THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
JDzoicq* ** J^^
THE
CUSTOMS AND LORE
OF
MODERN GREECE
BY
RENNELL RODD
AUTHOR OF "FREDERICK, CROWN PRINCE AND EMPEROR
ETC., ETC.
WITH SEVEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
TRISTRAM ELLIS
LONDON
DAVID STOTT 370 OXFORD STREET W
1892
OF
111
fa
D. M. C. F.
731722
CONTENTS.
Introduction i
Chat. I. Ethnology of Modern Greece and Historical .-ketch
of the Populations ... ... ... ... i
Chat. II. The Land and the People ... 46
Chap. III. Village Festivals, Fairs, Dances, and Marriages... 82
Chap. IV. Birth, Destiny, and Death 106
Chap. V. Beliefs and Ceremonies — Survivals of the . v ncient
in the New 13 2
Chap. VI. Luck, Divination, and Healing 156
Chap. VII. The Supernatural,— Genii, Nereids, Vampires,
Goblins, and Demons ... ... ... ... 168
CHAr. VIII. The Popular Poetry 205
Chap. IX. The Klephts and Klephtic Songs 218
Chap. X. The Saga of Suli 243
Chap. XL The Lyrical Poetry 264
Appendix 2S7
Glossary of Greek Words occurring in Text ... ... 291
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Dancers at Megara
Greek Soldiers
Greek Shepherd
Greek Islander
Greek Priests
Woman of Eleusis
Girl of Parnassus.
. . . Frontispiece
to face page 17
80
121
153
209
265
INTRODUCTION.
THE traveller who approaches Athens for the first time,
whether it be across that historic sea, over which, as the
last morning of his journey breaks, the shadowy forms of
opal-tinted isles float one after another into sight, until
before him the Acropolis grows out of the early haze,
framed in the hollow of Parncs, Pentelicon, and Hymettus,
or whether it be along the rich vineyard-clothed shore
of the Corinthian Gulf, in view of that unsurpassed
panorama where Parnassus and Helicon rise beyond the
bluest of blue waters, will probably find himself
susceptible to a twofold influence : a sense, on the one
hand, that is partly awe and partly gladness at finding
himself at last face to face with scenes that haw
hitherto belonged to imagination, so familiar and yet so
new, touched with the magic of youthful memories, and
sacred, perhaps, from maturer associations ; while, on
the other hand, he can hardly fail to be possessed by an
overwhelming feeling of wonder and delight at the
loveliness of the nature around him. What though the
rocks be treeless, the lower slopes barren of all save
x Introduction.
flowering weeds and perfumed shrubs, such beauty of
form and colour he has rarely beheld, and the light that
is over all is such as he never dreamed could rest on
land and sea. The short space of time which it is
permitted to most travellers to devote to Greece will be
spent in realizing scenes made immortal by history and
achievement, in growing familiar with the ruins of her
ancient splendour, in studying the fragments of master-
pieces that are the noblest teachers still. The memory
of these, and an ineffaceable picture of the ever-changing
loveliness of scene— the gorges, red with oleander,
bounded by the island sea, the deep noon shadows on
far amethystine hills cheated into seeming nearness by
the limpid purity of air — are what he will bear away with
him. Of the inhabitants and their manner of life he can
know little or nothing, and will probably only gather a
few false impressions from rapid generalizations made
in the capital.
It is only after a long sojourn in this land of myth
and fable, of art and inspiration, and after many
wanderings, that one is able to learn how, in solitary
islands, in sequestered valleys — sundered by physical
conditions as effectively as they were two thousand
years ago — there lives a people who seem to have
preserved, in manner and in look, that old-world
freshness of our dreams, who still live the natural life
Introduction. xi
with little heed or knowledge of the world beyond.
Many a change has overshadowed them since twilight
settled on their story, and men with strange tongues
and iron hands have wrought their will in the land, while-
still they turned the soil, and pressed the grape, and
gathered in the olive. They know that now a new life
has sprung up in their midst ; they can even feel its
pulse and throb; and many of them are drawn over the
mountains to take their part in the changed order.
But others and the elders remain, living out their simple,
uneventful lives, and the wrangle of voices over matters
that are too hard for them concerns them little.
it is among these dwellers of the upland pastures,
whose lives contrast so markedly with the keen working
mind, the restless, fretful activity of the Greek with
whom the world is more familiar, the little trader of the
coast towns, who fills the counting-houses of the West,
and becomes the pioneer of petty commerce throughout
the East — it is among these men, in whom the stationary
life of the country is perpetuated, that we find
any traces that may have survived of the old-world
attitude of thought in its more intimate aspects, its
domestic traits, its untutored feelings about life and
death, its awe of nature, and its need of God.
The pilgrim to the great historic sites will refer to the
pages of historian and orator, will recall the sounding
xii Introduction.
lines which stirred the genius of a mighty people in the
hour of their highest attainment; but he who follows the
pathway to the mountain village, who sits with the
gossip, and watches the shepherd gathering in his flocks
at even, will rather have in mind the lilt of the earlier
epic, the pastoral muse, and the many voices of the little
lyrics of the anthology. And strangely real will the)'
seem to him when he sees the same old life lived out,
and the husbandman yoking his ox to the same old
plough ; as, little by little, he grows aware of the same
old haunting awe that clings to lonely places, of the
same familiar reverence at the shrine, the same grim
dread of sunless death, and the treachery of a hateful
sea.
