants most frequently lay the
responsibility for whirlwinds[357], by which children or even adults are said
to be caught up and carried from one place to another[358], or to their death.
Some such fate, we must suppose, in ancient times also was held to have
befallen a seven-year-old boy on whose tomb was written, ‘Tearful Hades
with the help of Oreads made away with me, and this mournful tomb that
has been builded nigh unto the Nymphs contains me[359].’ The habit of
travelling on a whirlwind, or more correctly perhaps of stirring up a
whirlwind by rapid passage, has gained for the nymphs in some districts
secondary names—in Macedonia ἀνεμικαίς, in Gortynia ἀνεμογαζοῦδες[360]
—which might almost seem to constitute a new class of wind-nymphs. But
so far as I know the faculty of raising whirlwinds, though most frequently
exercised by Oreads, is common to all nymphs.
In Athens whirlwinds are said to occur most frequently near the old Hill of
the Nymphs[361]: and women of the lower classes, as they see the spinning
spiral of dust approach, fall to crossing themselves busily and to repeating
μέλι καὶ γάλα ’στὴ στράτα σας[362] (or ’στο δρόμο σας), ‘Honey and milk in
your path!’ This incantation is widely known as an effective safeguard
against the Nereids in their rapid flight, and must in origin, it would seem,
have been a vow. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that in Corfu[363]
a few decades ago the peasantry used to make actual offerings of both milk
and honey to the Nereids, and that Theocritus also associates these two gifts
in vows made to the nymphs and to Pan. ‘I will set,’ sings Lacon, ‘a great
bowl of white milk for the nymphs, and another will I set full of sweet oil’;
to which Comatas in rivalry rejoins, ‘Eight pails of milk will I set for Pan,
and eight dishes of honey in the honeycomb[364].’ The gift of honey is of
special significance. In every recorded case which I know of offerings to
Nereids in modern Greece honey is expressly mentioned, and seems indeed
to be essential; and it is probably from their known preference for this food
that at Kastoria in Macedonia they have even received the by-name, ᾑ
μελιτένιαις, ‘the honeyed ones[365].’ And if we look back over many
centuries we may find a hint of the same belief in Homer’s description of
the cave of the Naiads in Ithaca, wherein ‘are bowls for mixing and pitchers

of stone, and there besides do bees make store[366].’ For it is well
established that honey was the special offering made to the indigenous
deities of Greece before the making of wine such as Homer’s heroes quaff
had yet been discovered[367]. Perchance then even in distant pre-Homeric
days men vowed, as now they vow, honey and milk to the nymphs whose
swift passing was the whirlwind, and felt secure.

The memory of the tree-nymphs is still green throughout Greece. From
Aegina their ancient name δρυάδες is recorded as still in use[368]; and in
parts of Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, as well as in several
islands of the Aegean Sea, Chios, Cimolos, Cythnos, and others, there is a
word employed which is, I believe, formed from the same root and once
denoted the same class of beings. This word is found in the forms
δρύμαις[369], δρύμιαις[370], δρύμναις[371], δρύμνιαις[372] and, in Chios, in a
neuter form δρύματα[373].
It has been suggested indeed by one writer[374] that this word has nothing to
do with Dryads, but that its root is δρυμ- (better perhaps written δριμ- as in
the ancient δριμύς, since, so far as the sound of the vowel in modern Greek
is concerned, the philologist may write η, ι, υ, ει, οι, or υι, as seemeth him
best), in the sense of ‘fierce,’ ‘bitter’; and support for this derivation is
sought in a somewhat vague statement of Hesychius who explains the word
δρυμίους by the phrase τοὺς κατὰ τὴν χώραν κακοποιούς, ‘the evil-doers in
the country’: but whether he took δρυμίους to be the proper name of some
class of demons, or an adjective synonymous with κακοποιός, does not
appear.
But even on the grounds of form alone (which grounds will be considerably
strengthened when we come to consider signification), it appears better to
derive this group of words from δρῦς or more immediately from δρυμός, ‘a
coppice’; for in ancient literature mention is made of ‘Artemis of the
coppice’ and ‘nymphs of the coppice’ (Ἄρτεμις δρυμονία[375] and δρυμίδες
νύμφαι)[376], of a particular nymph named Drymo[377], of a Ζεὺς
δρύμνιος[378] worshipped in Pamphylia, and of Apollo invoked at Miletus

under the title δρύμας[379]. In the last two instances the title may be
supposed to have had reference merely to the surroundings of a particular
sanctuary; but in relation to Artemis and the nymphs the epithet clearly
suggests their woodland haunts.
In present-day usage the words which we are considering almost
universally denote, not nymphs or any other supernatural beings, but the
first few days of August, which are observed in a special way. The number
of these days varies from three in Sinasos[380], in Carpathos[381], and in
Syme (an island north of Rhodes), to five in Cythnos[382] and Cyprus[383],
and six in most other places where they are specially observed. There are
two rules laid down for this observance, though in some places only one of
the two is in force: no tree may be peeled or cut (this is the usual practice
for obtaining mastic and resin); and the use of water for washing either the
person or clothes is prohibited; neither is it permitted to travel by water
during this period. In the interests of personal cleanliness it is unfortunate
that the month of August should have been selected for this abstention; by
that time even the Greeks find the sea tepid enough to admit of bathing
without serious risk of chill, and it is a pity therefore that a penalty should
be inflicted upon bathers during the first week of the only month in which
ablutions extend beyond the pouring of a small jug of water over the
fingers. Howbeit the decrees stand, and as surely as there is transgression
thereof, skin will blister and peel off, clothes will rot[384], and trees will
wither. The severity of these pains has in Cyprus changed the name of these
days from δρύμαις into κακαουσκιαίς, ‘the evil days of August[385].’
Now among a people so superstitious as the Greeks it is reasonable to
suppose that days thus marked by special abstinences were originally sacred
to some deities. Washing and tree-cutting at this season must, we may
assume, have been offences against some supernatural persons whose
festival was then observed and who avenged its profanation; and the
supernatural persons most nearly concerned would naturally be the tree-
nymphs and the water-nymphs.
The association or even confusion of these two classes of nymphs is very
common both in ancient literature and in modern belief, and is indeed a
natural consequence of the fact that the finest trees, such as that plane under
which sat Socrates and Phaedrus, grow only in the close vicinity of water. It

would have puzzled even Socrates to say whether the Nymphs by whom he
might be seized would be more probably Dryads or Naiads. Homer himself,
to go yet further back, suggests the same association, for he tells of ‘a
spreading olive-tree and nigh thereto’ the cave of the Naiads in Ithaca.
Again in later times we find a dedication by one Cleonymus to
‘Hamadryads, daughters of the river’[386]; and though an ingenious critic
would replace Ἁμαδρυάδες by Ἀνιγριάδες (nymphs of the Arcadian river
Anigrus), I believe the fault to lie with Cleonymus and not with the
manuscript; for the place where he makes his dedication is beneath pine-
trees (ὑπαὶ πιτύων). At the present day the same tendency towards
confusion of the two classes is common. This was well illustrated to me by
some peasants of Tenos. Ten minutes’ walk from the town there is a good
spring from which a remarkable subterranean passage cut through the solid
rock carries the water to supply the town. The spring is within a cave,
artificially enlarged at the entrance, over which stands a fine fig-tree.
Standing outside while a companion entered first, I noticed that our guides
(for several persons had escorted us out of curiosity or hospitality) were
distinctly perturbed, and I heard one say to another, ‘See, he is going in, he
is not afraid.’ Inferring thence that the place was haunted, and remembering
that mid-day, the hour at which we happened to be there, was fraught with
special peril, I determined to test my guides, and so sat down under the fig-
tree. Then remarking that the sun was hot at noon, I invited them to come
and sit in the shade and smoke a cigarette. But the bait was insufficient;
they would stand in the sun rather than approach either the spring or the
tree, though they were ready enough to accept cigarettes when I moved out
of the zone of danger. Afterwards by enquiries made elsewhere I learnt that
the spot was the reputed home of Nereids—but whether their abode was
tree or water, who should say? Close neighbours in their habitations,
indistinguishable in their appearance and attributes, it is pardonable to
confuse those sister nymphs,

‘Centum quae siluas, centum quae flumina seruant[387].’

It is exactly this kind of confusion of the two classes of nymphs which has
produced the twofold injunctions for the observance of the days known as
δρύμαις: for evidence is forthcoming that this word originally denoted a
class of nymphs and not, as generally now, their August festival. From

Stenimachos in Thrace comes the statement that by δρύμιαις the people
there understand female deities who live in water and are always hostile to
man, but specially dangerous only during the first six days of August[388].
Here the name δρύμιαις, if the derivation which I prefer is right, points to
the identification of these beings with the ancient Dryads; while their
watery habitations proclaim them rather Naiads. Reversely again in Syme,
where the word δρύμαις is not in use, there are certain nymphs known as
Ἀλουστίναι who live in mountain-torrents, in trees, and elsewhere, and who
are seen only at mid-day and at midnight during the first three days of
August; but, far from being hurtful to men, they may even themselves be
captured by certain magical ceremonies and employed as servants in the
house for a period, after which the spell is broken and they return again to
their homes. Their name Ἀλουστίναι[389], said to be formed from
Ἀλούστος[389], the local name for the month of August, clearly means ‘anti-
washing,’ and at once identifies them with those Naiads whose festival, as I
believe, has rendered the waters sacred and therefore harmful if disturbed
during these days; but on the other hand their dwelling-places include trees.
These two pieces of evidence from places so wide apart as Stenimachos and
Syme are reinforced by a popular expression formerly, and perhaps still, in
use, τὸν ἔπι̯ασαν ᾑ δρύμαις[390], ‘the “drymes” have seized him’; where the
word denoting ‘seizure’ is one of those already noted as proper to ‘seizure’
by nymphs.
From the usage of the word therefore as well as from its formation we may
conclude that the word δρύμαις is the modern equivalent of the ancient
δρυάδες: and the widely-spread custom of abstaining both from tree-cutting
and from the use of water during the early days of August is a survival of an
old joint festival of wood-nymphs and water-nymphs.
But it is not in the relics of ancient worship only that traces of the Dryads
are now to be found. The traveller in Greece will commonly hear that such
and such a tree is haunted by a Nereid. Particularly famous in North
Arcadia is a magnificent pine-tree on the path from the monastery of
Megaspélaeon to the village of Solos. My muleteer enthusiastically
compared it to the gigantic tree which is believed to uphold the world; and
piously crossed himself, as we passed it, for fear of the nymph who made it
her home. In general the trees thus reputed are the fruit-bearing trees which
were comprehensively denoted by the term δρῦς, from which the Dryads

took their name—the fig-tree, the olive, the holly-oak[391], and the plane.
Such trees, especially when conspicuous for age or for luxuriance, are
readily suspected to be the abode of Nereids. One Nereid only, it would
seem, is assigned to each tree (though, if her retreat be violated, she may
swiftly call others of her kind to aid her in taking vengeance), and with the
life of the tree her own life is bound up.
For a nymph is not immortal. Her span of life far exceeds that of man, but
none the less it is measured. ‘A crow lives twice as long as a man, a tortoise
twice as long as a crow, and a Nereid twice as long as a tortoise.’ Such is a
popular saying which I heard from an unlettered peasant of Arcadia, to
whom evidently had been transmitted orally through many centuries a
version of Hesiod’s lines, ‘Verily nine times the age of men in their prime
doth the croaking raven live; and a stag doth equal four ravens; and ’tis
three lives of a stag ere the crow grows old; but the phoenix hath the life of
nine crows; and ye, fair-tressed Nymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus,
do live ten times the phoenix’ age[392].’ Commenting on this passage,
Plutarch takes the word γενεά in the phrase ἐννέα γενεὰς ἀνδρῶν ἡβώντων,
which I have rendered as ‘nine times the age of men in their prime,’ to be
used as the equivalent of ἐνιαυτός, a year; and, making a sober computation
on this basis, discovers that the limit of life for nymphs and daemones in
general is 9720 years. But he then admits that the mass of men do not allow
so long a duration, and quotes by way of illustration a phrase from Pindar,
νύμφας ... ἰσοδένδρου τέκμωρ αἰῶνος λαχούσας, according to which the
nymphs are allotted a term of life commensurate with that of a tree; hence,
it is added, the compound name Ἁμαδρυάδες, Dryads whose lives are
severally bound up with those of the trees which they inhabit[393]. Other
ancient authorities concur. Sophocles markedly calls the nymphs of Mt
Cithaeron ‘long-lived’ (μακραιῶνες), not ‘immortal’[394]: Pliny certifies the
finding of dead Nereids on the coasts of Gaul during the reign of
Augustus[395]: Tzetzes cites from the works of Charon of Lampsacus the
story of an Hamadryad who was in danger of being swept away and
drowned by a swollen mountain-torrent[396]: and, to revert to yet earlier
authority, in one of the Homeric Hymns Aphrodite rehearses to Anchises
the whole matter[397]. Speaking of the son whom she will bear to him, she
says: ‘So soon as he shall see the light of the sun, he shall be tended by
deep-bosomed nymphs of the mountains, even those that dwell upon this

high and holy mount. These verily are neither of mortal men nor of
immortal gods. Long indeed they live and feed on food divine, and they
have strength too for fair dance amid immortals; yea, and with them have
the watchful Slayer of Argus and such as Silenus been joined in love within
the depths of pleasant grots. But at the moment of their birth, there spring
up upon the nurturing earth pines, may be, or oaks rearing high their heads,
good trees and luxuriant, upon the mountain-heights. Far aloft they tower;
sanctuaries of immortals they are called, and men hew them not with
axe[398]. But so soon as the doom of death stands beside them, first the good
trees are dried up at the root and then their bark withers about them and
their branches fall away, and therewith the soul of the nymphs too leaves
the light of the sun.’
So my Arcadian friend was true to ancient tradition both in his estimate of
the life of Nereids and in his belief, thereby implied, that they are mortal.
Nor is other modern testimony wanting. There are popular stories still
current concerning Nereids’ deaths. One has been recorded in which a
Nereid is struck by God with lightning and slain as a punishment for
stealing a boy from his father, and her sister nymphs in terror restore the
child[399]. A pertinent confession of faith has also been heard from the lips
of a Cretan peasant. In explanation of the name Νεραϊδόσπηλος, ‘Nereid-
grot,’ attached to a cave near his village, he had related a story of a Nereid
who was carried off from that spot and taken to wife by a young man, to
whom she bore a son; but as she would never open her lips in his presence,
he went in despair to an old woman who advised him to heat an oven hot
and then taking the child in his arms to say to the Nereid, ‘Speak to me; or I
will burn your child,’ and so saying to make show of throwing the child into
the oven. He did as the old woman advised; but the Nereid saying only,
‘You hound, leave my child alone,’ seized it from him and disappeared. And
since the other Nereids would not admit her again to their company in the
cave, as being now a mother, she took up her abode in a spring close by;
and there she is seen two or three times a year holding the child in her arms.
‘After hearing this tale,’ says the recorder of it, ‘I asked the old peasant who
told it me, how long ago this had happened.’ He replied that he had heard it
from his grandfather, and guessed it to be about a hundred and sixty years.
‘My good man,’ said the other, ‘would not the child have grown up in all

that time?’ ‘What do you suppose, sir?’ he answered; ‘are those to grow up
so easily who live from a thousand to fifteen hundred years?[400]’
How this period was computed by the Cretan peasant, or whether it was
computed at all on any system known to him, is not related; but very
probably the longevity of trees was the original basis of the calculation; for
the peasants will often point out some old contorted olive-trunk as a
thousand or more years old; I was once even taken to see a tree reputed to
have been planted by Alexander the Great. But at any rate it is clear that
both in ancient and in modern times the nymphs have always been believed
to be subject to ultimate death, and however the tenure of life may be
determined in the case of the others, the Dryads have without doubt been
generally reckoned coeval with the trees that are their homes.
An exception to this rule must however be made in the case of Nereid-
haunted trees which do not die a natural death, but are felled untimely. A
Nymph’s life is not to be cut short by a humanly-wielded axe. In the
Homeric Hymn indeed, which I have quoted, we learn that men hew not
such trees with steel; and the same might, I think, be said at the present day
with certainty of those trees which are known to be haunted. But the
unknown is ever full of risk; and the woodcutter of the North Arcadian
forests, mindful of the sacrilege which he may commit and fearful of the
vengeance wherewith it may be visited, takes such precautions as piety
suggests. With muttered appeals to the Panagia or his own patron-saint and
with much crossing of himself he fills up the moments between each bout
of hewing at any suspected tree (unfortunately the finest timber on which he
plies his axe is also the most likely to harbour a Nereid) and finally as the
upper branches sway and the tree trembles to its fall, he runs back and
throws himself down with his face to the ground, in silence which not even
a prayer must break, lest a Nereid, passing out from her violated abode,
hear and espy and punish. For, as has been said before, nothing is more sure
than that he who speaks in the hearing of a Nereid loses from thenceforth
the power of speech; while the practice of hiding the face in the ground is
not a foolish imitation of the ostrich, but is prompted by the belief that a
Nereid is most prone to injure those who by look, word, or touch have of
their own act, though not always of their own will, placed themselves in
communication or contact with her[401].

These precautions appertaining to the lore of modern Greek forestry
indicate a belief that, when a tree is hewn down, its death does not involve
the death of the Nereid within it, but that she escapes alive and vengeful.
And herein once more there is agreement between the beliefs of modern
and of ancient Greece. Apollonius Rhodius tells the story of the want and
penury which befell Paraebius for all his labours. ‘Verily he was paying a
cruel requital for the sin of his father; who once when he was felling trees,
alone upon the mountains, made light of the prayers of an Hamadryad. For
she with tears and passionate speech strove to soften his heart, that he
should not hew the trunk of her coeval oak, wherein she lived continuously
her whole long life; but he right foolishly did fell the tree, in pride of his
young strength. Wherefore the Nymph set a doom of fruitless toil thereafter
on him and on his children[402].’

The Naiads, of whose ancient name, so far as I know, no trace remains in
the dialects of to-day, are not less numerous than other nymphs and as much
to be feared. The peasants speak of them usually as ‘Nereids of the river’ or
‘of the spring’ (νεράϊδες τοῦ ποταμίου or τῆς βρύσης); and only in one
place, Kephalóvryso (‘Fountain-head’) in Aetolia, did I find a distinctive
by-name for them. This was the word ξεραμμέναις[403], which I take to be a
half-humorous euphemism meaning ‘the Parched Ones’; but, so far as
sound is concerned, it would be equally permissible to write ’ξεραμέναις
(past participle of ’ξερνῶ = Latin respuo) and to interpret therefore in the
sense of ‘the Abominable Ones.’ The latter appellation however seems to
me too outspoken in view of the awe in which the Naiads are everywhere
held.
Wherever fresh water is, whether in mountain-torrent or reservoir, in river
or village-well, there is peril to be feared; no careful mother will send her
children at noontide to fetch water from the spring, or, if they are sent, they
must at least spit thrice into it before they dip their pitchers, nor will she
suffer them to loiter beside a stream when dusk has fallen; no cautious man
will ford a river without crossing himself first on the brink.

The actual dwelling-place of these nymphs may be either the depths of the
water itself or some cave beside the stream. Homer gave to the Naiads of
Ithaca for their habitation a grotto, wherein were everflowing waters[404];
and though in some cases the nymphs who haunt the mountain caves may
as well be Oreads as Naiads, I have preferred to deal with them in this
place; for usually it is river-gods who have hollowed out these rocky homes
for their daughters, and in many such caves may be seen the everflowing
waters that attest the Naiads’ birthright.
Some such places, whether springs or caves, have, as might be expected,
attained greater fame or notoriety than others; some special incident starts a
story about them which from generation to generation rolls on gathering it
may be fresh volume.
A typical story—typical save only for the absence of tragedy, since the
Naiads are wont to drown by mistake those whom they carry off—was
heard by Leo Allatius[405] from what he considered a trustworthy source.
‘Some well-to-do people of Chios were taking a summer holiday in the
country en famille, when a pretty little girl of the party got separated from
the rest and ran off to a well at a little distance. Amusing herself, as children
will, she leant forward over the well, and as she was looking at the water in
it, was, without perceiving it, insensibly lifted by some force and pushed
into the well. Her relations saw her carried off, and running up, perceived
the girl amusing herself on the top of the water as if she were seated on a
bed. Thereupon her father, emboldened by the sight, tried to climb down
into the well, but was pulled in by some force and set beside his child. In
the meantime some of the others had brought a ladder, which they lowered
into the well and bade the man ascend. Catching up his daughter in his
arms, he mounted the ladder safe and sound, and to the amazement of all,
though father and daughter had been all that time in the water, they came
out with clothes perfectly dry, without so much as a trace of dampness. The
seizure of the girl and her father they attributed to Nereids, who were said
to haunt that well. The girl too herself asserted that while she was hanging
over the well, she had seen women sporting on the surface of the water with
the utmost animation, and at their invitation had voluntarily thrown herself
in.’
This story, though it ends happily, bears a marked resemblance to that of
Hylas. It is specially noted that the child had a pretty face, and this without

doubt is conceived as impelling the Nereids to seize her. It is of little
consequence that their home is, in this case, a mere well instead of ‘a
spring,’ as Theocritus[406] pictures it, ‘in a hollow of the land, whereabout
grew rushes thickly and purple cuckoo-flower[407] and pale maidenhair and
bright green parsley and clover spreading wide’; for the ancients also
attributed nymphs to their wells[408].
Such stories are sometimes causes, sometimes effects, of the not uncommon
place-names νεραϊδόβρυσι, νεραϊδόσπηλῃ͜ο[409], ‘Nereid-spring,’ ‘Nereid-
cave.’
Two such caves, to which the additional interest attaches of having been in
classical times also regarded as holy ground, are found on Parnassus and on
Olympus. The former is the famous Corycian cave sacred in antiquity to
Pan and the Nymphs[410] and still dreaded by the inhabitants of the district
as an abode of Nereids[411]. The latter is thought to be the ancient sanctuary
of the Pierian Muses, and the peasants of the last generation held the place
in such awe that they refused to conduct anyone thither for fear of being
seized with madness[412]. It is right to add that the tenants of this cavern
were called by the vague name ἐξωτικαίς, which would comprise not only
Nereids, but presumably the Muses also, if any remembrance of them
survives in the district; but the fear of being seized with madness suggests
the ordinary conception of nymphs. In neither of these instances of course
can it be claimed that Naiads rather than Oreads are the possessors of the
cave; but as I have said the peasants generally employ the wide appellation
‘Nereids’ or some yet vaguer name, and do not discriminate between the
looks and the qualities of the several orders of nymphs. It is only by
observing local and occasional distinctions that I have been able to trace
some survivals of the four main ancient classes. In general the ‘Nereid’ of
to-day is simply the ‘Nymph’ of antiquity.

§ 10. The Queens of the Nymphs.

Travelling once in a small sailing-boat from the island of Scyros to
Scopelos I overheard an instructive conversation between one of my two
boatmen and a shepherd whom we had taken off from the small island of
Skánzoura. The occasion of our touching there, namely pursuit by pirates
(from whom the North Aegean is not yet wholly free, though their piracies
are seldom of a worse nature than cattle-lifting from the coasts and islands),
had certainly had an exciting effect upon my boatman’s nerves, and, as
darkness fell, the shepherd responded to his companion’s mood, and their
talk ranged over many strange experiences. Very soon they were
exchanging confidences about the supernatural beings with whom they had
come into contact; and among these figured two who are the queens
respectively of the nymphs of land and of sea. Of these deities one only was
known to each of the speakers, but on comparing notes they agreed that the
two personalities were distinct.
The landsman told of one whom he named ‘the queen of the mountains’ (ἡ
βασίλισσα τῶν βουνῶν) who with a retinue of Nereids was ever roaming
over the hills or dancing in some wooded dell. In form she was as a Nereid,
but taller and more glistening-white than they; and as she surpassed her
comrades in beauty, so did she also excel in cruelty towards those who
heedlessly crossed her path. The sailor on the other hand had both seen and
heard one whom he called ‘the queen of the shore’ (ἡ βασίλισσα τοῦ
γιαλοῦ). Most often she stands in the sea with the water waist-high about
her, and sings passionate love-songs to those who pass by on the shore.
Then must men close fast their eyes and stop their ears; for, if they yield to
her seductions, the bridal bed is in the depths of the sea and she alone rises
up again to tempt yet others with her fatal love.
The former is without question she of whom Homer sang, ‘In company with
her do mirthful nymphs ... range o’er the land.... High above them all she
carries her head and brow, and full easily is she known, though they all be
beautiful’[413].
Nigh on three thousand years ago was composed this graceful epitome of
beliefs still current to-day; for, though the name of Artemis is no longer

heard, her personality remains. The peasants in general describe rather than
name her. In Zacynthos she is called ‘the great lady’ (ἡ μεγάλη κυρά)[414];
in Cephalonia and in the villages of Parnassus she is distinguished simply
as ‘the chief’ or ‘the greatest’ of the Nereids[415]; in either Chios or
Scopelos (I cannot say which, for my shepherd had been born in the former
but was then living in the latter) her title is ‘Queen of the mountains.’ In
Aetolia however I was fortunate enough to hear an actual name assigned, ἡ
κυρὰ Κάλω, ‘the lady Beautiful,’ where the shift of the accent in Κάλω as
compared with the adjective καλός is natural to the formation of a proper
name, and the feminine termination in -ω, almost obsolete now, argues an
early origin. The name therefore in its present form may have come down
unchanged from classical times; but, whatever its age, we may at least hear
in it an echo of the ancient cult-title of Artemis, Καλλίστη, ‘most
beautiful’[416]. The same deity, I suspect, survived also until recently, under
a disguised form but with a kindred name, in Athens: for the folk there used
to tell of one whom they named ‘Saint Beautiful’ (ἡ ἅγι̯α Καλή), but to
whom no church was ever dedicated[417]; her canonisation was only
popular.
The account which I received in Aetolia of this ‘lady Beautiful’ agreed
closely with the description already given of ‘the queen of the mountains.’
In appearance and in character she is but a Nereid on a larger scale. All the
beauty and the frowardness so freely imputed to the nymphs are
superlatively hers; there is no safety from her; on hillside, in coppice, by
rivulet, everywhere she may be encountered; the tongue that makes
utterance in her presence is thenceforth tied, and the eyes that behold her
are darkened. The punishment that befell Teiresias of old for looking upon
Athena as she bathed still awaits those who stray by mischance beside some
sequestered pool or stream where the Nereids and their queen are wont to
bathe in the heat of noon.
Such a spot, favoured in olden time by Artemis and her attendant Naiads,
was the Cretan river Amnisos[418]; and it was probably no mere
coincidence, but a good instance rather of the continuity of local tradition,
that in comparatively recent times her personality and perhaps even her old
name were still known in the district. It is recorded that in the sixteenth
century both priests and people of the district declared that at a pretty little
tarn near the Gulf of Mirabella they had seen ‘Diana and her fair nymphs’

lay aside their white raiment and bathe and disappear in the clear
waters[419]. It would have been highly interesting to know the name of the
goddess which the Italian writer translated as ‘Diana.’ Though it is true that
in Italy[420] Diana herself was still worshipped in magical nightly orgies as
late as the fourteenth century, it is scarcely likely that the Italian name had
been adopted in Crete. More probably the slovenly fashion of miscalling
Greek deities by Latin names was as common then as now; and in this
instance a piece of valuable evidence has thereby been irretrievably lost. Yet
the traditional connexion of Artemis with this district of Crete warrants the
assumption that the leader of the nymphs of whom the story tells was in
personality, if not also in name, the ancient Greek goddess, and no Italian
importation.
Distinct reference to the bathing of Artemis is also made in a story which
has already been related in connexion with Aphrodite and Eros[421]. A
prince, who had journeyed to the garden of Eros to fetch water for the
healing of his father’s blindness, saw in the spring there ‘a woman white as
snow and shining as the moon. And it was in very truth the moon that
bathed here.’ The last sentence, provided always that it be free from modern
scholastic contamination, is an unique example of the survival of Artemis in
the rôle of the moon; while the healing properties of the spring in which she
bathes offer a coincidence, certainly undesigned, with the powers of the
goddess whom her worshippers of yore besought to ‘banish unto the
mountain-tops sickness and suffering’[422].
Whether ‘the lady Beautiful’ is known now also in her ancient huntress-
guise, is a point not readily determined. In Aetolia certainly I once or twice
heard mention of her hunting on the mountains, but without feeling sure
whether the word ‘hunt’ was being used literally or in metaphor.
Expressions borrowed from the chase are not uncommon in the language,
and the particular verb κυνηγῶ, ‘I hunt,’ is in the vernacular used of
anything from rabbit-shooting to wife-beating. The injuries inflicted by
Artemis on those who trespass upon her haunts might possibly be denoted
by the same term. On the other hand it is not in the character of ‘the lady
Beautiful,’ as it is in that of the ‘hunter’ Charos, to seek men out and slay
them; men may fall chance victims to the sudden anger of the goddess, but
they are the chosen quarry of the other’s prowess; he is a true ‘hunter’ of
men, and, try as they will to evade him, he still pursues; but Artemis strikes

none who turn aside from her path. I incline therefore to believe that the
word ‘to hunt’ was intended literally when I heard it used of ‘the lady
Beautiful,’ and that the ancient Artemis’ love of the chase is not forgotten
by the Aetolian peasantry.
Such are the reminiscences of Artemis which I have been able to gather in a
few districts of modern Greece. But it is clear that down to the seventeenth
century the goddess was much more widely known. Leo Allatius[423],
writing about the year 1630, after giving a good description of the Nereids,
plunges abruptly into a long quotation from Michael Psellus, from which
and from Allatius’ own comments on it some information about the Queen
of the Nereids may be gleaned. The passage in question runs as follows, the
comments and explanations in brackets being my own:—
‘ἡ καλὴ τὸν ὡραῖον. Supply ἀπέτεκεν. (Apparently a proverb, ‘Fair mother,
fine son,’ to the usage of which Psellus gives some religious colour.) For the
Virgin that brought forth was wonderfully fair, dazzling in the brightness of
her graces, and her son was exceeding beautiful, fair beyond the sons of
men. (Notwithstanding however the religious significance of the proverb,
he at once condemns the use of it.) As a matter of fact, the phrase is due to
faulty speech. For the popular language has perverted the saying. It is right
to say καλὴν τῶν ὀρέων (‘fair lady of the mountains’); but the people have
made the saying καλὴ τὸν ὡραῖον (‘fair mother, fine son’). (There is no
distinction in sound, according to the modern pronunciation, between τῶν
ὀρέων and τὸν ὡραῖον.) Hence we see that the popular imagination had
once fashioned, quite unreasonably, a female deity whose domain was the
mountains and who as it were disported herself upon them.... There is no
deity called ‘fair lady of the mountains,’ nor is the so-called Barychnas a
deity at all but a trouble arising in the head from heartburn or ill-digested
food, ... which is also known as Ephialtes.’
Here Psellus is rambling in his dissertation as wildly as though his own
head were affected by this demoniacal ailment. Which Allatius observing
comments thus:—
‘What has Barychnas or Babutzicarius[424] or if you like Ephialtes to do
with the fair lady of the woods or the mountains (pulcram nemorum sive
montium)? From them men suffer lying abed; whereas attacks such as we
have said are made by Callicantzarus[425], Burcolacas[426], or Nereid, occur

in the open country and public roadways.... And Psellus himself knew quite
well that the ‘fair lady of the mountains’ was nothing other than those who
are commonly called the ‘fair mistresses’[427] (i.e. Nereids), who have
nothing on earth to do with Barychnas and Ephialtes.’
The argument of this strangely confused passage is happily beside our
mark, and we need not puzzle, with Psellus, over the demonology of
dyspepsia. His interpretation of the phrase καλὴ τῶν ὀρέων I have even
ventured to omit, for a devious path of wilful reasoning leads only to the
conclusion that it means the tree on which Christ was crucified. The only
method in his mad medley of medicine and theology is the intention to
refute the popular belief in a beautiful goddess who haunted the mountains.
Some details of the belief may be gathered from Allatius’ criticism of the
argument. Psellus mentions only the title ἡ καλὴ τῶν ὀρέων, but Allatius
amplifies it in the phrase pulcram nemorum sive montium, implying thereby
that in his own time Artemis—for it can be none other—was associated as
much with woodland as with mountain; while her intimate connexion with
the Nereids is adduced as a matter of common knowledge. The somewhat
loose phrase by which Allatius indicates this fact—pulcram montium nihil
aliud esse quam eas quas vulgus vocat pulcras dominas—must not be read
in any strict and narrow sense. The beautiful lady of the mountains is, he
means, just such as are the Nereids; but she is a definite person,
distinguished as of old among her comrades by supreme grace and
loveliness.
The statements of Leo Allatius, based as they are in the main upon his own
recollections of his native Chios, find remarkable corroboration in a history
of the same island written a little earlier by one Jerosme Justinian[428]. In
the main the history is purely fabulous, taking its start from a point, if my
memory serves me rightly, many centuries earlier than the Deluge; but the
reference to contemporary superstitions may I think be trusted.
Previously to the passage which I translate, the writer has been telling the
tale of the building of a wonderful tower by king Scelerion of Chios,
wherein to guard his daughter Omorfia (Beauty) and three maids of honour
with her until such time as he should find a husband worthy of her; how the
workmen never left the tower till it was finished; how the master-mason
threw down his implements from the top and himself essayed to fly down

on wings of his own contrivance, which however failed to work as he had
hoped, with the result that he fell into the river below the castle and was
drowned; and how his ghost was seen there every first of May at midday.
This story, which may be taken as a fair type of the whole ‘history,’ leads,
by its mentions of apparitions on May 1st, to the following passage[429]:—
‘They have also another foolish belief, that near the tower are to be seen
three youthful women, clothed in white, who invite passers-by to throw
themselves into the river and get some cups of gold and silver which by
diabolical illusion are seen floating on the water, in the hope that going into
the river they may be drowned in a whirlpool called by the Greeks
Chiroclacas, the water of which penetrates beneath the mountain as far as
the precipice where the princess still shows herself. Further, there is no
manner of doubt that the three ladies who appear to the inhabitants of the
place are those spirits who make their dwelling in the water, assuming the
form of women, and called by the ancients Nereides or Negiardes; the good
women are so abused by these illusions that on the first of May they are
wont to make crosses on their doors, saying that the goddess of their
mountains is due to come and visit them in their houses, and that without
this mark she would not come in; likewise they say that she would slay any
one who should go to meet her. And so they give her the name of ‘good,’
being obliged by the fear in which they hold her to give her this title of
honour. Some people are of opinion that this goddess is one of the Oread
nymphs who dwell in the mountains....’
This ‘goddess of the mountains’ whom they call ‘good’ (i.e. probably καλή)
is beyond doubt the same who was known to Psellus and to Allatius as ἡ
καλὴ τῶν ὀρέων, ‘the beautiful lady of the mountains,’ and to my pastoral
informant as ἡ βασίλισσα τῶν βουνῶν, ‘the queen of the mountains’; and in
general the conception of her is the same as continues locally to the present
day. One statement indeed I cannot explain, namely that the women make
crosses on their doors with the purpose of attracting the goddess to their
houses; for I have already mentioned the same use of the symbol for the
contrary purpose of keeping the Nereids out[430]. Possibly as regards this
detail of the ‘foolish belief’ the grand seigneur was wrongly informed. But
in other respects, in the close association of the goddess with the Oreads or
other nymphs, in the fear which she inspired, in the belief that she slew
those who ventured upon her path, the Chian record is in complete

agreement with the description which I have given from oral sources. In
terror, as in charm, the Nereids’ queen is foremost.
A contrary view however is taken by Bernard Schmidt[431], who states that
she is pictured by the commonfolk as gentler and friendlier to man than her
companions, and even disposed to check their light and froward ways. On
such a point, I freely admit, local tradition might well vary; but in this
particular case I am inclined to think that Schmidt fell into the error of
confusing the wild-roaming, nymph-escorted goddess of hill and vale and
fountain with that other goddess who dwells solitary in the heart of the
mountain, dispensing blessings to the good and pains to the wicked, and in
the conception of whom we found an aftermath of the ancient crop of
legends concerning Demeter and Kore. Surely this grand and lonely figure,
‘the Mistress of the Earth and of the Sea,’ is in every trait different from the
lovely, capricious, cruel ‘Queen of the Mountains.’ Indeed the very
circumstance of both presentations being known in one and the same
district—as, to my own knowledge, in Aetolia, and, on Schmidt’s own
showing, in Zacynthos[432]—proves that two divine persons, in type and in
character essentially different, are here involved, and not merely two
accidental and local differentiations of the same deity. Doubtless in the
more ‘civilised’ parts of Greece (to use the word beloved of the half-
educated town-bred Greek), in the parts where old beliefs and customs are
falling into decay and contempt while nothing good is substituted for them,
even the lower classes have lost or are losing count and memory of many of
those powers whom their forefathers acknowledged; but in the more
favourably sequestered villages, let us say, of Aetolia, where superstition
still fears no mockery, no peasant would commit the mistake of
confounding his Demeter with his Artemis. Between majestic loneliness
and frolicsome throng, between dignified beauty and bewitching loveliness,
between gentleness and lightness, between love of good and wanton
merriment, between justice and caprice, the gulf is wide.
But while the modern Artemis is the leader of her nymphs in mischief and
even in cruelty, it must not be thought that she is always a foe to man. In
Aetolia ‘the lady Beautiful’ is quick to avenge a slight or an intrusion; but
for those who pay her due reverence she is a ready helper and a giver of
good gifts. Health and wealth lie in her hand, to bestow or to withhold, as in
the hands of the Nereids. Hence even he whom her sudden anger has once

smitten may regain her favour by offerings of honey and other sweetmeats
on the scene of his calamity. And probably peace-offerings with less
definite intent have been or still are in vogue; for it is reported that presents
used to be brought to the cross-roads in Zacynthos at midday or midnight
simply to appease ‘the great lady’ and her train[433], a survival surely of the
ancient banquets of Hecate surnamed Τριοδῖτις, ‘Goddess of the Cross-
roads.’
In some cases hesitation may be felt in pronouncing an opinion whether it is
for Artemis and the nymphs or for the Fates[434] (Μοῖραι) that these gifts
are intended; and in the category of the doubtful must be included all those
cases where the dedication of the offerings is merely to the καλαὶς
κυρᾶδες[435], ‘good ladies,’ no further information being vouchsafed.
Several writers, including the German Ross and the Greek Pittakis, appear
to have assumed without sufficient enquiry that none but the Nereids could
be thus designated; but as a matter of fact, the same euphemistic title is
occasionally given also to the Fates[436]; and while I incline to trust the
experience and judgement of Ross in the general statement which he makes
concerning such offerings at Athens, Thebes, and elsewhere[437], the
accuracy of Pittakis[438] on the other hand is challenged by the actual spot
which he is describing when he identifies the ‘good ladies’ with the
Nereids; for the place was none other than the so-called ‘prison of
Socrates,’ which the testimony of many travellers concurs in assigning to
the Fates.
But, though some of the evidence concerning offerings demands closer
scrutiny before it can have any bearing upon the continued belief in the
existence of Artemis, there are certainly some corners of Greece in which
that goddess is still worshipped. ‘The great lady,’ ‘the Queen of the
mountains,’ ‘the lady Beautiful’ are the various titles of a single goddess
whose beauty and quick anger have ever since the heroic age held the Greek
folk in awe and demanded their reverence; and until the inroads of
European civilisation destroy with the weapon of ridicule all that is old in
custom and creed, Artemis will continue to hold some sway over hill and
stream and woodland.

The other queen, of whom my boatman spoke, ‘the Queen of the Shore,’ she
who stands in the shallows and by her beauty and sweet voice entices the
unwary to share her bed in the depths of the sea, must I think be identified
with a being who is more commonly called ‘the Lamia of the Sea’ or ‘the
Lamia of the Shore.’ A popular poem[439] from Salonica, in which these two
titles are found side by side, tells of a contest between her and a young
shepherd. One day, in disregard of his mother’s warning, he was playing his
pipes upon the shore, when the Lamia appeared to him and made a wager
with him that she would dance longer than he would go on playing. If he
should win, he should have her to wife; if she should win, she was to take
all his flocks as the prize. Three days the shepherd played, three whole
nights and days; then his strength failed him, and the Lamia took his sheep
and goats and left him destitute.
This poem has some points in common with a belief said to be held in the
district of Parnassos, that if a young man—especially one who is handsome
—play the flute or sing at mid-day or midnight upon the shore, the Lamia
thereof emerges from the depths of the sea, and with promises of a happy
life tries to persuade him to be her husband and to come with her into the
sea; if the young man refuse, she slays him[440]; and presumably, though
this is not mentioned, if he consent, she drowns him.
The same Lamia, it is recorded[441], is also known on the coasts of Elis as a
dangerous foe to sailors; for her work is the waterspout and the whirlwind,
whereby their ships are engulfed. Among the Cyclades too the same belief
certainly prevails (though I have never obtained there any details
concerning the character of the Lamia); for on seeing a waterspout the
sailors will exclaim, ‘the Lamia of the Sea is passing’ (περνάει ἡ Λάμια τοῦ
πελάγου), and sometimes stick a black-handled knife into the mast as a
charm against her[442].
In these somewhat meagre accounts of the Lamia of the Sea, there are
several points in harmony with the general conception of Nereids. She is
beautiful; she seeks the love of young men, even though that love mean
death to them; she is sweet of voice and untiring in dance; and she passes to
and fro in waterspout or whirlwind. It is not surprising then to find that in
Elis she is actually named queen of the Nereids[443], that is, without doubt,
of the sea-nymphs only, since she herself has her domain only in the sea.

And the title ‘queen of the shore’ which I learnt of my boatman from Scyros
points to the same belief; for as we found Artemis, ‘queen of the
mountains,’ to be the leader of all the Nereids of the land, so should ‘the
queen of the shore’ be ruler over the Nereids of the sea.
How far this conception of the Lamia of the Sea accords with classical
tradition, it is impossible to decide. Only in one passage, a fragment of
Stesichorus[444], is there any evidence of the connexion of a Lamia with the
sea. There the marine monster, Scylla, was made ‘the daughter of Lamia,’ a
phrase which has given rise to the conjecture that the ancients like the
moderns, as we shall see in the next section, recognised more than one
species. A marine Lamia would supply the most natural parentage for
Scylla; and if her mother may be identified with the modern Lamia of the
Sea, the foe of ships and creator of the waterspout, the character of Scylla is
true to her lineage.
But the other traits in the character of the modern Lamia of the Sea can
hardly be hers by such ancient prescription. It is difficult to suppose that
Stesichorus pictured Scylla’s mother as a thing of beauty; and the charm of
the modern Lamia’s love-songs which seduce men to their death is perhaps
an attribute borrowed from the Sirens. It is therefore in virtue of acquired
rather than original qualities that the Lamia of the Sea has come to be queen
of the sea-nymphs.

§ 11. Lamiae, Gelloudes, and Striges.

The three classes of female monsters, of whom the present section treats,
have ever since the early middle ages[445] been constantly confounded, and
the special attributes of each assigned promiscuously to the others. This is
due to the fact that all three possess one pronounced quality in common, the
propensity towards preying upon young children; and wherever this horrible
trait has absorbed, as it well may, the whole attention of mediaeval writer or
modern peasant, the distinctions between them in origin and nature have
become obscured. Yet sufficient information is forthcoming, if used with
discrimination, to enable some account to be given of each class separately.
The Lamiae are hideous monsters, shaped as gigantic and coarse-looking
women for the most part, but, with strange deformities of the lower limbs
such as Aristophanes attributed to a kindred being, the Empusa[446]. Their
feet are dissimilar and may be more than two in number; one is often of
bronze, while others resemble those of animals—ox, ass, or goat[447].
Tradition relates that one of these monsters was once shot by a peasant at
Koropíon, a village in Attica, and was found to measure three fathoms in
length; and her loathsome nature was attested by the fact that, when her
body was thrown out in a desert plain, no grass would grow where her
blood had dripped[448]. The chief characteristics of the Lamiae, apart from
their thirst for blood, are their uncleanliness, their gluttony, and their
stupidity. The details of the first need not be named, but would still furnish
a jest for Aristophanes in his coarser mood as they did of old[449]. Their
gluttony is clearly proved by their unwieldy corpulence. Their stupidity is
best shown in their sorry management of their homes; for even the Lamiae
have their domestic duties, being mated usually, according to the folk-
tales[450], with dragons (δράκοι), and making their abode in caverns and
desert places. They ply the broom so poorly that ‘the Lamia’s sweeping’
(τῆς Λάμιας τὰ σαρώματα) has become a proverb for untidiness[451]; they
are so ignorant of bread-making that they put their dough into a cold oven
and heap the fire on top of it[452]; they give their dogs hay to eat, and bones
to their horses[453]. But they have at least the redeeming virtue of sometimes

showing gratitude to those who help them out of the ill plight to which their
ignorance has brought them[454].
Their stupidity also is regarded by the Greeks as a cause of honesty. Though
they are often rich, as being the consorts of dragons whose chief function it
is to keep guard over hidden treasure, they have not the wit to keep their
wealth, but foolishly keep their word instead. Athenian tradition tells of a
very rich Lamia (known by the name of ἡ Μόρα, perhaps better written
Μώρα, a proper name formed from μωρός, ‘foolish’), who used to walk
about at night, seizing and crushing men whom she met till they roared like
bulls. But if her victim kept his wits about him and snatched her head-dress
from her, she would, in order to get it back, promise him both life and
wealth, and keep her word[455].
Such aspects of the Lamiae however are by no means universally
acknowledged; nine peasants out of ten, I suspect, could give no further
information about their character than that they feed on human flesh and
choose above all new-born infants as their prey. Hence comes the popular
phrase (employed, it would appear, in more than one district of Greece) in
reference to children who have died suddenly, τὸ παιδὶ τὸ ἔπνιξε ἡ
Λάμια[456], ‘the Child has been strangled by the Lamia.’
But in general I think the ravages of Lamiae have ceased to inspire much
genuine fear in the peasants’ minds. One there was, so I heard, near
Kephalóvryso in Aetolia, whose dwelling-place, a cave beside a torrent-bed,
was to some extent dreaded and avoided. But in most parts the Lamia only
justifies the memory of her existence by serving to provide adventures for
the heroes of folk-stories; by lending her name, along with Empusa and
Mormo (who still locally survive[457]), as a terror with which mothers may
intimidate naughty children, or by furnishing it as a ready weapon of
vituperation in the wordy warfare of women.
The word Lamia, which has survived unchanged in form down to the
present day save that the by-forms Λάμνα, Λάμνια and Λάμνισσα are
locally preferred, did not originally it would seem indicate a species of
monster but a single person. Lamia according to classical tradition was the
name of a queen of Libya who was loved by Zeus, and thus excited the
resentment of Hera, who robbed her of all her children; whereupon the
desolate queen took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern, and there

changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole
and killed the children of more fortunate mothers[458].
But a plural of the word, indicating that the single monster had been
multiplied into a whole class, soon occurs. Philostratus[459] in speaking of
‘the Empusae, which the common people call Lamiae and Mormolykiae,’
says, ‘Now these desire indeed the pleasures of love, but yet more do they
desire human flesh, and use the pleasures of love to decoy those on whom
they will feast.’ A plural such as is here used might of course be merely a
studied expression of contempt for vulgar superstitions; but the latter part of
the quotation seems to give a fair summary of the character of ancient
Lamiae. This is illustrated by a gruesome story, narrated by Apuleius[460], of
two Lamiae who, in vengeance for a slight of the love proffered by one of
them to a young man named Socrates, tore out his heart one night before the
eyes of his companion Aristomenes.
Of these two main characteristics of the ancient Lamiae, the one,
lasciviousness, has come to be mainly imputed in modern times to the
Lamia of the Sea, the single deity who rules the sea-nymphs; while the
craving for human flesh is the most marked feature of the terrestrial tribe of
Lamiae. But the latter certainly are the truest descendants of the ancient
Lamia, and occupy a place in popular belief such as she held of old; for few,
it would seem, stood then in any serious fear of the Lamia; the testimony of
several ancient writers[461] (the story of Apuleius notwithstanding) proves
that more than two thousand years ago she had already fallen to the level of
bogeys which frighten none but children.

Gelloudes.

In my account of the Nereids properly so-called, reference was made to
certain beings known in the Cyclades as ἀγιελοῦδες or γιαλοῦδες and
reckoned by several writers[462] among the nymphs of the sea. In this they
certainly have the support of popular etymology; for in Amorgos Theodore
Bent[463] heard that ‘an evil spirit lived close by, which now and again rises
out of the sea and seizes infants; hence it is called Gialoù (from γιαλός[464],
the sea (sic)).’ But it is, I think, only an erroneous association by the

inhabitants of the Cyclades of two like-sounding words which has caused
the Ἀγιελοῦδες to be regarded as marine demons; Bent’s information
transposes cause and effect. Elsewhere in Greece there are known certain
beings called Γελλοῦδες or Γιλλοῦδες, female demons with a propensity to
carry off young children and to devour them; and it is strange that so careful
an authority on Greek folk-lore as Bernhard Schmidt should not have
recognised that the name ἀγιελοῦδες employed in some of the Cyclades is
only a dialectic form of the commoner γελλοῦδες[465] with an euphonetic ἀ
prefixed as in the case of νεράϊδες and ἀνεράϊδες. Enquiry in Tenos
revealed to me the fact, not mentioned, though perhaps implied, in the
statement of Bent, that the ἀγιελοῦδες are there believed to feed upon the
children whom they carry off. This trait at once confirms their identity with
the γελλοῦδες, and renders it impossible to class them as a form of nymph.
It is of course believed that nymphs of the sea or of rivers, when they carry
off human children to their watery habitations, do incidentally drown them,
but by an oversight and not of malice prepense. But savagely to prey upon
human flesh—for all the nymphs’ wantonness and cruelty, that is a thing
abhorrent from their nature and inconceivable in them. This horrid
propensity proves the γελλοῦδες or ἀγιελοῦδες to be a separate class of
female demons.
The chief authority on these malignant beings is Leo Allatius[466], who both
quotes a series of passages which enable us to trace the development of the
belief in them, and also tells a story which is the only source of evidence
concerning other of their characteristics than their appetite for the flesh of
infants.
Their prototype, mentioned, we are told, by Sappho, was the maiden Gello,
whose spectre after her untimely end was said by the people of Lesbos to
beset children and to be chargeable with the early deaths of infants[467].
The individuality of this Gello continued to be recognised to some extent as
late as the tenth century[468]; for Ignatius, a deacon of Constantinople, in his
life of the Patriarch Tarasius named her as a single demon, though he added
that the crime of killing children in the same way was also imputed to a
whole class of witches. ‘Hence,’ comments Allatius, ‘it has come about that
at the present day Striges (i.e. the witches of whom Ignatius speaks),
because they practise evil arts upon infants and by sucking their blood or in

other ways cause their death, are called Gellones[469].’ In the story also
which exhibits the chief qualities of this demon, her name (in the form
Γυλοῦ) appears still as a proper name.
But the multiplication of the single demon into a whole class dates from
long before the time of Allatius. John of Damascus in the eighth century
used the plural γελοῦδες as a popular word, the meaning of which he took
to be the same as that of Striges (στρίγγαι); and Michael Psellus too in the
eleventh century evidently regarded these two words as interchangeable
designations of a class of beings (whether of demons or of witches, he
leaves uncertain); for after an exact account of the Striges and their thirst
for children’s blood, he says that new-born infants who waste away (as if
from the draining of their blood by these Striges) are called
Γιλλόβρωτα[470], ‘Gello-eaten.’
The story of Leo Allatius[471], which sets forth the chief qualities of Gello,
is a legend of which the Saints Sisynios and Synidoros are the heroes. The
children of their sister Melitene had been devoured by this demon, and they
set themselves to capture her. She, to effect her escape, at once changed her
shape, and became first a swallow and then a fish; but, for all her slippery
and elusive transformations, they finally caught her in the form of a goat’s
hair adhering to the king’s beard. Then addressing to her the words ‘Cease,
foul Gello, from slaying the babes of Christians,’ they worked upon her
fears until they extorted from her a confession of her twelve and a half
names, the knowledge of which was a safeguard against her assaults.
It is this list of names in which the various aspects of her activity appear.
The first is Γυλοῦ, one of the forms of the name Gello; the second
Μωρά[472], the name of a kind of Lamia; the third Βυζοῦ or ‘blood-sucker’;
the fourth Μαρμαροῦ, probably ‘stony-hearted’; the fifth Πετασία, for she
can fly as a bird in the air; the sixth Πελαγία, for she can swim as a fish in
the sea; the seventh Βορδόνα[473], probably meaning ‘stooping like a kite on
her prey’; the eighth Ἀπλετοῦ, ‘insatiable’; the ninth Χαμοδράκαινα, for she
can lurk like a snake in the earth; the tenth Ἀναβαρδαλαία[474], possibly
‘soaring like a lark in the air’; the eleventh Ψυχανασπάστρια[475], ‘snatcher
of souls’; the twelfth Παιδοπνίκτρια, ‘strangler of children’; and the half-
name Στρίγλα, the kind of witch whereof the next section treats.

Whether these names are anywhere still remembered as a mystic
incantation, or all the qualities which they imply still imputed to the
Gelloudes, I cannot say. But a modern cure for such of the demon’s injuries
as are not immediately fatal has been recorded from Amorgos. ‘If a child
has been afflicted by it, the mother first sends for the priest to curse the
demon, and scratches her child with her nails; if these plans do not succeed,
she has to go down at sunset to the shore, and select forty round stones
brought up by forty different waves; these she must take home and boil in
vinegar, and when the cock crows the evil phantom will disappear and leave
the child whole[476].’

Striges.

The Striges, though often confused with Lamiae and with Gelloudes, are
essentially different from them. The two classes with which I have dealt are
demons; the Striges, in the modern acceptation of the term, are women who
possess the power to transform themselves into birds of prey or other
animals; and it is only the taste for blood, shared by them with those
demons, which has created the confusion.
The Striges moreover cannot, like the Lamiae or Gelloudes, be claimed
either as an original product of the Greek imagination or as the exclusive
property of Greek superstition at the present day. The Albanians have a
word σ̈τρῑ́γ̇ε̱α, and the people of Corsica a term strega, both of which
denote a witch of the same powers and propensities as are feared in Greece;
and it is likely that all of them—Greeks, Albanians, Corsicans—have
borrowed the conception from Italy. The ancient Greeks indeed had a word
στρίγξ identical with the strix of Latin, but the shrieking night-bird denoted
by it was not, so far as I can discover, invested by Greek imagination with
any terrors. In Italy on the contrary the Strix was widely feared as a
bloodthirsty monster in bird-form. Pliny evidently supposed it to be some
actual bird, though he doubted the fables concerning it. ‘The strix,’ he says,
‘certainly is mentioned in ancient curses; but what kind of bird it may be, is
not I think agreed[477].’ Perhaps in those ‘ancient curses’ it was invoked to
inflict such punishment upon enemies as it once meted out to Otos and
Ephialtes for their attempt upon Diana’s chastity[478].

The notion however that Striges were not really birds but witches in bird-
form early suggested itself and found an exponent in Ovid[479]. ‘Voracious
birds,’ he says, ‘there are ... that fly forth by night and assail children who
still need a nurse’s care, and seize them out of their cradles and do them
mischief. With their beaks they are said to pick out the child’s milk-fed
bowels, and their throat is full of the blood they drink. Striges they are
called ... and whether they come into being as birds or are changed thereto
by incantation, and the Marsian spell transforms old women into winged
things,’—such are their ways.
This was probably the state of the superstition when the Greeks added
Striges to their own list of nightly terrors; and the very form of the word in
modern Greek, στρίγλα or στρίγγλα (being apparently a diminutive,
strigula, such as spoken Latin would readily have formed from the literary
form strix), testifies to the borrowing of the belief.
In Greece the latter of the two ways in which Ovid explained the origin of
the Strix seems to have been generally accepted as correct. It is true that the
modern Greeks still have a real bird called στριγλοποῦλι[480] (either some
kind of owl or the night-jar), which not only loves twilight or darkness in
the upper world but is also said to haunt the gloomy demesnes of Charos
below—thereby revealing perhaps some slight evidence of its relationship
to the strix which tormented the brother giants; but the Strigla has long
ceased to be a real bird, and (apart from the confusion with a Lamia or
Gello) is always a witch.
The condition of the belief in the eighth century is noticed by John of
Damascus[481]. ‘There are some of the more ignorant who say that there are
women known as Striges (Στρῦγγαι), otherwise called Geloudes. They
allege that these are to be seen at night passing through the air, and that
when they happen to come to a house they find no obstacle in doors and
bolts, but though the doors are securely locked make their way in and
throttle infants. Others say that the Strix devours the liver and all the
internal organs of the children, and so sets a short limit to their lives. And
they stoutly declare, some that they have seen, and others that they have
heard, the Strix entering houses, though the doors were locked, either in
bodily form or as a spirit only.’

Again in the eleventh century Michael Psellus noticed the same
superstition, though as we have seen his language suggests some confusion
of Striges with Gelloudes. But he is really describing the faculty of the
former to assume the shape of birds when he says, ‘The superstition
obtaining nowadays invests old women with this power. It provides them
with wings in their extreme age, and represents them as settling[482] unseen
upon infants, whom, it is alleged, they suck until they exhaust all the
humours in them’[483].
Leo Allatius, by whom this passage is cited, produces both from his own
experience and from the testimony of others several instances of such
occurrences, and mentions also the various precautions taken against them.
These include all-night watches, lamps suspended before the pictures of
patron-saints, amulets of garlic or of coral, and the smearing of oil from
some saint’s lamp on the face of the child or invalid. It will suffice however
to quote his general description of the Striges according to the beliefs of the
seventeenth century. Striges (στρίγλαις), he tells us in effect, are old women
whom poverty and misery drive to contract an alliance with the devil for all
evil purposes; men are little molested by them, but women and still more
commonly children, being a weaker and easier prey, suffer much from
them, their breath alone[484] being so pernicious as to cause insanity or even
death. They are especially addicted to attacking new-born babes, sucking
out their blood and leaving them dead, or so polluting them by their touch
that what life remains to them is never free from sickness.
It will have been noticed in this last account of the Striges, that the range of
their activity is somewhat enlarged, so that women as well as children fall
victims to them. At the present day, though they are believed to prey chiefly
upon infants, even grown men are not immune, as witness a story[485] from
Messenia.
Once upon a time a man was passing the night at the house of a friend
whose household consisted of his wife and mother-in-law. About midnight
some noise awakened him, and listening intently he made out the voices of
the two women conversing together. What he heard terrified him, for they
were planning to eat himself or his host, whichever proved the fatter. At
once he perceived that his friend’s wife and mother-in-law were Striges, and
knowing that there was no other means of escaping the danger that was

threatening him, he determined to try to save himself by guile. The Striges
advanced towards the sleeping men and took hold of their guest’s foot to
see if it was heavy, and consequently fat and good for eating; he however,
understanding their purpose, raised his foot of his own accord as they took
it in their hands and weighed it, so that it felt to them as light as a feather,
and they let it drop again disappointed. Then they took hold of the foot of
the other man who was sleeping, and naturally found it very heavy.
Delighted at the result of their investigation, they ripped open the wretched
man’s breast, pulled out his liver and other parts, and threw them among the
hot ashes on the hearth to cook. Then noticing that they had no wine, they
flew to the wine-shop, took what they wanted and returned. But in the
interval the guest got up, collected the flesh that was being cooked, stowed
it away in his pouch, and put in its place on the hearth some animal’s dung.
The Striges however ate up greedily what was on the hearth, complaining
only that it was somewhat over-done. The next day the two friends rose and
left the house; the victim of the previous night was very pale, but he did not
bear the slightest wound or scar on his breast. He remarked to his
companion that he felt excessively hungry, and the other gave him what had
been cooked during the night, which he ate and found exceedingly
invigorating; the blood mounted to his cheeks and he was perfectly sound
again. Thereupon his friend told him what had happened during the night,
and they went together and slew the Striges.
This story exhibits all the essential qualities of Striges. The pair of them are
women, and one at least, the mother-in-law, is old; they choose the night for
their depredations; they can assume the form of birds, for ‘they flew,’ it is
said, to the wine-shop; and their taste for human flesh is the motif of the
story.
It must however be acknowledged that as the area of the Striges’ activities
has become somewhat extended, so also has the ancient limitation of the
term to old women become locally somewhat relaxed. In many parts of
Greece a belief is held that certain infants are liable to a form of
lycanthropy; and female infants so disposed are sometimes called Striges. A
story from Tenos[486], narrated in several versions, concerns an infant
princess who was a Strigla. Every day one of the king’s horses was found to
have been killed and devoured in the night. The three princes, her brothers,
therefore kept watch in turn; and it fell to the fortune of the youngest of

them, owing to his courage and skill, to detect the malefactor. About
midnight he heard a noise, and fired into the middle of a cloud that seemed
to hang over the horses, thereby so wounding his sister that the mark
observed on her next day betrayed her nightly doings. Not daring however
to accuse her to his father, he fled from home with his mother to a place of
safety, while the girl remained undisturbed in her voracity and consumed
one by one all the people of the town.
But in other places where the same belief prevails, as we shall see later,
these enfants terribles, who may be of either sex, are called not Striges but
by some such name as ‘callicantzaros,’ ‘vrykolakas,’ or ‘gorgon’; and this
variety of names is in itself a proof that, while the idea of infant cannibals is
widespread, no exact verbal equivalent now exists, and each of the several
names used is only requisitioned to supply the deficiency. A child can
indeed enjoy the title of Strigla by courtesy; only an old woman can possess
it of right.
Thus the old Graeco-Roman fear of Striges still remains little changed. The
Church has repeatedly forbidden belief in them[487]; legislation has
prohibited in times past the killing of them[488]. But the link of superstition
between the past and the present is still unbroken; and witch-burning is an
idea which in any secluded corner of Greece might still be put into
effect[489].

§ 12. Gorgons.

The modern conception of the Gorgon (ἡ γοργόνα) or Gorgons (γοργόνες)
—for popular belief seems to vary locally between recognising one or more
such beings—is extremely complex. Of my own knowledge I can
unfortunately contribute nothing new to what has been published by others
concerning them; for though I have several times heard Gorgons mentioned,
and always on further enquiry found them to be terrible demons who dwell
in the sea, it has so chanced that I have been unable to get any more explicit
information on the subject. The present section is therefore, so far as the
facts are concerned, a compilation from the researches of others, especially
of Prof. Polites of Athens University.
A Gorgon is represented as half woman, half fish. Rough sketches on the
walls of small taverns and elsewhere may often be observed, depicting a
woman with the tail of a fish, half emerging from the waves, and holding in
one hand a ship, in the other an anchor; sometimes also she is armed with a
breastplate[490]. Similar designs are also to be seen tattooed upon the arms
or breasts of men of the lower classes, especially among the maritime
population.
The Gorgons themselves are to be encountered in all parts of the sea; but
their favourite resort, especially on Saturday nights, is reputed to be the
Black Sea, where if one of them meets a ship, grasping the bows with her
hand she asks, ‘Is king Alexander living?’ To this the sailors must reply ‘he
lives and reigns,’ and may add ‘and he keeps the world at peace,’ or ‘and
long life to you too!’; for then the awful and monstrous Gorgon in gladness
at the tidings transforms herself into a beautiful maiden and calms the
waves and sings melodiously to her lyre. If on the contrary the sailors make
the mistake of saying that Alexander is dead, she either capsizes the ship
with her own hand or by the wildness of her lamentations raises a storm
from which there is no escape nor shelter[491]. The mention of Alexander
the Great in these stories of the Gorgons, as also sometimes in connexion
with the Nereids, is unimportant; it is not an instance of purely oral
tradition, but has its source in the history of Alexander by
Pseudocallisthenes[492], of which there exist paraphrases in the popular

tongue. The interest of such fables lies in the association of beauty and
melody as well as of horror with the Gorgons, and in the rôle of marine
deity which they play.
In general however it is upon the monstrous and terrifying aspect of the
Gorgons that the common-folk seize, so that the name Gorgon is
metaphorically applied to ill-favoured and malevolent women[493]. Thus in
Rhodes it is used of any large fierce-looking virago[494]; in Cephalonia
(where also the word Μέδουσα, Medusa, survives in the same sense) of any
lady conspicuously ill-featured[495]. Allusion too has already been made to
the case where a child possessed by a mania of bloodthirstiness is
occasionally called a Gorgon[496].
But there is another and fresh aspect of the Gorgon’s nature suggested by
the use of the word in Cythnos. There it is metaphorically applied to
depraved women[497]; and this isolated usage is in accord with one
description of the Gorgon which has come down from the middle ages. This
description forms part of a poem entitled ‘The Physiologus[498]’ (written in
the most debased ecclesiastical Greek and supposed to date from before the
thirteenth century), which gives a fantastic account of the habits of many
birds and beasts among which the Gorgon is included.
‘The Gorgon is a beast like unto a harlot; the hair of her head is all auburn;
the ends thereof are as it were heads of snakes; and her body is bare and
smooth, white as a dove, and her bosom is a woman’s with breasts fair to
behold; but the look of her face brings death; whatsoever looks upon her
falls down and dies. She dwells in the regions of the West. She knows all
languages and the speech of wild beasts. When she desires a mate, she calls
first to the lion; for fear of death he draws not near to her. Again she calls
the dragon, but neither does he go; and even so all the beasts both small and
great. She pipes sweetly and sings with charm beyond all; lastly she utters
human voice: “Come, sate fleshly desire, ye men, of my beauty, and I of
yours.” The men, knowing then their opportunity against her, lay snares that
she may lose her pleasure; and stand afar off, that they may not see her, and
raise their voice and cry and say unto her: “Dig a deep pit and put thy head
therein, that we may not die and may come with thee.” She straightway then
goes and makes a great hole and puts her head therein and leaves her body;
from the waist downward it is seen naked; so she remains and awaits the

pains of lewdness. The man goes from behind, cuts off her head, holds it
face downward, and places it in a vessel, and if he meet dragon or lion or
leopard, he shows the head, and the beasts die.’
These modern or mediaeval descriptions of the Gorgons, though they are by
no means consistent one with another, offer four main aspects in which the
modern Gorgon may be compared with the creatures of ancient mythology.
Her face is terrible either in its surpassing loveliness or in its overwhelming
hideousness. She possesses the gift of entrancing melody. She is
voluptuous. She dwells in the sea.
The first aspect may be derived directly from the ancient conception of the
Gorgons. The word Γοργώ itself is a name formed from the adjective
γοργός and means simply ‘fierce’ or ‘terrible’ in look, without implying
anything of beauty or the opposite; while of Medusa, the Gorgon par
excellence, tradition relates that once she was a beautiful maiden beloved of
Poseidon, and that it was only through the wrath of Athena that her hair was
changed into writhing snakes and her loveliness lost in horror. Moreover in
ancient works of art the representation of the Gorgon’s head varies from a
type of cruel beauty to a grinning mask. But it is also possible that the idea
of their beauty is due to a confusion of Gorgons with Sirens, from whom, as
we shall see, certain traits have certainly been borrowed.
These traits are the two next aspects of the modern Gorgons which we have
to consider, the sweetness of their singing and their voluptuousness. These
were the essential qualities of the Sirens, and have undoubtedly been
transferred to the Gorgons no less than to the Lamia of the Sea[499].
Possibly also from the same source comes the mixed shape, half woman
and half fish, in which the Gorgon is now pourtrayed. The Sirens were
indeed originally terrestrial, dwelling in a meadow near the sea, yet not
venturing in the deep themselves, but luring men to shipwreck on the coast
by the spell of their song; and an echo perhaps of this conception, though
the Sirens themselves are no longer known, lives on in a folk-song which
pictures the enchantment of a maiden’s love-song wafted to seafarers’ ears
from off the shore: ‘Thereby a ship was passing with sails outspread.
Sailors that hearken to that voice and look upon such beauty, forget their
sails and forsake their oars; they cannot voyage any more; they know not
how to set sail[500].’ But by the sixth century[501] the traditional habitat of

the Sirens had changed. ‘The Sirens,’ says an anonymous work on monsters
and great beasts, ‘are mermaids, who by their exceeding beauty and
winning song ensnare mariners; from the head to the navel they are of
human and maidenly form, but they have the scaly tails of fishes[502].’ This
description establishes an unquestionable connexion between the Sirens and
the modern Gorgons.
But the fourth aspect of the Gorgons on which I have to touch, their
connexion with the sea, is not, I think, to be explained as another loan from
the Sirens. On the contrary the Gorgons were it would seem deities of the
sea, when the Sirens were still dwellers upon the shore; and it was their
originally marine character which enabled them to absorb the qualities once
attributed to the Sirens. Thus according to Hesiod[503] the three Gorgons
were daughters of the sea-deities Phorcys and Ceto, and their home was at
the western bound of Ocean. Further one of their number, Medusa, was
loved by the sea-god Poseidon, and gave birth both to the horse Pegasus
whose name may be a derivative of πήγη, ‘water-spring,’ and whose resort
was certainly the fountain of Pirene[504], and also to Chrysaor whose bride
was ‘Callirrhoe, daughter of far-famed Ocean.’ Whether this mythological
problem is capable of solution in terms of natural phenomena[505] does not
here concern us; but it is a straightforward and necessary inference from
these genealogical data, that an early and intimate connexion existed
between the Gorgons and the sea. And here art comes to the support of
literature. In the National Museum of Athens are two vases of about the
sixth century, depicting Gorgons in the company of dolphins. The first, an
early Attic amphora[506] represents the three Gorgons, of whom Medusa
appears headless, surrounded by a considerable number of them. The
second, a kylex[507] with offset lip of the Kleinmeister type, pourtrays a
single Gorgon with a dolphin on either side. These artistic presentments
furnish the strongest possible corroboration of Hesiodic lore, and justify the
assertion that from the earliest times the Gorgons were deities of the sea. It
was clearly then in virtue of their own marine character that they were able
later to usurp also the place of the Sirens.
But the Sirens are not the only ancient beings who have contributed to the
formation of the popular conception of modern Gorgons. In one story[508]
the personality of Scylla is unmistakeable beneath the disguise of name.

This fusion is the more natural in that Scylla was from the beginning[509] a
monster of the sea, whose form, according to Vergil[510], terminated like
that of latter-day Gorgons in a fish’s tail; a monster too fully as terrible in
her own way as any Gorgon. The following extract from the story contains
all that is pertinent.
‘So the lad departed and tramped on for twenty hours. Then he came to a
village by the sea, and saw some men busy lading a boat with oil, and they
were carrying on board each one a barrel. When he drew near to them, he
said, “Can you carry but one barrel at a time, my good fellows? See how
many I will carry.” So saying, he took a barrel on each shoulder, and placed
them in the boat. Then said the captain to him, “Thank you, my lad” (for he
was afraid of him), “come and have some food.” “No, thank you, captain,”
he replied, “I do not want any. But when you are passing yonder straits,
please take me along with you.” The captain was delighted to do so, for in
the sea at that place there was a Gorgon, and from every boat that passed
she took one man as toll and devoured him, or else swamped the whole
boat. So they set out, and as they were going the captain said to the lad,
“Take a turn at the tiller, my boy, that we may go and sleep, for we are
tired.” Accordingly they went below—to sleep, so they pretended—and the
lad remained at the helm. Suddenly the boat stopped. He was looking about
on each side when he heard a voice behind him. He turned at once and saw
a beautiful woman with golden hair, who said to him, “Give me my
tribute.” “What tribute?” replied the lad. “The man whom I devour from
each boat that passes.” “Give me your hand,” said the lad to her.
Straightway without demur she gave it to him, and tried to pull him down
into the sea. At this the lad grew angry. “Come up, you she-devil, come up
here,” he cried, and dashed her upon the deck. Then he belaboured her
soundly, and said to her: “Swear to me that you will never molest man
again, or I will not let you go.” “I swear,” she said, “by my mother the sea
and by my father Alexander, that I will molest none.” Then he threw her
back into the sea.’
Apart from the description of the Gorgon in this story, as in others, as a
‘beautiful woman with golden hair,’ the tradition which has contributed
chiefly to the invention of the episode is the ancient myth of Scylla and, we
may perhaps add, of Charybdis; for here too the straits are the scene of

alternative horrors, either the devouring of one man out of the crew or the
sinking of the whole craft.
But in spite of the fusion of both Scylla and the Sirens with the Gorgons in
the crucible of popular imagination, analysis of the complex modern
conception still reveals two elements in the Gorgons’ nature which
vindicate their claim to their ancient name, their association with the sea
and the terror that they inspire.

§ 13. The Centaurs.

Ἀνάγκη μετὰ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν Ἱπποκενταύρων εἶδος ἐπανορθοῦσθαι.
Plato, Phaedrus, 7.
The Callicántzari (Καλλικάντζαροι) are the most monstrous of all the creatures of the popular imagination, and
none are better known to the Greek-speaking world at large; for even where educated men have ceased to believe
in them, they still figure in the stories told and retold to children with each recurring New Year’s Day; and, among
the peasants, many reach manhood or womanhood without outgrowing their early fears of them.
The name Callicantzaros itself appears in many dialectic and widely differing forms, and there are also a multitude
of local by-names. Of the former I shall treat later in discussing the origin of the word Callicantzaros, while the by-
names, being for the most part descriptive of the appearance or qualities of these monsters, will be mentioned as
occasion requires. But even where other local names are in common use, some form of the word Callicantzaros is
almost always employed as well, or at least is understood.
As in the nomenclature, so too in the description of the Callicantzari, one locality differs very widely from another.
And this cannot be merely a result of the wide distribution of the belief in them; for the Nereids certainly are
equally widely known, and yet their appearance and habits are, broadly speaking, everywhere the same. The
extraordinary divergences and even contradictions in different accounts of the Callicantzari demand some other
explanation than that of casual variation. That explanation, as I shall show later, lies in their identity with the
ancient Centaurs. But before I discuss their origin, I must attempt as general a description of their appearance and
habits as the vast variation of local traditions permits. In revising this description I have had the advantage of
consulting Prof. Polites’ new work on the traditions of modern Greece[511], from which I have learnt some new
facts, and have obtained on several points confirmation from a new source of what I had myself heard or surmised.
I take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to him.
In describing the Callicantzari, although the diversities of their outward form are almost endless, two main classes
of them must be distinguished, because corresponding with that physical division there is also a marked difference
in character. The two classes differ physically in stature, and, while all Callicantzari are essentially mischievous in
character, the mischief wrought by the larger sort is often of a malicious and even deadly order, while the smaller
sort are more frolicsome and harmless in their tricks.
The larger kind vary from the size of a man to that of a gigantic monster whose loins are on a level with the
chimneypots. They are usually black in colour, and covered with a coat of shaggy hair, but a bald variety is also
sometimes mentioned. Their heads and also their sexual organs are out of all proportion to the rest of their bodies.
Their faces are black; their eyes glare red; they have the ears of goats or asses; from their huge mouths blood-red
tongues loll out, flanked by ferocious tusks. Their bodies are in general very lean, so that in some districts the word
Callicantzaros is applied metaphorically to a very lean man[512]; but a shorter and thickset variety also occurs.
They have the arms and hands of monkeys, and their nails are as long again as their fingers and curved like the
talons of a vulture. They are sometimes furnished with long thin tails. They have the legs of a goat or an ass, or
sometimes one human leg and one of bestial form; or again both legs are of human shape, but the foot so distorted
that the toes come where the heel should be[513]. Hence it is not surprising that they are often lame, but even so
they are swift of foot and terrible in strength. ‘They devour their road at the pace of Pegasus,’ wrote Leo
Allatius[514]; and at the present day several by-names bear witness to their speed. In Samos they are called
Καλλισπούδηδες[515], ‘those who make good speed’; in Cyprus Πλανήταροι[516], ‘the wanderers’; in Athens they
have the humorous title Κωλοβελόνηδες, formed from the proverbial expression βελόνια ἔχει ’στὸν κῶλο του, ‘he
has needles in his buttocks,’ said of any one who cannot sit still, but is always on the move[517]. Their strength also
has earned them one by-name, reported from Kardamýle in Maina, τὰ τσιλικρωτά, said to be formed from the
Turkish tselik (‘iron’), in the sense of ‘strong as iron[518].’
All or any of the features which I have mentioned may be found in the person of a single Callicantzaros; but it
must be allowed also that no one of them is essential. For sometimes the Callicantzaros appears in ordinary human
form without so much as a cloven hoof to distinguish him from ordinary mankind, or again completely in animal
shape. In one place they are described as ἀγριάνθρωποι[519], savages but human in appearance, while in another
they are ἄγρια τετράποδα[520], ‘savage quadrupeds.’

Yet in general the Callicantzari are neither wholly anthropomorphic nor wholly theriomorphic, but a blend of the
two. In a story of some men at Athens who dressed themselves up as Callicantzari, it is said that they blacked their
faces and covered themselves with feathers[521]. Again two grotesque and bestial clay statuettes from the Cabirium
near Thebes and now in the National Museum at Athens, were identified by peasants as Callicantzari[522]; an
identification I have also met with when questioning peasants about similar objects in local museums; in one case
it was a Satyr and in another a Centaur which my guide identified as a Callicantzaros. On the whole I should say
that the goat contributes more than any other animal to the popular conception of these monsters. Besides having
the legs and the ears of goats, as was noted above, they are sometimes said to have their horns also; and in Chios
their resemblance to goats is so clearly recognised that in one village they have earned the by-name of
Κατσικᾶδες[523], which by formation should mean ‘men who have to do with goats (κατσίκια),’ though it has
apparently been appropriated to the designation of beings who are in form half goat and half man. There are
however districts, as we shall see later, in which some other animal than the goat forms the predominant element in
the monstrous ensemble.
The smaller sort of Callicantzari is rarer than the large, but their distribution is at any rate wide. They are the
predominant type in north-west Arcadia, in the district about Mount Parnassus, and at Oenoë[524] on the southern
shore of the Black Sea. They are most often human in shape, but are mere pigmies, no taller than a child of five or
six. They are usually black, like the larger sort, but are smooth and hairless. They are very commonly deformed,
and in this respect the strange beasts on which they ride are like them. At Arachova[525], on the slopes of
Parnassus, every one of them is said to have some physical defect. Some are lame; others squint; others have only
one eye; others have their noses or mouths, hands or feet set all askew; and as a cavalcade of them passes by night
through the village, one is to be seen mounted on a cock and his long thin legs trail on the ground as he rides;
another has a horse no bigger than a small dog; another, the tiniest of them all, is perched on an enormous
donkey’s back, and when he falls off cannot mount again; and others again ride strange unknown beasts, lame,
one-eyed, or one-eared like their masters.
Callicantzari of this type are usually harmless to men. They play indeed the same boisterous pranks as their larger
brethren, but perhaps owing to their insignificant size are an object of merriment rather than of fear. But, as I shall
show later, there is reason to believe that they are not the original type of Callicantzari. It is only by a casual
development of the superstition, that these grotesque hobgoblins have been locally substituted for the grim and
gaunt monsters feared elsewhere. They form, as it were, a modern and expurgated edition of the larger sort of
Callicantzari, to whom I now return.
The Callicantzari appear only during the δωδεκαήμερον or ‘period of twelve days’ between Christmas and
Epiphany[526]. The rest of the year they live in the lower world, and occupy themselves in trying to gnaw through
or cut down the great tree (or in other accounts the one or more columns) on which the world rests. Each
Christmas they have nearly completed their task, when the time comes for their appearance in the upper world, and
during their twelve days’ absence, the supports of the world are made whole again.
Even during their short visit to this world, they do not appear in the daytime. From dawn till sunset they hide
themselves in dark and dank places—in caves or beneath mills—and there feed on such food as they can collect,
worms, snakes, frogs, tortoises, and other unclean things. But at night they issue forth and run wildly to and fro,
rending and crushing those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust mark their course. Now
they break into some lonely mill, terrify and coerce the miller into showing them his store, bake for themselves
cakes thereof, befoul with urine all that they cannot use, and are gone again. Now they pass through some hamlet,
and woe to that house which is not prepared against their coming. By chimney and door alike they swarm in, and
make havoc of the home; in sheer wanton mischief they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas
pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants half dead with fright or
violence. Now it is a wine shop that they enter, bind the publican to his chair, gag him with dung, break open each
cask in turn, drink their fill, and leave the wine running. Now they light upon some belated wayfarer, and make
sport of him as their fancy leads them. Sometimes his fate is only to dance all night with the Callicantzari and to be
let go at cockcrow unscathed; for these monsters despite their uncouth shape delight in dancing, and to that end
often seek the company of the Nereids; but more often men are sorely torn and battered before they escape, and
women are forcibly carried off to be the monsters’ wives. In some accounts they even make a meal of their human
prey.
The fact that the activities of the Callicantzari are always limited to the night-time has given them a special claim
to the name Παρωρίταις or Νυχτοπαρωρίταις[527], formed from πάρωρα, ‘the hour before cockcrow,’ for then it is

that their excesses and depredations have reached their zenith; but the word cannot correctly be called a by-name
of the Callicantzari, for it is also, if more rarely, applied to other nocturnal visitants.
The only redeeming qualities in these creatures’ characters, from the point of view of men who fall into their
clutches, are their stupidity and their quarrelsomeness. They have indeed a chieftain who sometimes tries to
marshal and to discipline them, and who is at least wise enough to warn them when the hour of their departure
draws near. But in general ‘the Great Callicantzaros[528],’ as he is called, or ‘the lame demon[529],’ is too like the
rest of them to be of much avail; and indeed his place is not at the head of the riotous mob where he might control
them, but he limps along, a grotesque and usually ithyphallic figure, in the rear. Thus in the popular stories it often
happens that either the Callicantzari go on quarrelling about the treatment of some man or the possession of some
woman whom they have captured, or else their prisoner is shrewd enough to keep them amused, until cock-crow
brings release. For at that sound (or, to be more precise, at the crowing of the third cock, who is black and more
potent to scare away demons than the white and red cocks who precede him[530]) they vanish away, like all terrors
of the night in ancient[531] as well as modern times, to their dark lairs.
The tales told by the peasants about the Callicantzari are extremely numerous, though there is a certain sameness
about the main themes. Three types of story however are deserving of notice, to illustrate the character of the
Callicantzari and the ways in which they may be outwitted and eluded.
The first type may be represented by a tale told to me in Scyros in explanation of the name of a cave some half-
hour distant from the town. Both the cave itself and that part of the path which lies just below it are popularly
called τοῦ καλλικαντζάρου τὸ ποδάρι, ‘the Callicantzaros’ foot.’ My enquiries concerning the name elicited the
following story, which seems incidentally to explain how the Great Callicantzaros came to be lame.
‘Once upon the eve of Epiphany a man of Scyros was returning home from a mill late at night, driving his mule
before him laden with two sacks of meal. When he had gone about half-way, he saw before him some Callicantzari
in his path. Realising his danger, he at once got upon his mule and laid himself flat between the two sacks and
covered himself up with a rug, so as to look like another sack of meal. Soon the Callicantzari were about his mule,
and he held his breath and heard them saying, “Here is a pack on this side and a pack on that side, and the top-load
in the middle, but where is the man?” So they ran back to the mill thinking that he had loitered behind; but they
could not find him and came back after the mule, and looked again, and said, “Here is a pack on this side and a
pack on that side, and the top-load in the middle, but where is the man?” So they ran on in front fearing that he had
hasted on home before his mule. But when they could not find him, they returned again, and said as before, and
went back a second time towards the mill. And thus it happened many times. Now while they were running to and
fro, the mule was nearing home, and it so happened that when the beast stopped at the door of the man’s house, the
Callicantzari were close on his track. The man therefore called quickly to his wife and she opened the door and he
entered in safety, but the mule was left standing without. Then the Callicantzari saw how he had tricked them, and
they knocked at the door in great anger. So the woman, fearing lest they would break in by force, promised to open
to them on condition that they should first count for her the holes in her sieve. To this they agreed, and she let it
down to them by a cord from a window. Straightway they set to work to count, and counted round and round the
outermost circle and never got nearer to the middle; nor could they discover how this came to pass, but only
counted more and more hurriedly, without advancing at all. Meanwhile dawn was breaking, and so soon as the
neighbours perceived the Callicantzari, they hurried off to the priests and told them. The priests immediately set
out with censers and sprinkling-vessels in their hands, to chase the Callicantzari away. Right through the town the
monsters fled, spreading havoc in their path and hotly pursued by the priests. At last when they were clear of the
town, one Callicantzaros began to lag behind, and by a great exertion the foremost priest came up to him and
struck him on the hinder foot with his sprinkling vessel. At once the foot fell off, but the Callicantzaros fled away
maimed though he was. And thus the spot came to be known as “the Callicantzaros’ foot.”’
This story consists of three episodes. The first, in which the driver of the mule outwits the Callicantzari by lying
flat on the animal’s back and making himself look like a sack of meal, occurs time after time in the popular tales
with hardly any variation; indeed it often forms in itself the motif of a whole story, in which, as soon as the man
reaches his home, the cock crows and the Callicantzari flee. The second episode in which the wife effects some
delay by bargaining with the Callicantzari that they shall count the holes in a sieve, is also fairly common, but the
difficulty which the monsters find, in every other version of which I know, is that they dare not pronounce the
word ‘three,’ and so go on counting ‘one, two,’ ‘one, two’ till cock-crow[532]. The third episode in which the priests
chase away the Callicantzari is not often found in current stories, but the belief that the ἁγιασμός or ‘hallowing’
which takes place on the morning of Epiphany is the signal for the final departure of the Callicantzari is firmly

held throughout Greece. This ceremony consists primarily in ‘blessing the waters’—whether of the sea, of rivers,
of village-wells, or, as at Athens, of the reservoir—by carrying a cross in procession to the appointed place and
throwing it in; but in many districts also the priests afterwards fill vessels with the blest waters, and with these and
their censers make a round of the village, sprinkling and purifying the people and their houses and cornfields and
vineyards. The fear which the Callicantzari feel of this purification is embodied in some rough lines which they are
supposed to chant as they disappear at Twelfth-night:

φύγετε, νὰ φύγουμε,
τ’ ἔφτασ’ ὁ τουρλόπαπας
μὲ τὴν ἁγι̯αστοῦρα του
καὶ μὲ τὴ βρεχτοῦρα του,
κι’ ἅγι̯ασε τὰ ῥέμματα
καὶ μᾶς ἐμαγάρισε[533].

Quick, begone! we must begone,
Here comes the pot-bellied priest,
With his censer in his hand
And his sprinkling-vessel too;
He has purified the streams
And he has polluted us.

In the actual tales however as told by the people the intervention of the priests is not a common episode. More
often the story ends in a rescue effected by neighbours armed with firebrands, of which the Callicantzari go in
mortal terror, or simply with the crowing of the black cock.
The second type of story deals with the adventures of a girl sent by her wicked stepmother to a mill during the
dangerous Twelve Days, nominally to get some corn ground, but really in the hope that she will fall a prey to the
Callicantzari. Having arrived at the mill the girl calls in vain to the miller to come and help unload her mule, and
entering in search of him finds him bound to his chair or dead with fright and the Callicantzari standing about him.
They at once seize the girl, and begin to quarrel which shall have her for his own. But the girl keeps her wits, and
says that she will be the wife of the one who brings her the best bridal array. So they disperse in search of fine
raiment and jewels. Meanwhile she sets to work to grind the corn, and each time a Callicantzaros returns with
presents, she sends him on a fresh errand for something more. Finally the corn is all ground, and she quickly loads
the mule with two sacks, one on either side, clothes herself in the gold and jewels which the Callicantzari have
brought, mounts the mule and lies flat on the saddle covered over with a sack, and eluding the Callicantzari who
pursue her, like the muleteer in the previous story, reaches home in safety.
The wicked stepmother seeing that her plans have miscarried and that her stepdaughter is now rich while her own
daughter is poor, determines to send the latter the next evening to the mill. She too finds the mill occupied by the
Callicantzari, but not being so shrewd as her half-sister either falls a victim to the lust of the monsters, or is killed
and eaten by them, or, in one version[534], is stripped of her own clothes, dressed in the skin of her mule which the
Callicantzari have killed and flayed, and sent home with a necklace of the mule’s entrails about her neck.
The third type of story, one which is known all over Greece, introduces us to the domestic circle of a
Callicantzaros. A midwife is roused one night during the Twelve Days by a furious rapping at her door, and,
imagining that the call is urgent, slips on her clothes in haste without enquiring who it is that needs her services,
and stepping out of her door finds herself face to face either with an unmistakeable Callicantzaros who seizes her
and carries her off, or else with a man unknown to her who subsequently proves to be a Callicantzaros[535]. On
their way to his home he bids her see to it that the child with which his wife is about to present him be male; in that
case he will reward her handsomely; but if a female child be born, he will devour the midwife. Arrived at the cave
or house where the Callicantzaros dwells, the midwife goes about her task, and the Callicantzaros’ wife is soon
delivered of a child; but to the midwife’s horror it is female. Her wits however do not desert her, and she quickly
devises a scheme for her escape. Taking a candle, she warms it and fashions from the wax a model of the male
organs and fastens it to the child. Then calling the Callicantzaros, she tells him that a fine male child is born and
holds up the infant for him to see. Thereat he is content and bids her swaddle it. This done, she craves leave to go
home, and the Callicantzaros, true to his word, rewards her with a sack of gold and lets her go.

The conclusion of the story varies. In some versions, the fraud is discovered before the midwife reaches her home,
the Callicantzaros curses the gold which he has given her, and when she opens her sack she finds nothing but
ashes. In others, she reaches home in safety with the gold and by magic means breaks the power of the
Callicantzaros over his gift; and when he arrives at her door in hot pursuit, she has already taken all precautions
against his entrance and lies secure and silent within.
The wife of the Callicantzaros here mentioned is in some stories pictured as being of the same monstrous species
as himself, in others as an ordinary woman whom he has seized and carried off. But, apart from these stories in
which she is a necessary persona dramatis, she has no hold upon the popular imagination. A feminine word,
καλλικαντζαρίνα or καλλικαντζαροῦ, has been formed in this case just as the word νεραΐδης[536] has been formed
as masculine of Nereid (νεράϊδα), and female Callicantzari are as rare and local as male Nereids. Their existence is
assumed only as complementary to that of their mates.
Security from the Callicantzari is sought by many methods, some of them Christian in character, others magical or
pagan. Foremost among Christian precautions is the custom of marking a cross in black upon the house-door on
Christmas Eve; and the same emblem is sometimes painted upon the various jars and vessels in which food is kept
to ensure them against befouling by the Callicantzari, and even upon the forehead of infants, especially if they are
unbaptised, to prevent them from being stolen or strangled[537] by the monsters. If in spite of these precautions the
inmates of any house are troubled by them, the burning of incense is accounted an effectual safeguard. For out-
door use, if a man is unfortunate enough to encounter Callicantzari, an invocation of the Trinity or the recitation of
three Paternosters is recommended.
But precautions of a more pagan character are often preferred to these or combined with them. Ordinary prudence
demands that the fire be kept burning through all the Twelve Days, to prevent the Callicantzari entering by the
chimney, and the usual custom is to set one huge log on end up the chimney, to go on burning for the whole period.
In addition to this a fire is sometimes kept burning at night close by the house-door. Certain herbs also, such as
ground-thistle[538], hyssop, and asparagus[539], may be suspended at the door or the chimney-place, as magical
charms. If even then there is reason to suspect that Callicantzari are prowling round the house, the golden rule is to
observe strict silence and, above all, not to answer any question asked from without the door; for it is commonly
believed that the Callicantzari, like the Nereids, can deprive of speech any who have once talked with them. At the
same time it is wise to make up the fire, throwing on either something which will crackle like salt or heather[540],
or something which will smell strong, such as a bit of leather, an old shoe, wild-cherry wood[541], or ground-thistle;
for the stench of these is as unbearable to the Callicantzari as that of incense.
Such at any rate is the current explanation of the purpose of these malodorous combustibles; but in view of the
notorious gullibility of the Callicantzari I am tempted to surmise that both the crackling and the smell were
originally intended to pacify them for a while with the delusive hope that a share of the Christmas pork, their
favourite food, was being prepared for them. For certainly even now propitiatory presents to the Callicantzari are
not unknown. At Portariá and other villages of Mount Pelion it is the custom to hang a rib or other bone from the
pork inside the chimney ‘for the Callicantzari,’ but whether as a means of appeasement or of aversion the people
seem no longer to know: in Samos however the first sweetmeats made at the New Year are placed in the chimney
avowedly as food for the Callicantzari[542], and in Cyprus waffles and sausages are put in the same place as a
farewell feast to them on the Eve of Epiphany[543]. Moreover in earlier times the custom of appeasing them with
food was undoubtedly more widespread; for in places where, so far as I know, the custom itself no longer exists, a
few lines supposed to be sung by the Callicantzari on the eve of their departure are still remembered, in which they
ask for ‘a little bit of sausage, a morsel of waffle, that the Callicantzari may eat and depart to their own place[544].’
But propitiation of the Callicantzari, in spite of this evidence of offerings made to them, is certainly not now so
much in vogue as precautions against them; and it is perhaps simpler to suppose that the choice of crackling or
odorous fuel was originally prompted by the intention of conveying to the Callicantzari a plain warning that the
fire within the house was burning briskly; for apart from the Christian means of defence—crosses, incense,
invocations and the general purification on the morning of Epiphany—it may be said that the one thing which they
really fear is fire. Everywhere it is held that so long as a good fire is kept burning on the hearth the Callicantzari
cannot gain access to the house by their favourite entrance; and that the utmost they will venture is to vent their
urine down the chimney in the hope of extinguishing the fire. For this reason the wood-ashes from the hearth,
which are generally stored up and used in the washing of clothes, are during the Twelve Days left untouched, and
after the purification at Epiphany are carried out of the house; but in some districts[545], though the ashes are not
thought suitable for ordinary use, they are not thrown away as worthless impurities, but, owing I suppose to their

contact with supernatural beings, are held to be endowed with magically fertilising properties and are sprinkled
over the very same fields and gardens which the priests have sprinkled with holy water. Again there are not a few
stories current[546] in which a Callicantzaros, attracted to some house at Christmas-tide by the smell of roasting
pork, has been put to rout by having the hot joint or the spit on which it was turning thrust in his face. In one
version also of the song which the Callicantzari are supposed to sing as they depart, ‘the pot-bellied priest with
censer and sprinkling-vessel’ is accompanied by his wife carrying hot water to scald them[547]. In other stories
again the rescue of a man from the clutches of Callicantzari is effected by his neighbours with fire-brands as their
only weapons; and where such help cannot be obtained, a man may sometimes free himself merely by ejaculating
ξύλα, κούτσουρα, δαυλιὰ καμμένα, ‘sticks, logs, and brands ablaze!’ for the very thought of fire will sometimes
scare the monsters away.
Other safeguards are also mentioned; you are recommended for instance to keep a black cock in the house, or you
may render the Callicantzaros harmless by binding him with a red thread or a straw rope[548]; but the latter method
would in most cases be like putting salt on a bird’s tail.
Such, on a general view, are the monsters whose origin I now propose to examine; and the first step in the
investigation must be to account for the extraordinary variations in shape exhibited by the Callicantzari in different
districts.
I have already observed that the Callicantzari are sometimes conceived to be of ordinary human form, but that
more commonly there is an admixture of something beast-like. Among the animals which are laid under
contribution, first comes the he-goat, from which the Callicantzari borrow ears, horns, and legs. Almost equally
common is a presentment of Callicantzari with the ears and the legs of an ass combined with a body in other
respects human; or again the head of an ass, according to Pouqueville[549], may be combined with the body and
legs of a man. In other districts again the wolf has once been a factor in the conception of Callicantzari. Thus in
Messenia, in Cynouria (a district in the east of Laconia), and in parts of Crete[550] the Callicantzari are called also
Λυκοκάντζαροι, in which the first half of the compound name is undoubtedly λύκος, ‘wolf.’ Similarly in some
parts of Macedonia Callicantzari are often called simply ‘wolves’ (λύκοι), and both names are also applied
metaphorically to any particularly ill-favoured man[551]. Resemblances to apes are also mentioned, particularly in
the long, lean, hairy arms of the Callicantzari; and Pouqueville speaks also of their monkey-like tails[552]. Next
from Phoeniciá in Epirus comes the suggestion that Callicantzari may resemble squirrels; for there they have the
two by-names σκιορίσματα and καψιούρηδες[553], in which it is not hard to recognise the two ancient Greek names
for the squirrel, σκίουρος and καμψίουρος. Concerning the local character of these I have no information; but it is
fairly safe to surmise that they possess the power, commonly ascribed to the smaller sort of Callicantzari, of
climbing with great dexterity the walls and roofs of houses in order to gain access by the chimney. Finally in
Myconos, as noted above, the Callicantzari are described as ‘savage four-footed things’—a description which need
not exclude some human attributes any more than it does in the savage four-footed Centaurs of ancient art, but
implies it would seem at least a predominance of the bestial over the human element.
What then is the explanation of these wide divergences of type? The answer is really very simple and final. The
Callicantzari were originally believed to possess the power, which many supernatural beings share, of transforming
themselves at their pleasure into any shape. The shapes most commonly assumed differed in different districts, and
gradually, as the belief in the metamorphosis of Callicantzari here, there, and almost everywhere was forgotten,
what had once been the commonest form locally assumed by Callicantzari became in the several districts their
fixed and only form.
The correctness of this explanation was first proved to me by information obtained from the best source for all
manner of stories and traditions about the Callicantzari, the villages on Mount Pelion. There I was definitely told
that the Callicantzari are believed to have the power of assuming any monstrous shape which they choose; and the
accuracy of this statement is, I find, now confirmed by information obtained independently by Prof. Polites[554]
from one of these same villages, Portariá; he adds that there the shapes most frequently affected by Callicantzari
are those of women, bearded men, and he-goats. Further evidence of the same belief existing also in Cyprus is
adduced by the same writer. ‘The Planetari (πλανήταροι),’ so runs the popular tradition which he quotes from a
work which I have been unable to consult, ‘who are also called in some parts of Cyprus Callicantzari, come to the
earth at Christmas and remain all the Twelve Days. They are seen by persons who are ἀλαφροστοίχει̯ωτοι[555] (i.e.,
to give the nearest equivalent, ‘fey’). Sometimes they appear as dogs, sometimes as hares, sometimes as donkeys
or as camels, and often as bobbins. Men who are ‘fey’ stumble over them, and stoop down to pick them up, when

suddenly the bobbin rolls along of its own accord and escapes them. Further on it turns into a donkey or camel and
goes on its way. The man is deceived (by its appearance) and mounts it, and the donkey grows as tall as a mountain
and throws the man down from a great height[556], and he returns home half-dead, and if he does not die outright,
he will be an invalid all his life[557].’
Linguistic evidence is also forthcoming that the same belief in the metamorphosis of these monsters was once held
both in Epirus and in Samos. The by-name σκιορίσματα, recorded from Phoeniciá, proves more than the squirrel-
form of Callicantzari; it implies that that shape is not natural but assumed. From the ancient word σκίουρος, comes
by natural formation an hypothetical verb σκιουρίζω, ‘I become a squirrel,’ and thence the existing substantive
σκιούρισμα or σκιόρισμα (for this difference in vocalisation is negligible in modern Greek) meaning ‘that which
has turned into a squirrel.’ Similarly in Samos the by-name κακανθρωπίσματα means ‘those that have turned into
evil men.’ Whether the belief implied by these names is still alive in Epirus, I do not know; in Samos it has
apparently died out, for the word κακανθρωπίσματα is popularly there interpreted to mean ‘those who do evil to
men[558]’—a meaning which the formation really precludes.
Since then the belief that Callicantzari possess the power of metamorphosis either obtains now or has once
obtained in places as far removed from one another as Phoeniciá in Epirus, Mount Pelion, Samos, and Cyprus, it is
reasonable to conclude that this quality was in earlier times universally attributed to them, and therewith the whole
problem of their multifarious presentments in different districts is at once solved.
The next question which arises is this; if the various forms in which the Callicantzari are locally represented are, so
to speak, so many disguises assumed by them at their own will, what is the normal form of the Callicantzaros
when he is not exercising his power of self-transformation? On reviewing the various shapes assumed, one fact
stands out clearly; it is the animal attributes of the Callicantzari which are variable, while the human element in
their composition (with a possible exception in the case of the ‘savage quadrupeds’ of Myconos) is constant. But
the variation of form results, as has been shown, from the power of transformation. Therefore the animal
characteristics, which are variable, are the characteristics assumed at pleasure by the Callicantzari, and the constant
or human element in their composition indicates their normal form. In other words, the Callicantzaros in his
original and natural shape was anthropomorphic, as indeed he is sometimes still represented to be.
And here too, while the various types of Callicantzari are still before us, it is worth while to notice, at the cost of a
short digression, a curious principle which seems to govern the representation of Callicantzari in those districts in
which the belief in their power of metamorphosis has been lost. On Mount Pelion and in Cyprus the shapes which
the Callicantzari are said to assume at will are those of known and familiar objects—in the former place of women,
bearded men, and he-goats, in the latter of dogs, hares, donkeys, and camels—but always complete and single
shapes whether of man or beast; on the other hand in the large majority of places in which the remembrance of this
power of transformation is lost, the Callicantzari are represented in fanciful and abnormal shapes—hybrids as it
were between men and such animals as goat, ass, or ape. What appears to have happened in these cases is that, as
the belief in the metamorphosis of Callicantzari was lost from the local folklore, a sort of compensation was made
by depicting them arrested in the process of transformation, arrested halfway in the transition from man to beast.
Now there are very few parts of Greece in which this change in the superstition has not taken place; and each
island of the Greek seas, each district of the Greek mainland—I had almost said each village, for the folklore like
the dialect of two villages no more than an hour’s journey apart may differ widely—may be fairly considered to
furnish separate instances on which a general principle can be founded. The law then which seems to me to have
governed the evolution of Greek folklore is this, that a being of some single, normal, and known shape who has
originally been believed capable of transforming himself into one or more other single, normal, and known shapes,
comes to be represented, when the belief in his power of transformation dies out, as a being of composite,
abnormal, and fantastic shape, combining incongruous features of the several single, normal, and known shapes.
How wide may be the application of this principle, I cannot pretend to determine; but obviously it may supply the
solution of certain puzzles in ancient Greek mythology. The goddess Athene, to take but one instance, is in Homer
regularly described as γλαυκῶπις, an epithet which, though interpreted by ancient artists in the sense of ‘blue-
eyed’ or ‘gray-eyed,’ seems, in view of Athene’s connexion with the owl, to have meant originally ‘owl-faced’; for
the sake of argument at any rate, without entering into the controversy on the subject, let me assume this; let it be
granted that the goddess was once depicted as a maiden with an owl’s face. How is this hybrid form to be
explained? If our principle holds here, the explanation is that in a still earlier stage of Greek mythology the
goddess Athene was wont to transform herself into an owl and so manifest herself to her worshippers, just as in
early Christian tradition it is recorded that once ‘the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove[559].’

But this digression is long enough. Later in this chapter I shall have occasion to return to the principle which has
been formulated. At present the Callicantzari are calling.
Thus far our investigation has shown us that the Callicantzari were originally anthropomorphic, possessing indeed
and exercising the power of transmutation into beast-form, but in their natural and normal form completely human
in appearance. What therefore remains to be determined is whether these beings were anthropomorphic demons or
simply men.
On this point there is a direct conflict of evidence at the present day. The very common tradition that the
Callicantzari come from the lower world at Christmas and are driven back there by the purification at Epiphany;
the fact that they are often mentioned under the vague names παγανά and ξωτικά which have already been
discussed[560], and that their leader is sometimes called ὁ κουτσοδαίμονας, ‘the halting demon’; the belief that they
are fond of dancing with the Nereids, and sometimes exercise also a power, proper to the Nereids, of taking away
the speech of those who speak in their presence; these and other such considerations might be thought abundantly
to prove that the Callicantzari were a species of demon.
But on the other hand there is equally abundant evidence of the belief that Callicantzari are men who are seized
with a kind of bestial madness which often effects a beast-like alteration in their appearance. This madness is not
chronic, but recurrent with each returning Christmas, and the victim of it displays for the time being all the savage
and lustful passions of a wild animal. The mountaineers of South Euboea for example have acquired the reputation
of being Callicantzari and are much feared by the dwellers on the coast.
A remarkable feature in this form of the superstition is the idea that the madness is congenital. Children born on
Christmas-day, or according to some accounts on any day between Christmas and Epiphany, are deemed likely to
become Callicantzari. This, it is naively said, is the due punishment for the sin of a mother who has presumed to
conceive and to bring forth at seasons sacred to the Mother of God; whence also the children are called
ἑορτοπιάσματα or ‘feast-stricken.’ In Chios, in the seventeenth century, this superstition was so strong that
extraordinary methods of barbarism were adopted to render such children harmless. They were taken, says Leo
Allatius[561], to a fire which had been lighted in the market-place, and there the soles of their feet were exposed to
the heat until the nails were singed and the danger of their attacks obviated. A modern and modified form of this
treatment is to place the child in an oven and to light a fire outside to frighten it, and then to ask the question,
‘Bread or meat?’ If the child says ‘bread,’ all is well; but if he says ‘meat,’ he is believed to be possessed by a
savage craving for human flesh, and the treatment is continued till he answers ‘bread[562].’
These infant Callicantzari are particularly prone, it is said, to attack and kill their own brothers and sisters. Hence
comes the by-name by which they are sometimes known, ἀδερφοφᾶδες, ‘brother-eaters,’ as also, according to
Polites’ interpretation, the name κάηδες, which is an equivalent for Callicantzari in several islands of the Aegean
Sea. This word Polites holds to be the plural of the name Cain, and to denote ‘brother-slayers’; but inasmuch as a
longer form καϊμπίλιδες appears side by side with κάηδες in Carpathos[563], I hesitate to accept this interpretation
of the one while the other remains to me wholly unintelligible. At any rate to the people themselves the word has
ceased to convey any idea of murderous propensities; for in the island of Syme, where the name is in use, the
beings denoted by it are held to be harmless[564].
The issue before us is well summarised in two popular traditions which Polites adduces from Oenoë and from
Tenos, and which are in clear mutual contradiction. The tradition of Oenoë begins thus: ‘“Leave-us-good-sirs”
(Ἀς-ἐμᾶς-καλοί) is the name which we give them (the Callicantzari), though they are really evil demons (ξωτικά).’
The tradition of Tenos opens with the words: ‘The Callicantzari are not demons (ζωτ’κά)[565]; they are men; as
New Year’s Day approaches, they are stricken with a fit of madness and leave their houses and wander to and fro.’
How are we to decide which of these two traditions is the older?
The evidence in favour of either is at the present day abundant; the two chief authorities on the subject, Schmidt
and Polites, both acknowledge this; and, in my own experience, I should have difficulty in saying which view of
the Callicantzari I have the more frequently heard expressed. On the mainland they are most commonly demons; in
the islands of the Aegean, more usually human. But in a matter of this kind it would be of no value to count heads;
even if the whole population of Greece could be polled on the question, the view of the majority would have no
more value than that of the minority. The issue must be decided on other than numerical grounds.
And clearly the first consideration which suggests itself must be the nature of the earliest evidence on the subject.
The earliest authority then is Leo Allatius[566], and his statement is in brief as follows. Children born in the octave

of Christmas are seized with a kind of madness; they rage to and fro with incredible swiftness; and their nails grow
sharp like talons. To any wayfarer whom they meet they put the question ‘Tow or lead?’ If he answer ‘tow,’ he
escapes unhurt; if he answer ‘lead,’ they crush him with all their power and leave him half-dead, lacerated by their
talons.
Thus far the testimony of Leo Allatius distinctly favours the belief that Callicantzari are human and not demoniacal
in origin; but at the same time it must be admitted that his statement was probably founded upon the particular
traditions of his native island only and carries therefore less weight. The barbarous custom however which he next
proceeds to describe is of some importance. He states that children born during the dangerous period between
Christmas and New Year had the soles of their feet scorched until the nails were singed and so they could not
become Callicantzari. Now there is a small but obvious inconsistency in this statement. Persons who scratch one
another use, presumably, not their toe-nails but their finger-nails; and animals likewise employ the fore feet and
not the hind feet. To scorch the feet therefore, and particularly the soles of the feet, is not a logical method of
preventing the growth of talons. But on the other hand the treatment adopted might well be supposed to prevent the
development of hoofs, such as in many parts of Greece the Callicantzari are still believed to have. In other words,
the custom which Leo Allatius describes was not properly understood in his time. But a custom which has ceased
to be properly understood and has had an inaccurate interpretation set upon it is necessarily of considerable age.
Already therefore in the first half of the seventeenth century the custom which Allatius describes was of some
antiquity; and the belief that children turn into Callicantzari, which is implied alike by the original meaning and by
the later interpretation of the custom, was equally ancient. In Chios then at any rate the human origin of
Callicantzari is a very old article of faith.
But more important for our consideration is the answer to be made to the following question; is it more probable,
that Callicantzari, if they were originally demons, should have come in the belief of many people to be men, or
that, being originally men, they should have assumed in the belief of many people the rank of demons? Here, if I
may trust the analogy of other instances in Greek folklore, my answer is decided. I know of no case in which a
demon has lost status and been reduced to human rank; but I can name three several cases in which beings
originally human have been elevated to the standing of demons. The human maiden Gello was the prototype of the
class of female demons now known as Gelloudes. Striges (στρίγγλαις) are properly old women who by magical
means can transform themselves into birds, but they too both in mediaeval and in modern times are frequently
confused with demons. ‘Arabs’ (Ἀράπηδες), as the name itself implies, were originally nothing but men of colour,
but they now form, as will be shown in the next section, a recognised class of genii. And if we turn from modern
Greek folklore to ancient Greek religion, there also we find the tendency in the same direction. There men in
plenty are elevated to the rank of hero, demon, or god, but the degradation of a demon to human rank is a thing
unknown. In view of this strongly marked principle of Greek superstition or religion, it is impossible to come to
any other conclusion than that the Callicantzari were originally not demons but men—men who either voluntarily
or under the compulsion of a kind of madness chose or were forced to assume the shape and the character of
beasts.
Having thus disposed of the problem presented by the various types of Callicantzari, we must next investigate the
origin of the name itself. This investigation too is not a little complicated by the fact that the dialectic varieties of
the name are fully as manifold and divergent as the various shapes which the monsters are locally believed to
assume. There can be few words in the Greek language which better illustrate the difference in speech between one
district and another. The most general form of the word, and one which is either used side by side with other
dialectic forms or at least is understood in almost every district, is the form which I have used throughout this
chapter καλλικάντζαρος or, to transliterate it, Callicantzaros; but in reviewing all the dialectic varieties of the word,
I find that there are only two out of the fourteen letters composing this word, which do not, in one dialect or
another, suffer either modification of sound or change of position. The consonant κ in the first syllable and the
vowel α in the third are the only constant and uniform elements common to all dialects.
These dialectic forms demand consideration for the reason that some of the derivations proposed take as their
starting-point not the common form καλλικάντζαρος but one of the rarer by-forms—a method which is evidently
open to objection when it is seen, as the accompanying table of forms will show, that καλλικάντζαρος, besides
being the common and normal form, is also the centre from which all the dialectic varieties radiate in different
directions. In compiling my list of forms, however, I may abbreviate it by the omission of those which are a matter
of calligraphic rather than of phonetic distinction. Thus the first two syllables of καλλικάντζαρος are often written
καλι- or καλη-, but since ι and η represent exactly the same sound and λλ is very seldom distinguished from λ, I
have uniformly written καλλι- even where my authority for the particular form uses some other spelling. On the

other hand, as regards the use of τζ or τσ, between which there is a real if somewhat subtle difference in sound, I
have retained the particular form which I have found recorded.
Starting then from the normal form καλ-λι-κάν-τζα-ρος, which I thus dismember for convenience of reference to
its five syllables, I may classify the changes which the word undergoes in various dialects as follows:

(1) The insertion of α in the second syllable, giving λι̯α in the place of λι.
(2) The prefixing of σ to the first syllable, giving σκαλ for καλ. With this Bernhard Schmidt well compares
the modern σκόνη for κόνις, and σκύφτω for κύπτω.
(3) The complete suppression of the second syllable, or the retention of the ι only as a faintly pronounced y.
(4) Combined with, and consequent upon, the suppression of the second syllable, the change of λ to ρ in the
first syllable, or the interchange of the λ in the first syllable with the ρ in the fifth.
(5) The loss of either ν in the third syllable or τ in the fourth.
(6) The change of the α in the first syllable to ο.
(7) The change of the α in the third syllable to ε, ι, ο, or ου. Instances of this are most frequent in combination
with the changes under (4).
(8) The interchange of the κ in the third syllable with the τζ (or τσ) in the fourth. The νκ thus produced
becomes γγ.
(9) The formation of diminutive neuter forms ending in -ι instead of the masculine forms in -ος, with the
consequent shift of accent from the third to the fourth syllable, the -ι representing -ιον. These neuter forms
occur chiefly in the plural.

Further it may be noted that the formation of the nominative plural of the masculine forms shows some variation;
the ordinary form is in -οι with the accent on the antepenultimate as in the nominative singular; a second form has
the same termination but with the accent shifted to the penultimate, as commonly happens in some dialects with
words of the second declension (e.g. ἄνθρωπος with plural ἀνθρώποι) by assimilation to the other cases of the
plural; while a third form has the anomalous termination -αῖοι (e.g. in Cephallenia, σκαλλικάντσαρος with plural
σκαλλικαντσαραῖοι).
The following genealogical table exhibits the dialectic progeny of the normal form καλλικάντζαρος. The numeral
or numerals placed against each form refer to the classification of phonetic changes as above. Beneath each form is
noted the name of one place or district (though of course there are usually more) in which it may be heard, or,
failing the provenance, the authority for its existence.
καλλικάντζαρος
(with which καλλικάντσαρος and καλλικάντσι̯αρος (Cythnos and Melos) may be considered identical)

καλλιακάντζαρος καλλικάτζαρος καλλικάνζαρος σκαλλικάντζαρος καλι̯κάντζαρος κολλικάντζαρος καλλιτσάγγα
(1) (5) (5) (2) (3) (6) (8)
(Πολίτης, (Cyprus) (Cythera) (Ionian Islands) and (Gortynia and (Pyrgos in
Μελέτη, p. 67) καλκάντζαρος Cynouria, Tenos and
(3) districts of the Western shor
(Lesbos, etc.) Peloponnese) of Black Se

σκαλλικαντζούρια σκαλκαντσέρι σκαλκάντζερος κολλικάτζαρος
(τὰ) (τὸ) (2, 3, 7) (6, 5)
(2, 7, 9) (2, 3, 7, 9) (Arachova on (Πολίτης,
(Sciathos) (Arachova on Parnassus) Παραδόσεις, ii.
Parnassus) p 1245)

καρκάντσαλος καλκάντσερος καρκάντζαρος καλσάγγαροι καρτσάγγαλ
(4) (3, 7) (4) (8, 3, 5) (8, 4)
(Stenimachos (Arachova on (Scyros) (Tenos) (Oenoë on S
in Roumelia) Parnassus) shore of Bla
Sea)

καρκάντζελος (4, καρκάντσιλος καρκάντζολος
7) (4, 7) (4, 7)
(Zagorion in (Ophis, on S. (Cythnos)
Epirus) shore of Black
Sea)

καρκαντσέλια Albanian
(τὰ) καρκανdσόλ-ι
(4, 7, 9) (cf. Hahn,
(Portariá on Mt Alban. Stud.,
Pelion) Vocabulary,
s.v.) and
Turkish
karakóndjolos
This table of dialectic forms, which was originally based mainly upon the information of Schmidt[567] and my own
observations and has now been enlarged with the aid of Polites’ new work[568], is even so probably far from
complete; nor have I included in it, for reasons to be stated, the following forms: καλκάνια[569] (τὰ) which is
apparently an abbreviated diminutive formed from the first two syllables of καλκάν-τζαρος with a neuter
termination, and is therefore a nickname rather than a strict derivative: καλκαγάροι which Bent[570] represents to
be the usual form in Naxos and Paros, but I hesitate to accept without confirmation from some other source:
σκατσάντζαροι[571], a Macedonian form, and καλκατζόνια, a diminutive form from the district of Cynouria, both so
extraordinarily corrupt that I can find no place for them in the table: λυκοκάντζαροι, which has been thought to be
κολλικάντζαρος with the first two syllables reversed in order—a change to which I can find no parallel—but is, as
I shall show later, a distinct and very important compound of the word κάντζαρος: and lastly καλι̯οντζῆδες[572]
which has nothing at all to do with καλλικάντζαροι etymologically, but is an euphemistic and not particularly good
pun upon it, really meaning the ‘sailors of a galleon[573]’ (Turkish qālioundji), and humorously substituted for the
dreaded name of the Callicantzari.
To conclude this compilation, it must be added that the wives of Callicantzari are denoted by feminine forms with
the termination -ίνα or -οῦ, and their children by neuter forms ending in -άκι or -οῦδι in place of the masculine -ος.
From a careful analysis of this material two main facts seem to emerge. First, the form καλλικάντζαρος, the
commonest in use, is also the centre from which the other dialectic forms diverge in many directions; and therefore
if one of the rarer dialectic forms be selected as the parent-form and the basis of any etymological explanation, the
advocate of the particular etymology not only assumes the burden of showing how his original form came to be so
generally superseded by the form καλλικάντζαρος, but also will require many more steps in his genealogical table
of existing varieties of the word. Secondly, the words καλλικάντζαρος and λυκοκάντζαρος (if, as I hold, they
cannot be connected through the mediation of the form κολλικάντζαρος) show that we have to deal with a
compound word of which the second half is κάντζαρος: and corroboration of this view is afforded by the existence
of a form of the uncompounded word in the dialect of Cynouria, where σκατζάρια[574] (τὰ)—i.e. a diminutive form
of κάντζαρος with σ prefixed and ν lost—is used side by side with the words καλλικάντζαροι and λυκοκάντζαροι
to denote the same beings.
In view of the latter inference, or perhaps even apart from it, there is no need to delay long over a derivation
propounded by a Greek writer, Oeconomos, whose theory, that ‘callicantzaros’ is a corruption of the Latin
‘caligatus’ or perhaps of ‘calcatura,’ suggests a vision of a monster in hob-nailed boots which does more credit to
its author’s imagination than to his knowledge of philology.
A suggestion which deserves at any rate more serious consideration is that of Bernhard Schmidt[575] who holds that
the word is of Turkish origin and passed first into Albanian and thence into Greek—reversing, that is, the steps
indicated in the above table. But to this there are several objections, each weighty in itself, and cumulatively
overwhelming.
First, if the Turkish word karakondjolos be the source from which the multitude of Greek forms, including in that
case λυκοκάντζαρος[576] are derived, it ought to be shown how the Turkish word itself came to mean anything like
‘were-wolf[577].’ It is compounded, says Schmidt, of kara, ‘black,’ and kondjolos which is connected with

koundjul, a word which means a ‘slave of the lowest kind[578].’ But before that derivation can be accepted, it
should be shown what link in thought may exist between a slave even of the lowest and blackest variety and a
were-wolf, and also how the supposed Turkish compound came to have the Greek termination -ος.
Secondly, the theory that the Greeks borrowed the word, and presumably also the notion which it expressed, from
the Turks contravenes historical probability. For when did the supposed borrowing take place? Evidently not
before the Ottoman influence had made itself thoroughly felt in Eastern Europe not only in war but in peace; for
only those peoples who are living side by side in friendly, or at the least pacific, relations, are in a way to exchange
views on the subject of were-wolves or any other superstitions; and in the case of the Greeks and the Turks such
intercourse would certainly have been retarded by religious as well as racial animosity. Presumably then, even if
the transference of the word from the Turkish to the Greek language had been direct and not, as Schmidt somewhat
unnecessarily supposes, through the medium of Albanian, two or three generations must have elapsed after the
Ottoman occupation of Chios in 1566[579], and the seventeenth century must have well begun, before the Greeks of
that island even began to adopt the new word and the new superstition involved in it. Yet the form of the word
familiar to Leo Allatius since the beginning of that century, when he lived as a boy in Chios, was not
karakondjolos or anything like it, but callicantzaros; while the belief that children born in the octave of Christmas
became Callicantzari was of such antiquity in Chios that a custom founded upon it had already come, as I have
shown, to be misinterpreted. Indeed, as the same writer tells us, the Callicantzari and their haunts and habits were
so familiar to the people of Chios that two proverbs of the island referred to them. One, which was addressed to
persons always appearing in the same clothes—βάλλε τίποτε καινούριο ἀπάνω σου διὰ τοὺς καλλικαντζάρους, ‘put
on something new because of the Callicantzari’—is more than a little obscure; it would seem to imply that the
clothes which were being worn would hardly be worth the while even of the mischief-loving Callicantzari to tear;
but in any case the very existence of an obscure proverb is evidence that the Callicantzaros and all his ways had
long been a matter of common knowledge. The second saying—ἐκατέβης ἀπὸ τὰ τριποτάματα, ‘You have come
down from the Three Streams,’ or in another version, δὲν πᾶς ’στα τριποτάματα; ‘Why not go to the Three
Streams?’—was addressed to mad persons, because, as Allatius explains, ‘the Three Streams’ was a wild wooded
place in Chios reputed to be the haunt of Callicantzari. Historically then the theory that the people of Chios
borrowed from the Turks the name and the conception of the Callicantzari is untenable.
Another piece of historical evidence against Schmidt’s theory is that the Callicantzaros of the present day appears
to be identical with the ‘baboutzicarios’ whereof Michael Psellus[580] discoursed in the eleventh century. He
himself indeed, with his usual passion for explaining away popular superstitions, affirms that ‘baboutzicarios’ is
the same as ‘ephialtes,’ the demon who punishes gluttony with nocturnal discomfort and a feeling of oppression;
and in that view he was followed by Suidas[581] and other lexicographers; but he states two important points in the
popular superstition which he combats: the ‘baboutzicarios’ appears only in the octave of Christmas; and it is at
night that he meets and terrifies men. Moreover the name itself is, I suspect, derived from the Low-Latin
babuztus[582] meaning ‘mad,’ and indicates the existence then of the belief which is so largely held to-day, that the
monstrous apparitions of Christmastide are really men smitten with a peculiar kind of madness. Thus all the
information which Psellus gives about the ‘baboutzicarios’ tallies with modern beliefs concerning the
Callicantzaros, and militates against the supposition that the Greeks are indebted for this superstition to the Turks.
Finally there is positive evidence that the Turks borrowed the word in question from the Greeks; for the time at
which they used to fear the advent of the karakondjolos—whether the superstition still remains the same, I do not
know—was fixed not by their own calendar but by that of the Christians. An article written on the subject of the
Turkish calendar early in last century contains this statement: ‘The Turks have received this fabulous belief from
the Greeks, and they say that this demon, whom the former call Kara Kondjolos and the latter Cali Cangheros,
exercises his sway of maleficence and mischief from Christmas-day until that of the Epiphany[583].’ Clearly the
Turks would not have fixed the time for the appearance of the karakondjolos by the Christian festivals if they had
not borrowed the whole superstition from the Greeks; and indeed the very termination in -ος of the Turkish form of
the word betrays its Hellenic origin.
The proposed Turkish derivation of the word καλλικάντζαρος must therefore be rejected as finally as Oeconomos’
Latin derivation, and it remains only to deal with those which treat the word as genuinely Greek.
The first of these is that proposed by Coraës[584], who made the word a compound of καλός and κάνθαρος. The
formation, as might be expected of so great a scholar, is irreproachable; for the phonetic change of θ to τζ; is seen
in the development of the modern word καντζόχοιρος (a hedgehog) from the ancient ἀκανθόχοιρος. But the
meaning obtained is less satisfactory. What has a ‘good’ or ‘beautiful beetle’ to do with a Callicantzaros such as I

have described? The question remains without an answer. And yet some of Coraës’ followers in recent times have
thought triumphantly to vindicate his view by pointing out that in the dialect of Thessaly ‘a species of large horned
beetle’ is known as καλλικάτζαροι. Now I am aware that elsewhere in Greece stag-beetles are called κατζαρίδες,
which is undoubtedly a modern form of the ancient κάνθαρος and illustrates once more the phonetic change
involved in Coraës’ derivation; and I can believe that the Thessalian peasantry with a certain rustic humour
sometimes call them καλλικάτζαροι instead. But what light does this throw on the supposed development of
meaning? The view which these disciples of Coraës appear to hold, namely that the Callicantzari, who are known
and feared throughout Greek lands and even beyond them in Turkey and in Albania, were called after an alleged
Thessalian species of Coleoptera, would be fitly matched by a theory that the Devil was so named after a species
of fish or a printer’s assistant or a patent fire-lighter.
The same objection holds good as against Polites’ first view[585]. Taking the word λυκοκάντζαρος as his starting-
point, instead of the common and central form καλλικάντζαρος, he proposed to derive the word from λύκος,
‘wolf,’ and κάνθαρος, ‘beetle.’ But though the resulting hybrid might be a monster as hideous as the worst of
Callicantzari, these creatures so far as I know show no traits suggestive of entomological parentage. But since
Polites himself has long abandoned this view, there is no need to criticize it further.
His next pronouncement on the subject[586] banished both wolf and beetle and seemed to recognise the necessity of
keeping the main form καλλικάντζαρος to the fore. But while he naturally assumed καλός to be the first half of the
compound, he could only set down κάντζαρος as an unknown foreign, perhaps Slavonic, word.
But in his latest publication[587] he relinquishes this position and falls back once more on a dialectic form
καλιτσάγγαρος which is reported to be in use at the village of Pyrgos in Tenos and at some places on the western
shores of the Black Sea. This word he believes to be a compound, of which the second half is connected with a
Byzantine word τσαγγίον, meaning a kind of boot, and the still existing, if somewhat rare, word, τσαγγάρης, ‘a
boot-maker,’ while the first half is to be either καλός, ‘fine,’ or καλίκι, ‘a hoof[588].’ The former alternative
provides easily the form καλοτσάγγαρος or, as would be almost more likely, καλλιτσάγγαρος, meaning ‘one who
wears fine boots’; while in the other alternative there results a supposed original form καλικοτσάγγαρος, meaning
‘one who has hoofs instead of boots,’ whence, by suppression of the third syllable, comes the existing word
καλιτσάγγαρος, or again, by loss of the first syllable, a supposed form λικοτσάγγαρος which developed into
λυκοκάντζαρος.
On the score of formation the former alternative is unassailable; but the latter, with its supposed loss of syllables, is
more questionable. The loss of a first syllable is common enough in modern Greek, where it consists of a vowel
only (e.g. βρίσκω[589] for εὑρίσκω, μέρα for ἡμέρα, etc.), but the supposed loss of the syllable κα would, I think, be
hard to parallel. Again the loss of a syllable in the middle of a word is fairly common either through the
suppression of the vowel ι (or η, which is not distinguished from ι in sound) as in καλκάντζαρος for
καλλικάντζαρος, ἔρμος for ἔρημος, etc., or else when two concurrent syllables begin with the same consonant, as
in ἀστροπελέκι, ‘a thunderbolt,’ for ἀστραποπελέκι, but the loss of the syllable κο from the form καλικοτσάγγαρος
is a bold hypothesis.
But on the score of meaning both alternatives are alike unconvincing. Polites indeed cites one or two popular
traditions in which the Callicantzari are represented as wearing wooden or iron shoes—wherewith no doubt the
better to kick and to trample their victims; and such footgear might, I suppose, be described ironically as ‘nice
boots.’ But to find in this occasional trait the origin of the word Callicantzaros[590] appears to me a counsel of
despair. Nor does the other alternative commend itself to me any more. It is of course a widely accepted belief—
and one by the way which contradicts the traditions just mentioned—that the Callicantzari have feet like those of
an ass or a goat. But in describing such a creature no one surely would be likely to say that it had hoofs ‘instead of
boots’—‘instead of feet’ would be the natural and reasonable expression. To suppose that the Callicantzari (or
rather, to use the hypothetical form, the καλικοτσάγγαροι) are so named because their boot-maker provides them
with hoofs instead of detachable foot-gear, is little short of ludicrous.
But though neither of the proposed derivations will, I think, win much acceptance, the historical evidence which
Polites adduces in support of his views forms a valuable contribution to the study of this subject. The inferences
which he draws therefrom may not be correct; but the material which he has collected is of high interest.
Singling out of the many traditions concerning the Callicantzari the widely, and perhaps universally, prevalent
belief that their activities are confined to the Twelve Days between Christmas and Epiphany, he argues that if we

can discover the origin of this limitation, we shall be in a fair way to discover also whence came the conception of
the Callicantzari themselves.
Accordingly he traces the history of winter festivals in Greece, starting from the period in which the Greeks, in
deference to their Roman masters, adopted the festivals known as the Saturnalia, the Brumalia, and the Kalándae
(for so the celebration of the Kalends of January was called by the Greeks) in place of their own old festivals such
as the Kronia and some of the festivals of Dionysus. The change however was more one of name than of method
of observance[591]. The pagan orgies which marked these festal days were strongly denounced by the Fathers of the
Church from the very earliest times. In the first century of our era, Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, met with his
martyrdom in an attempt to suppress such a festival. At the end of the fourth century S. John Chrysostom and, after
him, Asterios, bishop of Amasea, loudly inveighed against the celebration of the Kalandae. At the end of the
seventh century the sixth Oecumenical Council of the Church promulgated a canon forbidding all these pagan
winter-festivals. But still in the twelfth century, as Balsamon testifies[592], the old abuses continued unabated; and
there are local survivals of such festivals at the present day.
The most prominent feature of these celebrations was that men dressed themselves up in various characters, to
represent women, soldiers, or animals, and thus disguised gave themselves up to the wildest orgies. At Ephesus it
is clear that these orgies included human sacrifice, and that Bishop Timothy was on one occasion the victim; for
we are told by Photius that he met with his death in trying to suppress ‘the polluted and blood-stained rites of the
Greeks[593]’; and the same writer speaks of τὸ καταγώγιον—so this particular ceremony was called—as a ‘devilish
and abominable festival[594]’ in which men ‘took delight in unholy things as if they were pious deeds[595].’ And
again another account of the same celebration tells how men with masks on their faces and with clubs in their
hands went about ‘assaulting without restraint free men and respectable women, perpetrating murders of no
common sort and shedding endless blood in the best parts of the city, as if they were performing a religious duty
(ὡσανεὶ ἀναγκαῖόν τι καὶ ψυχωφελὲς πράττοντες)[596].’
At Amasea, according to Asterios, at the beginning of the fifth century, things were not much better. The peasants,
he says, who come into the town during the festival ‘are beaten and outraged by drunken revellers, they are robbed
of anything they are carrying, they have war waged upon them in a time of peace, they are mocked and insulted in
word and in deed[597].’ Here too the custom of dressing up was in vogue among those who took part in the festival
—women’s dress being especially affected.
Again in the seventh century the points specially emphasized by the canon of the Church are that ‘no man is to put
on feminine dress, nor any woman the dress proper to men, nor yet are masks, whether comic, satyric, or tragic, to
be worn’; and the penalty for disregard of this ordinance was to be excommunication. Yet for all these fulminations
the old custom continued. The author of ‘the Martyrdom of S. Dasius[598],’ writing perhaps as late as the tenth
century, speaks of the festival of the Kronia as still observed in the old way: ‘on the Kalends of January foolish
men, following the custom of the (pagan) Greeks, though they call themselves Christians, hold a great procession,
changing their own appearance and character, and assuming the guise of the devil; clothed in goat-skins and with
their faces disguised,’ they reject their baptismal vows and again serve in the devil’s ranks. And still in the twelfth
century these practices obtained not only among the laity but even among the clergy, some of whom, in the words
of Balsamon[599], ‘assume various masks and dresses, and appear in the open nave of the church, sometimes with
swords girt on and in military uniform, other times as monks or even as quadrupeds.’
Several instances of the continuance of this custom in modern times have been collected by Polites[600] and others;
the savage orgies of old time have indeed dwindled into harmless mummery; but their most constant feature, the
wearing of strange disguises, remains unchanged; and the occasion too is still a winter-festival, either some part of
the Twelve Days or the carnival preceding Lent. From certain facts concerning these modern festivals it will be
manifest that some relation exists between the mummers who celebrate them and the Callicantzari.
In Crete, where the New Year is thus celebrated, the mummers are called καμπουχέροι, while in Achaia a fuller
form of the same word, κατσιμπουχέροι, is a by-name of the Callicantzari. At Portariá on Mount Pelion, each night
of the Twelve Days, a man is dressed up as an ‘Arab,’ wearing an old cloak and having bells affixed to his clothes.
He goes the round of the streets with a lantern; and the villagers explicitly state that this is done γιὰ τὰ
καρκαντζέλια, ‘because of the Callicantzari,’ i.e., says Polites, as a means of getting rid of them. At Pharsala there
is a sort of play at the Epiphany, in which the mummers represent bride, bridegroom, and ‘Arab’; the Arab tries to
carry off the bride, and the bridegroom defends her. In some parts of Macedonia similar mumming takes place at
the New Year; in Belbentós the men who take part in it are called ‘Arabs’; at Palaeogratsana they have the name

ῥουκατζιάρια (evidently another compound of κάντζαρος, but one which I cannot interpret); formerly also ‘at
Kozane and in many other parts of Greece,’ according to a Greek writer in the early part of the nineteenth century,
throughout the Twelve Days boys carrying bells used to go round the houses, singing songs and having ‘one or
more of their company dressed up with masks and bells and foxes’ brushes and other such things to give them a
weird and monstrous look.’
This custom is evidently identical with one which I myself saw enacted in Scyros at the carnival preceding Lent.
The young men of the town array themselves in huge capes made of goat-skin, reaching to the hips or lower, and
provided with holes for the arms. These capes are sometimes made with hoods of the same material which cover
the whole head and face, small holes being cut for the eyes but none for purposes of respiration. In other cases the
cape covers the shoulders only, leaving the head free, and the young man contents himself with the blue and white
kerchief, which is the usual head-gear in Scyros, and a roughly made domino. A third variety of cape is provided
with a hood to cover the back of the head, while the mask for the face is made of the skin of some small animal
such as a weasel, of which the hind legs and tail are attached to the hood, while the head and forelegs hang down
to the breast of the wearer; eye-holes are cut in these as in the other forms of mask. These capes are girt tightly
about the waist with a stout cord or strap, from which are hung all round the body a large number of bronze goat-
bells, of the ordinary shape but of extraordinary dimensions, some measuring as much as ten inches for the greatest
diameter. The method by which these bells are attached to the belt is remarkable, and is designed to permit a large
number of them to be worn without being in any way muffled by contact with the cape. Each bell is fastened to
one end of a curved and springy stick of about a foot in length, and the other end is inserted behind the belt from
above; the curve and elasticity of the stick thus cause the bell to hang at some few inches distance from the body,
free to jangle with every motion of the dancer. Some sixty or seventy of these bells, of various sizes, are worn by
the best-equipped, and the weight of such a number was estimated by the people of the place as approximately a
hundredweight—no easy load with which to dance over the narrow, roughly-paved alleys of ‘steep Scyros.’ Those
however who lack either the prowess or the accoutrements to share in the glorious fatigue do not abstain altogether
from the festivities; even the small boys beg, borrow, or steal a goat-bell and attach it to the hinder part of their
person in lieu of a tail, or, at the worst, make good the caudal deficiency with a branch from the nearest tree.
Thus in various grades of goat-like attire the young men and boys traverse the town, stopping here and there,
where the steep and tortuous paths offer a wider and more level space, to leap and dance, or anon at some friendly
door to imbibe spirituous encouragement to further efforts. In the dancing itself there is nothing peculiar to this
festival; the swinging amble, which is the gait of the more heavily equipped, is prescribed by the burden of bells
and the roughness of roads. The purpose of the leaping and dancing is solely to evoke as much din as possible
from the bells; and prodigious indeed is the jarring and jangling in those narrow alleys when the troupe of dancers
leap together into the air, as high as their burdens allow, and come down with one crash.
Since I first published[601] an account of these festivities in Scyros, similar celebrations of carnival-time have been
reported from other places; at Sochos in Macedonia[602] the scene is almost identical with that which I have
described; in the district of Viza in Thrace a primitive dramatic performance was recently observed in which the
two chief actors wore similar goat-skins, masks, and bells, and had their hands blackened[603]; and again at Kostí
in the extreme north of Thrace there is mummery of the same kind[604].
A scene of the same sort was formerly enacted in Athens also during the carnival, and was known by the
expressive name τὰ ταράματα (i.e. ταράγματα), ‘The Riotings.’ A man dressed up as a bear used to rush through
the streets followed by a crowd of youths howling and clashing any noisy instruments that came to hand. That this
ceremony was originally of a religious character is shown not only by its association with the season of Lent, but
by an accessory rite performed on the same occasion. Wooden statues, actually called ξόανα as late as the time of
the Greek War of Independence, were carried out in procession; and the well-being of the people was believed to
be so bound up with the due performance of these rites, that even during the Revolution, when Athens was in the
hands of the Turks, a native of the place is said to have returned from Aegina, whither he had fled for safety, in
order to play the part of the bear and to carry out the xoana for the general good[605].
The close connexion of these several modern customs, whether the occasion of them is the Twelve Days or
Carnival-time, cannot be doubted. The variation of date is of old standing; for the canon of the Church, on which
Balsamon[606] comments, condemns certain pagan festivals on March 1st (approximately the carnival time) along
with the Kalandae and Brumalia; and the similarity of the dresses, masks, bells, and other accoutrements proper to
both occasions proves the substantial identity of the festivals.

A comparison of these allied modern customs can only lead to one conclusion. The use of the same word to denote
the mummers in Crete and the Callicantzari in Achaia; the name ῥουκατζιάρια for these mummers at
Palaeogratsana; the custom of blackening the face, which is clearly indicated by the employment of the name
‘Arab’ in this connexion; the monstrous and half-animal appearance produced by masks, foxes’ brushes, goat-
skins, and suchlike adornments; the attempted rape of the bride by the ‘Arab’ in the play at Pharsala—all furnish
contributory evidence that the mummers themselves represent Callicantzari. Only at Portariá is the significance of
the custom somewhat confused; there the ‘Arab’ in his old cloak and bells has long ceased to represent a
Callicantzaros, and has actually been provided with a lantern with which to scare the Callicantzari away.
The mummers then represent Callicantzari; the question which remains to be answered is whether the mumming
was the cause or the effect of the belief in Callicantzari.
Polites, in support of his theory that the name Callicantzari, in its earliest form, meant either ‘wearers of nice
boots’ or ‘possessors of hoofs instead of boots,’ claims that the mummers first suggested to the Greek imagination
the conception of the Callicantzari (it is not indeed anywhere mentioned in the above traditions that the feet or the
footgear of the mummers were in any way remarkable, but we may let that pass), and that the fear which their
riotous conduct inspired in earlier times gradually elevated them in men’s minds to the rank of demons. This, he
urges, is the reason why these demons are feared only during the Twelve Days, the period when such mumming
was in vogue.
In confirmation of his view Polites cites some of the evidence concerning the human origin of the Callicantzari,
mentioning both the fairly common belief that men turn into Callicantzari, and the rarer traditions that a
Callicantzaros resumes his human shape if a torch be thrust in his face and that the transformation of men into
Callicantzari can be prevented by certain means. With this evidence I have already dealt, and I agree with Polites
that in it there survives a genuine record of the human origin of the Callicantzari. But of course on the further
question, whether the particular men thus elevated to the dignity of demons were the mummers of Christmastide, it
has no immediate bearing.
As a second piece of corroboration, he adduces another derivation hardly more felicitous than those with which I
have already dealt. The word on which he tries his hand this time is καμπουχέροι or κατσιμπουχέροι—the name of
the mummers in Crete and of the Callicantzari in Achaia. Here again, with a certain perversity, he selects the worse
form of the two, καμπουχέροι, which is evidently a syncopated form of the other, and proceeds to derive it from
the Spanish gambujo, ‘a mask,’ leaving the subsequent development of κατσιμπουχέροι totally inexplicable. For
my own part I consider it far more probable that the word κατσιμπουχέροι is a humorously compounded name, of
which the second half is the word μπουχαρί[607] (an Arabic word which has passed, probably through Turkish, into
Greek) meaning ‘chimney,’ and that the whole by-name has reference simply to the common belief that
Callicantzari try to extinguish the fire on the hearth and thus to gain access to the house by the chimney. As to the
meaning of κατσι-, the first half of the compound, I can only hazard the conjecture that it is connected with the
verb κατσιάζω, which ordinarily means to blight, to wither, to dry up, and so forth, though its passive participle,
κατσιασμένος, is said by Skarlatos[608] to be applied to clothes which are ‘difficult to wash.’ If then the compound
κατσιμπουχέροι is a descriptive title of the Callicantzari, meaning those who render the chimney difficult to wash,
the coarse and eminently rustic humour of the allusion to their habits needs no further explanation; and it is the
mummers of Crete who owe their name to the Callicantzari, not vice versa.
While therefore I acknowledge and appreciate to the full the value of Polites’ researches into the history of the
Twelve Days, the inferences which he draws from the material collected seem to me no more sound than the
derivations which they are designed to corroborate. My own interpretation of the historical facts which Polites has
brought together is as follows.
The superstitions and customs connected by the modern folk with the Twelve Days are undoubtedly an inheritance
from ancestors who celebrated the Brumalia and other pagan festivals at the same season of the year. These ancient
festivals, though Roman in name, probably differed very little in the manner of their observance from certain old
Greek festivals, chief among which was some festival of Dionysus. This is rendered probable both by the date of
these festivals and by the manner of their celebration. For the worship of Dionysus was practically confined to the
winter-time; at Delphi his cult superseded that of Apollo during the three winter months[609]; and at Athens the four
festivals of Dionysus fell within about the same period—the rural Dionysia at the end of November or beginning
of December, the Lenaea about a month later, the Anthesteria at the end of January, and the Great Dionysia at the
end of February. As for the manner of conducting the Latin-named festivals, Asterios’ description of the Kalándae
in the fifth century plainly attests the Dionysiac character of the orgies, and Balsamon, in the twelfth, was so

convinced, from what he himself witnessed, of their Bacchanalian origin, that he actually proposed to derive the
name Brumalia from Βροῦμος[610] (by which he meant Βρόμιος) a surname of Dionysus.
The mumming then, which is still customary in some parts of Greece during the Twelve Days, is a survival
apparently of festivals in honour of Dionysus. Further the mummers dress themselves up to resemble Callicantzari.
But the worship of Dionysus presented a similar scene; ‘those who made processions in honour of Dionysus,’ says
Ulpian, ‘used to dress themselves up for that purpose to resemble his companions, some in the guise of Satyrs,
others as Bacchae, and others as Sileni[611].’ The mummers therefore of the present day have, it appears, inherited
the custom of dressing up from the ancient worshippers of Dionysus and are their modern representatives; and
from this it follows that the Callicantzari whom the modern mummers strive to resemble are to be identified with
those motley companions of Dionysus whom his worshippers imitated of old.
The more closely these two identifications are examined, the more certain they will appear. Take for example
Müller’s general description[612] of the celebration of Dionysus’ festivals. ‘The swarm of subordinate beings—
Satyrs, Panes, and Nymphs—by whom Bacchus was surrounded, and through whom life seemed to pass from the
god of outward nature into vegetation and the animal world, and branch off into a variety of beautiful or grotesque
forms, were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks; it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary
course of ideas, to imagine that dances of fair nymphs and bold satyrs, among the solitary woods and rocks, were
visible to human eyes, or even in fancy to take a part in them. The intense desire felt by every worshipper of
Bacchus to fight, to conquer, to suffer, in common with him, made them regard these subordinate beings as a
convenient step by which they could approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The custom, so
prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in this feeling, and not in
the mere desire of concealing excesses under the disguise of a mask; otherwise, so serious and pathetic a spectacle
as tragedy could never have originated in the choruses of these satyrs. The desire of escaping from self into
something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, breaks forth in a thousand instances in these festivals
of Bacchus. It is seen in the colouring the body with plaster, soot, vermilion, and different sorts of green and red
juices of plants, wearing goats’ and deer skins round the loins, covering the face with large leaves of different
plants; and lastly in the wearing masks of wood, bark, and other materials, and of a complete costume belonging to
the character.’ To complete this description it may be added that ‘drunkenness, and the boisterous music of flutes,
cymbals and drums, were likewise common to all Dionysiac festivals[613].’ Which of all these things is missing in
the mediaeval or modern counterpart of the festival? The blackening of the face or the wearing of the masks, the
feminine costume or beast-like disguise, the boisterous music of bells, the rioting and drunkenness—all are
reproduced in the celebration of Kalandae and Brumalia or in the mumming of the Twelve Days. The mummers
are the worshippers of a god, whose name however and existence they and their forefathers have long forgotten.
And again are not the Callicantzari faithful reproductions of the Satyrs and Sileni who ever attended Dionysus?
Their semi-bestial form with legs of goat or ass affixed to a human trunk, their grotesque faces and goat-like ears
and horns, their boisterous and mischievous merriment, their love of wine, their passion for dancing, above all in
company with Nereids, the indecency of their actions and sometimes of their appearance, their wantonness and lust
—all these widely acknowledged attributes of the Callicantzari proclaim them lineal descendants of Dionysus’
motley comrades.
Such is my interpretation of the facts collected by Polites, and it differs from that which he has advanced in the
reversal of cause and effect. Starting from the fact that dressing up in various disguises was the chief characteristic
of the Kalandae and Brumalia and is perpetuated in the mumming of the Twelve Days, but failing to carry his
researches far enough back and so to discover the absolute identity of these festivals with the ancient Dionysia, he
holds that the generally prevalent custom of dressing up in monstrous and horrible disguises at a given period of
the year—a custom which he leaves unexplained—was the cause of the belief in the activity of monstrous and
horrible demons at that period; those who had once been simply human mummers were exalted to the ranks of the
supernatural, but still betrayed their origin by the possession of a name which meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’
or else ‘hoofed and not booted.’ In my view on the contrary the identity of the modern mumming with the ancient
Dionysia is indisputable; and just as in ancient times the belief in the Satyrs and Sileni was the cause of the
adoption of satyr-like disguises in the Dionysia, so in more recent times, when the Satyrs, Sileni, and others came
to be included in the more comprehensive term Callicantzari, it was the belief in the Callicantzari which continued
to cause the wearing of similar disguises during the Twelve Days.
And this interpretation of the facts explains no less adequately than that of Polites the reason why the activities of
the Callicantzari are limited to the Twelve Days. That which was in ancient times the special season for the

commemoration of Dionysus and his attendants has now with the very gradual but still real decline of ancient
beliefs become the only season. This is natural and intelligible enough in itself; but, if a parallel be required, Greek
folklore can provide one. No one will suppose that the Dryads of ancient Greece were feared during the first six
days of August only, though it is likely enough that they had a special festival at that time; but in modern folklore
these are the only days on which, in many parts of Greece, any survival of the Dryads’ memory can be found[614].
Moreover the identification of the Callicantzari with the Satyrs and other kindred comrades of Dionysus elucidates
a modern custom which I noticed earlier in this chapter but did not then explain—the rare, but known, custom of
making offerings to the Callicantzari. The sweetmeats, waffles, sausages, and even the pig’s bone which are
occasionally placed in the chimney for the Callicantzari correspond, it would seem, with offerings formerly made
to Dionysus and shared by his train of Satyrs. Possibly even the choice of pork (usually in the shape of sausages)
or, in the more rudimentary form of the survival, of a pig’s bone, dates from the age in which the proper victim for
Dionysus at the Anthesteria was a sow; but of course it may only have been determined by the fact that pork is the
peasant’s Christmas fare and therefore the most ready offering at that season.
How then, it will be asked, does the conclusion here reached, namely that the Callicantzari are, in many districts,
the modern representatives of the Satyrs and other kindred beings, square with that other conclusion previously
drawn from another set of facts, namely that the Callicantzari were originally not demons but men who either
voluntarily or under the compulsion of a kind of madness assumed the shape and the character of beasts? The
reconciliation of these two apparently antagonistic conclusions depends primarily on the derivation of the name
Callicantzari.
Now the conditions which in my opinion that derivation should satisfy, have already been indicated in my
discussion of dialectic forms and in my criticism of the several derivations proposed by others; but it will be well
to summarise them here. They are four in number.
First, the derivation of this word, as of all others, must involve only such phonetic changes as find parallels in
other words of the language.
Secondly, it must recognise the commonest form καλλικάντζαρος as being also the central and original form from
which the many dialectic forms in the above table have diverged.
Thirdly, it must explain this form as a compound of a word κάντζαρος—presumably with καλός. For, in dialect,
there exists a word σκατζάρι, which is used as a synonym with καλλικάντζαρος and is evidently in form a
diminutive of the word κάντζαρος, and likewise there exists another synonym λυκοκάντζαρος, which cannot be
formed from καλλικάντζαρος by an arbitrary shuffling of syllables but is a separate compound of κάντζαρος—
presumably with λύκος.
Fourthly, and consequently on the last-named condition, the word κάντζαρος, whether alone or in composition
with either καλός or λύκος, must possess a meaning adequate to denote the monsters who have been described.
All these conditions are satisfied in the identification of the word κάντζαρος with the ancient word κένταυρος.
The phonetic change herein involved will, to any who are not familiar with the pronunciation of modern Greek,
appear more considerable than it really is. In that pronunciation it must be remembered that the accent, which
indicates the syllable on which stress is laid, is everything, and ancient quantity is nothing; and further that the
ancient diphthongs au and eu have come to be pronounced respectively as av or af and ev or ef. The change of
sound in this case may therefore be fairly measured by the difference between kéndăvrŏs and kándzărŏs in British
pronunciation[615]. The phonetic modifications therefore which require notice are the substitution of α for ε in the
first syllable, the introduction of a ζ after the τ, and the loss of the v-sound before the ρ.
The change from ε to α is very common in Greek, especially (by assimilation it would seem) where the following
syllable, as in the word before us, has an α for its vowel. Thus ἀλαφρός is constantly to be heard instead of
ἐλαφρός (light), ἀργαλει̯ός for ἐργαλειός (a loom), ματα- for μετα- in compound verbs. The insertion of ζ (or σ)
after τ is certainly a less common change, but parallels can be found for this also. The ancient word τέττιγες
(grasshoppers) appears in modern Greek as τζίτζικες. A word of Latin origin[616] τεντόνω (I stretch) has an equally
common by-form τσιτόνω. The classical word τύκανον (a chisel) has passed, through a diminutive form τυκάνιον,
into the modern τσουκάνι. The word κεντήματα (embroideries) has a dialectic form κεντζήματα[617]. From the
adjective μουντός (grey, brown, dusky) are formed substantives μουντζοῦρα and μουντζαλι̯ά (a stain or daub). The
substantive κατσοῦφα (sulkiness, sullenness) is probably to be identified with the ancient κατήφεια. The two most
frequently employed equivalents for ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’—τρελλός and ζουρλός—are probably of kindred origin—an

insertion of ζ in the former having produced first τζερλός and thence (τ)ζουρλός. Finally there is some likelihood
that the word κάντζαρος, in a botanical sense in which it is now used, is to be identified with the ancient plant-
name κενταυρεῖον or κενταύριον. The former indeed now denotes a kind of juniper, while the later is of course our
‘centaury’; but this difference in meaning is not, I think, fatal to the identification of the words. At the present day
the common-folk are extraordinarily vague in their nomenclature of natural objects. In travelling about I made a
practice of asking my guides and others the names of flowers and birds and suchlike; and my general experience
might fairly be summed up by saying that the average peasant divides all birds which he does not eat into two
classes; the larger ones are hawks, and the smaller are—‘little birds, God knows what’; and an accompanying
shrug of the shoulders indicates that the man does not care; while most flowers can be called either violets or gilly-
flowers at pleasure. Even therefore when a peasant of superior intelligence knows that κάντζαρος is now the name
of a kind of juniper, it does not follow that that name has always belonged to it, and has not been transferred to it
from some plant formerly used, let us say, for a like purpose. In this case it is known that both juniper and some
kind of centaury were formerly used for medicating wine[618], and the wine treated with either was prescribed as
‘good for the stomach[619].’ Hence a confusion of the two plants is intelligible enough among a peasantry not
distinguished by a love of botanical accuracy. But I place no reliance upon this possible identification; the cases
previously cited furnish sufficient analogies.
Further it may be noted that in the first two examples of this insertion of ζ or σ a certain change in the consonants
of the next syllable accompanies it. The γ in τέττιγες becomes κ, the ντ in τεντόνω is reduced to τ. In the same way,
it seems, when ζ was inserted after the τ of κένταυρος, the sound of vr was reduced to r only, though certainly the
loss of the v-sound might have occurred, apart from any such predisposing modification, as in the common word
ξέρω (I know) for ἠξεύρω.
Since then the etymological conditions of the problem are satisfied by the identification of the word κάντζαρος
with the ancient κένταυρος, it remains only to show that the name of ‘Centaurs’ fitly belongs to the monsters
whom I have described; and my contention will be that the simple word κάντζαρος, ‘Centaur,’ surviving now only
in the dialectic diminutive form σκατζάρι, adequately expresses every sort and condition of Callicantzaros that has
been depicted; that καλλικάντζαρος, the general word, of which so many dialectic varieties occur, being simply an
euphemistic compound of κάντζαρος with καλός such as we have previously seen in the title καλλικυρᾶδες given
to the Nereids, expresses precisely the same meaning as the simple word κάντζαρος, ‘Centaur’; and that
λυκοκάντζαρος originally denoted one species only of the genus Centaur, namely a Callicantzaros whose animal
traits were those of a wolf.
What then did the ancients mean by the word ‘centaur’?
The mention of the name is apt to carry away our minds to famous frieze or pediment, where in one splendidly
impossible creation of art the excellences of man, his head and his hands, are wed with the horse’s strength and
speed. This was the species of Centaur which the great sculptors and painters in the best period of Greek Art chose
to depict, and these among educated men became the Centaurs par excellence. Yet even so it was not forgotten that
they formed only one species, and were strictly to be called ἱπποκένταυροι, ‘horse-centaurs.’ Moreover two other
species of Centaur are named in the ancient language, ἰχθυοκένταυροι or fish-centaurs, and ὀνοκένταυροι or ass-
centaurs. Of the former nothing seems to be known beyond the mere name, but this matters little inasmuch as they
can assuredly have contributed nothing to the popular conception of the wholly terrestrial Callicantzari. The ass-
centaurs will prove of more interest.
But the list of ancient species of Centaur does not really stop here. No other compounds of the word Centaur may
exist, but none the less there were other Centaurs—other creatures, that is, of mixed human and animal form. Chief
among these were the Satyrs, who as pourtrayed by early Greek art might equally well have been called
‘hippocentaurs,’ and in the presentations of Greco-Roman art deserved the name, if I may coin it, of
‘tragocentaurs.’ And the Greeks themselves recognised this fact. ‘The evidence of the coins of Macedonia,’ says
Miss Jane Harrison[620], ‘is instructive. On the coins of Orreskii, a centaur, a horse-man, bears off a woman in his
arms. At Lete close at hand, with a coinage closely resembling in style, fabric, weight the money of the Orreskii
and other Pangaean tribes, the type is the same in content, though with an instructive difference of form—a naked
Satyr or Seilenos with the hooves, ears and tail of a horse seizes a woman round the waist.... This interchange of
types, Satyr and Centaur, is evidence about which there can be no mistake. Satyr and Centaur, slightly diverse
types of the horse-man, are in essence one and the same.’ Nor was the recognition of this fact confined to
Macedonia. A famous picture by Zeuxis, representing the domestic life of Centaurs, with a female Centaur (a
creature about as rare as a female Callicantzaros) suckling her young, pourtrayed her in most respects, apart from

her sex, conventionally, but gave her the ears of a Satyr[621]. And reversely Nonnus ventured to describe the
‘shaggy Satyrs’ as being, ‘by blood, of Centaur-stock[622].’ In view then of this close bond between the two types
of half-human half-animal creatures, it would be natural that, when the specific name Satyr was lost, as it has been
lost, from the popular language, while the generic term Centaur survived in the form Callicantzaros, the Satyrs
should have been amalgamated with those who from of old had professed and called themselves Centaurs; and
with the Satyrs, I suppose, went also the Sileni.
Thus the word Centaur, in spite of the narrowing tendencies of Greek art which selected the hippocentaur as the
ideal type, was always comprehensive in popular use, and perhaps became even wider in scope as time went on
and the distinctive appellations of Satyrs and suchlike were forgotten; but it is also possible that from the very
earliest times the distinction between Satyrs and Centaurs was merely an artistic and literary convention, and that
in popular speech the name Centaur was applied to both without discrimination. But it does not really concern us
to argue at length the question whether the common-folk in antiquity never distinguished, or, having once
distinguished, subsequently confused the Satyrs and the Centaurs. It is just worth noticing that it was in art of the
Greco-Roman period, so far as I can discover, that horse-centaurs first began to be represented along with Satyrs
and Sileni in the entourage of Dionysus; and if this addition to the conventional treatment of such scenes was
made, as seems likely, in deference to popular beliefs, the date by which the close association of the two classes
was an accomplished fact and confusion of them therefore likely to ensue is approximately determined.
At some date therefore probably not later than the beginning of our era, the generic name of Centaur comprised
several species of half-human, half-animal monsters, of whom the best known were horse-centaurs, ass-centaurs,
Satyrs, and Sileni; and each of these species, it will be seen, has contributed something to one or other of the many
types of the modern Centaurs, the Callicantzari.
The horse-centaur, which was the favourite species among the artists of ancient times, has curiously enough had
least influence upon the modern delineation of Callicantzari. The only attribute which they seem to have received
chiefly from this source is the rough shaggy hair with which they are usually said to be covered; ‘shaggy’ is
Homer’s epithet for the Centaurs[623], and the hippocentaurs of later art retained the trait; for it is specially noted
by Lucian that in Zeuxis’ picture the male hippocentaur was shaggy all over, the human part of him no less than
the equine[624].
The ass-centaur on the contrary is rarely mentioned by ancient writers, but has contributed largely to some
presentments of the Callicantzari. Aelian mentions the name, in the feminine form ὀνοκενταύρα, but the monster to
which he applies it, although true to its name in that the upper part of its body is human and the lower part asinine,
is not a creation of superstitious fancy, but, as is evident from other facts which he mentions, some species of ape
known to him, none too accurately, from some traveller’s tale. The locus classicus on the subject of genuine
supernatural ass-centaurs is a passage in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah[625]: καὶ συναντήσουσιν δαιμόνια
ὀνοκενταύροις καὶ βοηθήσονται ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον, ἐκεῖ ἀναπαύσονται ὀνοκένταυροι εὑρόντες αὑτοῖς
ἀνάπαυσιν—‘And demons shall meet with ass-centaurs and they shall bring help one to another; there shall ass-
centaurs find rest for themselves and be at rest.’ Here our Revised Version runs:—“The wild beasts of the desert
shall meet with the wolves (Heb. ‘howling creatures’), and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster
shall settle there.” The comparison is instructive. It is clear from the context that the Septuagint translators were
minded to give some Greek colouring to their rendering even at the expense of strict accuracy; for in the previous
verse, where our Revised Version employs the word ‘jackals,’ the Septuagint introduces beings whose voices are
generally supposed to have been more attractive, the Sirens. The use of the word ‘ass-centaurs’ cannot therefore
have been prompted by any pedantic notions of literal translation. The creatures, for all the lack of other literary
warranty, must have been familiar to the popular imagination. And what may be gleaned from the passage
concerning their character? Apparently they are the nearest Greek equivalent for ‘howling creatures’ and for
‘night-monsters’; and such emphasis in the Greek is laid upon the statement that they will ‘find rest for themselves
and be at rest,’ that they must surely in general have borne a character for restlessness. These restless noisy
monsters of the night, in shape half-human and half-asinine, are clearly in character no less than in form the
prototypes of some modern Callicantzari.
Of the many traits inherited by the Callicantzari from the Satyrs and Sileni, the usual comrades of Dionysus, I have
already spoken. So far as outward appearance is concerned, the Satyrs as they came to be pourtrayed in the later
Greek art are clearly responsible for the goat-type so common in the description of the Callicantzari, while a
reminiscence of the Sileni may perhaps be traced in the rarer bald-headed type. But as regards their manner of life,
which as I have shown bears many resemblances to that of the Satyrs—their boisterous merriment and rioting,

their love of wine, their violence, and their lewdness—these traits cannot of course be referred to the Satyrs any
more than to the hippocentaurs or for that matter to the onocentaurs who were probably no more sober or chaste
than their kindred. Rather it was the common possession of these qualities by the several types of half-human and
half-bestial monsters that allowed them to be grouped together under the single name of Callicantzari.
Thus the conclusion drawn from an historical survey of those ancient festivals which are now represented by the
Twelve Days, namely that the Callicantzari are the modern representatives of Dionysus’ monstrous comrades, is
both corroborated and amplified by the etymological identification of the Callicantzari (or in the simple and
unadorned form, the σκατζάρια) with the Centaurs, of whom the Satyrs and the Sileni are species.
The remaining modern name on which I have to touch readily explains itself in the light of what has already been
said. If the word κάντζαρος is the modern form of κένταυρος, and if by the name ‘Centaur’ was denoted a being
half-human and half-animal both in shape and in character, then the name λυκοκάντζαρος clearly should mean a
creature half-man half-wolf, such as the ancients might have called a lycocentaur, but did actually name
λυκάνθρωπος. Lycocantzaros then etymologically should mean the werewolf—a man transformed either by his
own power or by some external influence into a wolf.
The idea of lycanthropy has probably been familiar to the peasants of Greece continuously from the earliest ages
down to the present day, either surviving traditionally like so many other beliefs, or possibly stimulated by actual
experiences; for lycanthropy is not a mere figment of the imagination, but is a very real and terrible form of
madness, under the influence of which the sufferer believes himself transformed (and by dress or lack of it tries to
transfigure himself) into a wolf or other wild animal, and in that state develops and satisfies a craving for human
flesh. Outbreaks of it were terribly frequent in the east of Europe during the Middle Ages, especially among the
Slavonic populations; and it is not likely that Greece wholly escaped this scourge. But whether the idea received
some such impetus or no, it was certainly known to the ancient Greeks, and is not wholly forgotten at the present
day. This was curiously betrayed by some questions put to an American archaeologist by an Arcadian peasant.
Among the items of falsehood vended as news by the Greek press he had seen, but owing to the would-be classical
style had failed to understand, certain allegations concerning the cannibalistic habits of Red Indians; and the points
on which he sought enlightenment were, first, whether they ran on all fours, and, secondly, whether they went
naked or wore wolf-skins. In effect the only form of savagery familiar to his mind was that of the werewolf.
Now here, it might be thought, is the clue by which to explain the first conclusion which we reached, namely, that
the Callicantzari were originally men capable of transformation into beasts. The name λυκοκάντζαρος or werewolf,
it might be urged, involved the idea of such transformation; and the idea originally associated with the one species
was extended to the whole tribe of Callicantzari. At first sight such an explanation is attractive and appears tenable;
but maturer consideration compels me to reject it.
In the first place, although the word λυκοκάντζαρος cannot etymologically have meant anything but werewolf
when it was first employed, at the present day in the few districts where the name may be heard, in Cynouria, in
Messenia, and, so far as I can ascertain, in Crete, it involves no idea of the transformation of men into beasts; it is
merely a variant form for καλλικάντζαρος and in no way distinguished from it in meaning, and the Callicantzari in
those districts are demons of definite hybrid form, not men temporarily transformed into beasts. And conversely in
the Cyclades and other places where the belief in this transformation of men is prevalent, the compound
λυκοκάντζαρος seems to be unknown, and καλλικάντζαρος (or some dialectic form of the same word) is in vogue.
Since then in many places where the generic name Callicantzari is alone in use, the human origin of these monsters
is maintained, while in those few districts where the specific name Lycocantzari is also used that human origin is
denied, it is hard to believe that in this respect the surviving ideas concerning the genus can be the outcome of
obsolete ideas concerning the species.
Secondly, if for the sake of argument it be granted that the Callicantzari had always been demons, how came the
werewolf, the λυκάνθρωπος, whose very name proved him half-human, to change that name to λυκοκάντζαρος?
How came a man who occasionally turned into a wolf to be classified as one species in a genus of beings who ex
hypothesi were not human even in origin, but demoniacal? We should have to suppose that the peasants of that
epoch in which the change of name occurred did not distinguish between men and demons—which, as Euclid puts
it, is absurd; wherefore the supposition that the Callicantzari had always been regarded as demons until
werewolves were admitted to their ranks cannot be maintained. Rather the point of resemblance between the
earliest Callicantzari and werewolves, which made the amalgamation of them possible, must have been the belief
that both alike were men transformed into animals.

Since then the belief in the metamorphosis of men into Callicantzari existed before that epoch—a quite
indeterminate epoch, I am afraid—in which the word λυκάνθρωπος fell into desuetude[626] and was replaced by
λυκοκάντζαρος, where are we to look for the origin of the idea?
Since the Callicantzari bear the name of the Centaurs, it is obvious that the enquiry must be carried yet further
back, and that the ancient ideas concerning the Centaurs’ origin must be investigated. Pindar touches often upon
the Centaur-myths; what view did he take of the Centaurs’ nature? Were they divine in origin or human? We shall
see that he held no settled view on the subject. Both traditions concerning the origin of the Centaurs were familiar
to him just as both traditions still prevail in modern accounts of the Callicantzari; sometimes he follows the one,
sometimes the other. On the one hand the Centaur Chiron is consistently described as divine. ‘Fain would I,’ says
Pindar[627], ‘that Chiron ... wide-ruling scion of Cronos the son of Ouranos were living and not gone, and that the
Beast of the wilds were ruling o’er the glens of Pelion’; and again he names him ‘Chiron son of Cronos[628]’ and
‘the Beast divine[629].’ In Pindar’s view Chiron, be he Beast or God, is certainly not human; and if he is once
named by the same poet ‘the Magnesian Centaur[630],’ the epithet need only perhaps declare his habitation. His
divinity is plainly asserted, and the legend that he resigned the divine guerdon of immortality in order to deliver
Prometheus accords with Pindar’s doctrine.
But on the other hand the story of Ixion as told by Pindar reveals another tradition. Ixion himself was human; for
his presumptuous sin of lusting after the wife of Zeus ‘swiftly he suffered as he, mere man, deserved, and won a
misery unique[631].’ The son of Ixion therefore by a nebulous mother could not be divine. The cloud wherewith in
his delusion he had mated ‘bare unto him, unblest of the Graces, a monstrous son, a thing apart even as she, with
no rank either among men or where gods have their portion; him she nurtured and named Centauros; and he in the
dales of Pelion did mate with Magnesian mares, and thence there sprang a wondrous warrior-tribe like unto both
their parents—like to their dams in their nether parts, and the upper frame their sire’s[632].’ The first Centaur then,
the founder of the race, though only half-human in origin, was in no respect divine. How then came Chiron, one of
that race, to be divine? The two traditions are inconsistent. Pindar as a poet was not troubled thereby; he chose
now the one, now the other, for his art to embroider. But in the science of mythology the discrepancy of the two
traditions is important. Once more we must carry our search further back—to Hesiod and to Homer.
The former, in placing the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs among the scenes wrought on the shield of
Heracles[633], says never a word to suggest that either set of combatants were other than human; the contrast
between them lies wholly in the weapons they use. The Lapithae have their leaders enumerated, Caineus, Dryas,
Pirithous, and the rest; the Centaurs in like manner are gathered about their Chieftains, ‘huge Petraeos and Asbolos
the augur and Arctos and Oureios and black-haired Mimas and the two sons of Peukeus, Perimedes and Dryalos.’
The account reads like a description of a fight between two tribes, one of them equipped with body-armour and
using spears, the other more primitive and armed only with rude wooden weapons.
To this representation of the Centaurs Homer also, in the Iliad, consents; for, though he names them Pheres or
‘Beasts,’ it is quite clear that this is the proper name of a tribe of men—men who dwelt on Mount Pelion and were
hardly less valiant than the heroes who conquered them. ‘Never saw I,’ says Nestor, ‘nor shall see other such men
as were Pirithous and Dryas, shepherd of hosts, and Caineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemus and Theseus,
son of Aegeus, like unto the immortals. Mightiest in sooth were they of men upon the earth, and against mightiest
fought, even the mountain-haunting Pheres, and fearfully they did destroy them[634].’ And again we hear how
Pirithous ‘took vengeance on the shaggy Pheres, and drave them forth from Pelion to dwell nigh unto the
Aethices[635].’ Apart from the name ‘Pheres,’ which will shortly be examined, there is nothing in these passages
any more than in that of Hesiod to suggest that the conflict of the Lapithae and the Centaurs means anything but
the destruction or expulsion of a primitive and wild mountain-tribe by a people who, in the wearing of body-
armour, had advanced one important step in material civilisation. Yet in some respects the tribe of Centaurs were,
according to Homer, at least the equals of their neighbours; for Chiron, ‘the justest of the Centaurs[636],’ was the
teacher both of the greatest warrior, Achilles[637], and of the greatest physician, Asclepios[638]. The only passage of
Homer which has been held to imply that the Centaurs were not men comes not from the Iliad but from the
Odyssey[639]—ἐξ οὗ Κενταύροισι καὶ ἀνδράσι νεῖκος ἐτύχθη—which Miss Harrison[640] translates ‘Thence ’gan
the feud ’twixt Centaurs and mankind,’ inferring therefrom the non-humanity of the Centaurs. It is however
legitimate to take the word ἀνδράσι in a stricter sense, and to render the line, ‘Thence arose the feud between
Centaurs and heroes,’ to wit, the heroes Pirithous, Dryas, and others; and the inference is then impaired. But in any
case the Iliad, the earlier authority, consistently depicts both Chiron and the other Centaurs as human. The tradition
of a divine origin must have arisen between the date of the Iliad and the time of Pindar, and from then until now

popular opinion must have been divided on the question whether the Centaurs, the Callicantzari, were properly
men or demons. But one part of the conclusion at which we first arrived, namely that Callicantzari were originally
men, is justified by Homer’s and Hesiod’s testimony.
What then of the other part of that conclusion? There is ancient proof that the Callicantzari were originally men;
but what witness is there to the metamorphosis of those men into beasts? The Centaurs’ alternative name, Pheres.
An ethnological explanation of this name has recently been put forward by Prof. Ridgeway[641]. Concluding from
the evidence of the Iliad that ‘the Pheres are as yet nothing more than a mountain tribe and are not yet conceived
as half-horse half-man,’ he points out, on the authority of Pindar, that Pelion was the country of the Magnetes[642]
and that Chiron not only dwelt in a cave on Pelion, but is himself called a Magnete[643]. ‘It is then probable,’ he
continues[644], ‘that the Centaur myth originated in the fact that the older race (the Pelasgians) had continued to
hold out in the mountains, ever the last refuge of the remnants of conquered races. At first the tribes of Pelion may
have been friendly to the (Achaean) invader who was engaged in subjugating other tribes with whom they had old
feuds; and as the Norman settlers in Ireland gave their sons to be fostered by the native Irish, so the Achaean
Peleus entrusted his son to the old Chiron. Nor must it be forgotten that conquering races frequently regard the
conquered both with respect and aversion. They respect them for their skill as wizards, because the older race are
familiar with the spirits of the land.... On the other hand, as the older race have been driven into the most barren
parts of the land, and are being continually pressed still further back, and have their women carried off, they
naturally lose no opportunity of making reprisals on their enemies, and sally forth from their homes in the
mountains or forests to plunder and in their turn to carry off women. The conquering race consequently regard the
aborigines with hatred, and impute to them every evil quality, though when it is necessary to employ sorcery they
will always resort to one of the hated race.’
Then follow a series of instances from various parts of the world which amply justify this estimate of the relations
between conquerors and conquered. But in applying the principle thus obtained to the case of the Centaurs Prof.
Ridgeway goes a little further. ‘As it is therefore certain that aboriginal tribes who survive in mountains and forests
are considered not only possessed of skill in magic, but as also bestial in their lusts, and are even transformed into
vipers and wild beasts by the imagination of their enemies, we may reasonably infer from the Centaur myth that
the ancient Pelasgian tribes of Pelion and Ossa had been able to defy the invaders of Thessaly, and that they had
from the remotest times possessed these mountains.
‘We can now explain why they are called Pheres, Centauri and Magnetes. Scholars are agreed in holding that
Pheres (φῆρες) is only an Aeolic form for θῆρες, “wild beasts.” Such a name is not likely to have been assumed by
the tribe itself, but is rather an opprobrious term applied to them by their enemies. Centauri was probably the name
of some particular clan of Magnetes[645].’
Prof. Ridgeway then, as I understand, believes the Centauri to have been named Pheres or ‘Beasts’ by their
enemies because they were bestial in character, and supports his view by the statement which I have italicised. On
this point I join issue.
First, the phrase in question is based upon one only out of the many instances which he adduces as evidence of the
relations between invaders and aborigines—and that the most dubious, for it depends upon a somewhat arbitrary
interpretation of a passage[646] of Procopius. ‘He wrote,’ says Prof. Ridgeway[647], ‘in the sixth century of Britain
thus: “The people who in old time lived in this island of Britain built a great wall, which cut off a considerable
portion of it. On either side of this wall the land, climate and everything are different. For the district to the east of
the wall enjoys a healthy climate, changing with the seasons, being moderately warm in summer and cool in
winter. It is thickly inhabited by people who live in the same way as other folk.” After enumerating its natural
advantages he then proceeds to say that “On the west of the wall everything is quite the opposite; so that, forsooth,
it is impossible for a man to live there for half-an-hour. Vipers and snakes innumerable and every kind of wild
beast share the possession of that country between them; and what is most marvellous, the natives say that if a man
crosses the wall and enters the district beyond it, he immediately dies, being quite unable to withstand the
pestilential climate which prevails there, and that any beasts that wander in there straightway meet their death.”
‘There seems little doubt that the wall here meant is the Wall of Hadrian, for the ancient geographers are confused
about the orientation of the island.
‘It is therefore probable that the vipers and wild beasts who lived beyond the wall were nothing more than the
Caledonians, nor is it surprising to learn that a sudden death overtook either man or beast that crossed into their
territory.’

That a native British statement made in the sixth century to the effect that the country beyond Hadrian’s wall was
pestilential in climate and infested with vipers, snakes, and wild beasts, should be considered as even probable
evidence that either the Romans or the natives of Britain regarded the Caledonians as noxious animals, is to me
surprising. The question whether the Centaurs were called Pheres because of their bestial repute among
neighbouring tribes must be decided independently of that inference and on its own merits.
Secondly then, was there anything bestial in the conduct of the Centaurs, as known to Homer, which could have
won for them the name of ‘Beasts’? All that ancient mythology tells of their conduct may be briefly summarised;
they fought with the men and carried off the women of neighbouring tribes, and occasionally drank wine to excess.
Were the Achaeans then such ardent abstainers that they dubbed those who indulged too freely in intoxicants
‘Beasts’? Did the invaders of Greece and the assailants of Troy hold fighting so reprehensible? Or was it the
Centaurs’ practice of carrying off the women of their enemies which convicted them of ‘bestial lust’? In all ages
surely humanum est errare, but in that early age the practice was not only human but manly; the enemy’s
womenfolk were among the rightful prizes of a raid. There is nothing then in mythology to warrant the belief that
the Centaurs’ moral conduct was such as to win for them, in that age, the opprobrious name of ‘Beasts.’
And here Art supports Mythology; for clearly the representation of the Centaurs in semi-animal form cannot be
dissociated from their name of Pheres; the same idea must lie at the root of both. If then the name Pheres was
given to the Centaurs because of their violence or lust, the animal portion of them in the representations of early
Greek Art should have been such as to express one or both of those qualities. But what do we find? In discussing
the development of the horse-centaur in art, Miss Harrison[648] points out that though in horse-loving Athens, by
the middle of the fifth century b.c., the equine element predominated in the composite being, ‘in archaic
representations the reverse is the case. The Centaurs are in art what they are in reality, men with men’s legs and
feet, but they are shaggy mountain-men with some of the qualities and habits of beasts; so to indicate this in a
horse-loving country they have the hind-quarters of a horse awkwardly tacked on to their human bodies.’ Now the
particular ‘qualities and habits of beasts,’ if such there be, in the Centaurs must be their violence and lust. Are these
then adequately symbolised by ‘the hind-quarters of a horse awkwardly tacked on to their human bodies’? In
scenes of conflict, in the archaic representations, it is the human part of the Centaur which bears the brunt of the
fight, and the weapon used is a branch of a tree, the primitive human weapon; the Centaur fights as a man fights. If
he had been depicted with horns or teeth or claws as his weapons of offence, then the animal part of him would
fairly symbolise his bestial violence; but who could discover a trace of pugnacity in his equine loins and rump,
hind legs and tail? Or again if pugnacity is not the particular quality which caused the Centaurs to be named
‘Beasts’ and to be pourtrayed in half-animal form, is it their lewdness which art thus endeavoured to suggest?
Surely, if the early artists had understood that the name Pheres was a contemptuous designation of a tribe bestial in
their lust, Greek taste was not so intolerant of ithyphallic representations that they need have had recourse to so
cryptic a symbol as the hind-quarters of a horse. But if it be supposed that, while a sense of modesty, unknown to
later generations, deterred those early artists from a more obvious method of expressing their meaning, the idea of
the Centaurs’ lewdness was really present to their minds, then Chiron too falls under the same condemnation and is
tainted with the same vice as the rest. ‘A black-figured vase,’ says Prof. Ridgeway, à propos of the virtues, not of
the vices, of this one Centaur, ‘shows the hero (Peleus) bringing the little Achilles to Chiron, who is depicted as a
venerable old man with a white beard and clad in a long robe from under the back of which issues the hinder part
of a diminutive pony, the equine portion being a mere adjunct to the complete human figure[649].’ So far then as the
animal part is concerned, the representation of Chiron in early art differs no whit from that of other Centaurs, and
the quality, which is symbolised by the equine adjunct in these, is imputed to him also. Yet to convict of bestial lust
the virtuous Chiron, the chosen teacher of great heroes, is intolerable. In effect, no explanation of the name Pheres
in mythology and of the biform representation of the Centaurs in art can be really satisfactory which does not
reckon with Chiron, the most famous and ‘the most just’ of the Centaurs, as well as with the rest of the tribe. Some
characteristic common to them all—and therefore not lust or any other evil passion—must be the basis of any
adequate interpretation of the name ‘Beasts.’
If then the name Pheres cannot have been an opprobrious term applied to the Pelasgian tribe of Centauri by the
Achaean invaders in token of their lusts or other evil qualities, can it have been a term of respect? It may not now
sound a respectful title; but in view of that ethnological principle which Prof. Ridgeway enunciates, namely ‘that
conquering races frequently regard the conquered both with respect and aversion,’ the enquiry is worth pursuing.
The principle itself seems to me well established; it is only his application of it in the particular case of the
Centaurs to which I have demurred.

The conquering race, he shows, are apt to respect the conquered for their skill as wizards. This certainly holds true
in the case before us. Chiron was of high repute in the arts of magic and prophecy. It was from him that Asclepios
learned ‘to be a healer of the many-plaguing maladies of men; and thus all that came unto him whether plagued
with self-grown sores or with limbs wounded by the lustrous bronze or stone far-hurled, or marred by summer heat
or winter cold—these he delivered, loosing each from his several infirmity, some with emollient spells and some
by kindly potions, or else he hung their limbs with charms, or by surgery he raised them up to health[650].’ And it
was Chiron too to whom Apollo himself resorted for counsel, and from whom he learned the blissful destiny of the
maiden Cyrene[651]. Nor was Chiron the only exponent of such arts among the Centaurs; for Hesiod names also
Asbolos as a diviner.
If then the tribe of Centaurs enjoyed a reputation for sorcery, could this have won for them the name of ‘Beasts’?
Can it have been that, in the exercise of their magic powers, they were believed able to transform themselves into
beasts?
Within the limits of Greek folk-lore we have already once encountered such a belief, namely in the case of the
‘Striges,’ old witches capable of turning themselves into birds of prey; and in the folk-lore of the world at large the
idea is extremely frequent. There is no need to encumber this chapter with a mass of recorded instances; the verdict
of the first authority on the subject is sufficient. According to Tylor[652], the belief ‘that certain men, by natural gift
or magic art, can turn for a time into ravening wild beasts’ is ‘a widespread belief, extending through savage,
barbaric, classic, oriental, and mediaeval life, and surviving to this day in European superstition.’ ‘The origin of
this idea,’ he says, ‘is by no means sufficiently explained,’ but he notes that ‘it really occurs that, in various forms
of mental disease, patients prowl shyly, long to bite and destroy mankind, and even fancy themselves transformed
into wild beasts.’ Whether such cases of insanity are the cause or the effect of the belief, he does not determine; but
he adds, what is most important to the present issue, that ‘professional sorcerers have taken up the idea, as they do
any morbid delusion, and pretend to turn themselves and others into beasts by magic art’; and, later on[653], citing
by way of illustration a passage of the Eclogues[654], in which Vergil ‘tells of Moeris as turning into a wolf by the
use of poisonous herbs, as calling up souls from the tombs, and as bewitching away crops,’ he points out that in the
popular opinion of Vergil’s age ‘the arts of the werewolf, the necromancer or “medium,” and the witch, were
different branches of one craft.’
If then the Centaurs were a tribe of reputed sorcerers and also obtained the secondary name of ‘Beasts,’ the
analogy of worldwide superstitions suggests that the link between these two facts is to be found in their magical
power of assuming the shape of beasts.
What particular beast-shape the Centaurs most often affected need not much concern us. The analogy, on which
my interpretation of the name Pheres rests, makes certainly for some shape more terrifying than that of a horse;
and the word φῆρες itself also denotes wild and savage beasts rather than domestic animals. But the horse-centaur,
though it monopolised art, was not the only form of centaur known, nor, if we may judge from modern
descriptions of the Callicantzari, had it so firm a hold on the popular imagination as some other types. Possibly its
very existence is due only to the aesthetic taste of a horse-loving people. Pindar certainly knew of one Centaurus
earlier in date and far more monstrous than the horse-centaurs which artists chose to depict, and provided a
genealogy accordingly. Moreover in the passage of Hesiod which I have quoted above and which, by its agreement
with the Iliad as to the human character of the Centaurs, is proved to embody an early tradition, there is at least a
suggestion of a more savage form assumed by the Centaurs. Several of their names in that passage[655] seem to
indicate various qualities and habits which they possessed. One is called Petraeos, because the Centaurs lived in
rocky caves or because they hurled rocks at their foes; another is Oureios, because they were a mountain-tribe;
then there are the two sons of Peukeus, so named because the Centaurs’ weapons were pine-branches. And why is
another named Arctos? Is it not because the Centaurs assumed by sorcery the form of bears? There is some
probability then that the equine type of Centaur, the conventional Centaur of Greek Art, was a comparatively late
development, and that the remote age which gave to the Centaurs the name of Pheres believed rather that that tribe
of sorcerers were wont to transform themselves into the more monstrous and terrible shapes of bears and other
wild beasts.
But if the particular animal which Greek artists selected as a component part of their Centaurs is thus of minor
importance, the fact that their Centaurs were always composite in conception, always compounded of the human
and the animal, is highly significant. In discussing the various types of Callicantzari in various parts of Greece, we
found that, where there exists a belief in their power of metamorphosis, they are stated to appear in single and
complete shapes, while, where the belief in their transformation is unknown, they are represented in composite

shapes; and having previously concluded that the belief in their metamorphosis was a genuine and original factor
in the superstition, we were led to formulate the principle, that a being of some single, normal, and known shape
who has originally been believed capable of transforming himself into one or more other single, normal, and
known shapes, comes to be represented, when the belief in his power of transformation dies out, as a being of
composite, abnormal, and fantastic shape, combining incongruous features of the several single, normal, and
known shapes. Now the horse-centaur of Greek Art is a being of composite, abnormal, and fantastic shape,
combining incongruous features of man and animal. If then the principle based on facts of modern Greek folk-lore
may be applied to the facts of ancient Greek folk-lore, the horse-centaur of Greek Art replaced a completely human
Centaur capable of transforming himself into completely animal form.
Moreover I am inclined to think that such a development was likely to occur in the representations of art even
more readily than in verbal descriptions. For even if the artist belonged to an age which had not yet forgotten that
the Centaurs were human beings capable of turning themselves by sorcery into beasts, how was he to distinguish
the Centaur in his picture either from an ordinary man, if the Centaur were in his ordinary human shape, or from a
real animal, if the Centaur were in his assumed shape? He might of course have drawn an ordinary man and have
inscribed the legend, ‘This is a Centaur capable of assuming other forms’; or he might have drawn an ordinary
animal with the explanatory note, ‘This is not really an animal but a Centaur in disguise.’ But if such expedients
did not satisfy his artistic instincts, what was he to do? Surely his only course was to depict the Centaur in his
normal human shape, and by some animal adjunct to indicate his powers of transformation. And that is what he
did; for in the earliest art the fore part of the Centaur is a complete human figure, and the hind part is a somewhat
disconnected equine appendage[656].
Nor is this artistic convention without parallel in ancient Greece. At Phigalea there was once, we are told, an
ancient statue of Demeter represented as a woman with the head and mane of a horse; and the explanation of this
equine adjunct was that she had once assumed the form of a mare[657]. In other words, the power of transformation
was indicated in art by a composite form.
Hence indeed it is not unlikely that the very method which early artists adopted of indicating the Centaurs’ power
to assume various single forms, being misunderstood by later generations among whom the Centaurs’ human
origin and faculty of magical transformation were no longer predominant traditions, contributed not a little to the
conception of Centaurs in an invariable composite form; and that later art, by blending the two incongruous
elements into a more harmonious but less significant whole, confirmed men in that misunderstanding, until the old
traditions became a piece of rare and local lore.
Thus on three separate grounds—the analogy of world-wide superstition which attributes to sorcerers the power of
assuming bestial form; the tendency detected in modern Greek folk-lore to replace beings of single shape, but
capable of transforming themselves into other single shapes, by creatures of composite shape; and the contrast
between the horse-centaurs of archaic art and those of the Parthenon—we are led to the same conclusion, namely
that the Centaurs were a tribe of reputed sorcerers whose most striking manifestation of power, in the eyes of their
Achaean neighbours, was to turn themselves into wild beasts. The name Pheres was then in truth a title of respect,
a title in no way derogatory to the virtuous Chiron, who, if he exercised his magical powers chiefly in mercy and
healing, shared doubtless with the other Centaurs the miraculous faculty of metamorphosis.
Our first conclusion then concerning the Callicantzari, namely that they were originally men capable of turning
into beasts, was no less correct than the second conclusion which showed them as the modern representatives of
Dionysus’ attendant Satyrs and Sileni. Where the beliefs in their human origin and in their power of
metamorphosis still prevail, Greek tradition has preserved not only the name but the essential character of the
ancient Centaurs.
Does it seem hardly credible that popular tradition should still faithfully record a superstition which dates from
before Homer and yet is practically ignored by Greek literature? Still if the fidelity of the common-folk’s memory
is guaranteed in many details by its agreement with that which literature does record, it would be folly to disregard
it where literature is silent or prefers another of the still prevalent traditions. Let us take only Apollodorus’
account[658] of the fight of Heracles with the Centaurs and mark the several points in which it confirms the present
beliefs about the Callicantzari. The old home, he says, of the Centaurs before they came to Malea was Pelion;
Pelion is now the place where above all others stories of the Callicantzari are rife; and in the neighbouring island
of Sciathos it is believed[659] that they come at Christmas not from the lower world, but from the mainland, the old
country of the Magnetes; even local associations then seem to have survived, just as in the modern stories about
Demeter from Eleusis and from Phigaleia. Heracles was entertained in the cave of the Centaur Pholos; the

Callicantzari likewise live in caves during their sojourn on earth, and their hospitality, though never sought, has
been endured. The Centaur Pholos ate raw meat, though he provided his guest with cooked meat; the Callicantzari
also regale themselves on uncooked food[660], toads and snakes for the most part, but in one Messenian story also
raw dogs’-flesh[661]. Heracles broached a cask of wine, and Pholos’ brother Centaurs smelt it and swarmed to the
cave on mischief bent; the Callicantzari have the same love of wine and the same malevolence. The first of the
Centaurs to enter the cave were put to flight by Heracles with fire-brands, and his ordinary weapon, the bow, was
not used by him save to complete the rout; fire-brands are the right weapons with which to scare away the
Callicantzari. Surely, when such correspondences as these attest the integrity of popular tradition for some two
thousand years, there is nothing incredible in the supposition that there had been equal integrity in popular (as
opposed to artistic and literary) traditions for another thousand years or more before that.
Thus then it appears that in some districts of modern Greece, in which there prevail the beliefs that the
Callicantzari are, in their normal form, human and that they are capable of transforming themselves into beasts,
popular tradition dates from the age in which the Achaean invaders credited the Pelasgian tribe of Centauri with
magical powers and in token of one special manifestation thereof surnamed them Pheres.
In other districts, where the Callicantzari are represented as demoniacal and not human and as monsters of mixed
rather than of variable shape, the popular memory goes back to a period somewhat less remote, that period in
which a new conception, encouraged perhaps unwittingly by archaic art, became predominant in classical art and
literature, with the further result, we must suppose, that in the minds of some of the common-folk too monsters of
composite shape took the place of the old human wonder-working Centaurs.
And yet again in other districts, where the Christmas mummers in the guise of Callicantzari are the modern
representatives of those worshippers of Dionysus who dressed themselves in the guise of Satyrs or Sileni, the
traditions which survive are mainly those of a post-classical age in which the half-human half-animal comrades of
Dionysus lost their distinctive names and were enrolled in the Centaurs’ ranks.
Finally in the few districts where language at least testifies that werewolves have also been numbered among the
Callicantzari, popular belief, though preserving much that is ancient, may have been modified by a superstition, or
rather by an actual form of insanity, which was particularly prevalent in the Middle Ages.
Such have been in different districts and periods the various developments of a superstition which originated in the
reputation for sorcery enjoyed by a Pelasgian tribe inhabiting Mount Pelion in a prehistoric age; and the
complexity of modern traditions concerning the Callicantzari is due to the fact that they do not all date from one
epoch but comprise the whole history of the Centaurs.