It is this side of the Greek people of to-day which
will be examined in the following pages, the life and
manners especially of the country-folk, who are, in
reality, the fibre and heart of the nation, and who,
unrecognized perhaps in great measure amid the clamour
of noisy self-assertion, did her the greatest silent
service at the time of her direst need. Since those days
a spirit of change has undoubtedly come over the land,
and, slowly though it be, new ideas are filtering in. The
old customs will inevitably lose their individuality, as
the old songs are fast growing silent. Much, therefore,
that is recorded in the following pages can no longer be
Introduction. xiii
regarded as the universal mental furniture of every
Greek peasant ; much can only here and there with
difficulty he traced out to-day as evidence of what once
was general, of what is not yet wholly dead. Even at
the present time, however, there is probably no country
in Europe where such a wealth of lore and fancy still
governs the daily life of the people, where superstition is
so historic and so interesting as it is here ; and, in
considering the people and their manner of life from
this point of view, we may form our own conclusions as
to how far the strong analogies between the ancient and
the new must be assigned to direct inheritance and
consanguinity.
The many nations that have passed through this
much-debated land have probably all contributed to
enrich the store of custom and legend. As regards the
popular tales current everywhere, of which every old
wife can tell a great number, their principal student,
von Hahn, has laid it down that quite as many of
them bear strong analogy to the Germanic folk-
story as betray evidence of Oriental infiltration, but
that there remains a considerable mass which are
easily recognizable as simple popularizations of the
Hellenic mythology. Similarly with customs and
superstitions ; while there are many which are common
also to Western and Northern nations the most
xiv Introduction.
universally prevailing, the most characteristic, as well as
the most numerous, are those which preserve, often with
but slight modification, an old Hellenic savour. The
ubiquity of the Fates and the Nereids, the reappearance
of the ferryman of Styx as the grim angel of death, are
strong arguments, if a stronger one were needed than
the survival of language, against those who have main-
tained the extermination of the original inhabitants ; the
more so when we remember that these survivals exist
with comparative uniformity in numbers of different
centres, between which the rugged mountains have
opposed a continual barrier to mutual intercourse.
In quoting the interesting theories of Hahn and others
as to the origin of Albanian and Wallach, I am aware
that I have touched upon very debatable ground, and
that all theories as to the early inhabitants of Italy,
Greece, and the Balkans must be received as yet with
extreme reserve. Much light may still be thrown upon
the nature of that primitive people who once occupied
either side of the Adriatic, by the study of the masses of
still unexplored prehistoric remains in Italy, where they
had probably, owing to more favourable physical con-
ditions, developed contemporaneously a higher civiliza-
tion than their kinsmen farther east ; but at present all is
very conjectural, and the data are too slight to enable us
to form any satisfactory conclusions.
Introduction. xv
The following chapters have been the occupation ot
my leisure during a stay of upwards of two years in
Greece. I have not hesitated to avail myself largely of
the labours of others, in endeavouring to present, in as
popular a form as the subject would admit of, much which
they as specialists in various directions had first investi-
gated ; but I have always endeavoured by personal
experience or interrogatory to test the accuracy of their
statements, and have been able to add perhaps some
details to the general record. Among the books and
treatises to which I am most indebted, I may mention
the"Albanesische Studien" of von Hahn ; the invaluable
little book of Dr. Bernhard Schmidt, of Jena, "Das Volks-
leben der Neugriechen," and the treatises of M. Politis,
of Athens, still unfortunately uncompleted, on the same
subject ; the notes and introductions to Fauriel's
" Chansons Populairesde la GreceModerne," and the earlier
parts of M. Kamporoglou's History of the Athenians.
I owe much to the kindness of friends in Greece in
furnishing me with notes and suggestions, and much
more to the ready hospitality with which as a traveller I
have been welcomed in town and village and monastery
throughout the length and breadth of the land. The
universal kindliness of the Greeks, from richest to poorest,
to the stranger who goes amongst them, and their
proud appreciation of the obligations of the host, will
xvi Introduction.
ever be gratefully remembered by those who have
experienced it.
It is a matter of regret to me in issuing this volume
that before undertaking it I had no better equipment in
the knowledge of comparative folk-lore, no special title
to enter upon the subject, beyond the attraction which I
felt in its intrinsic interest. My object, however, has been
mainly to draw attention to an aspect of Greece which
it seemed to me had been hitherto rather neglected, by
the side of the more absorbing study of the antique, and
it will have been accomplished if I have succeeded in
showing that stones and sites and inscriptions need not
wholly monopolize the energies that are devoted to
" Hellenic Studies."
The Customs and Lore of Modern
Greece.
CHAPTER I.
ETHNOLOGY OF MODERN GREECE, AND HISTORICAL
SKETCH OF THE POPULATIONS.
It is usual to describe the population of modern Greece
as containing four principal elements ; one latent, the
Sclavonic, and three still apparent to-day, the Greek
proper,. the Albanian, and the Vlach or Wallach, which
exists in a much smaller proportion, and that only in
northern Greece. A few families of Latin origin arc
also to be found, descendants of Genoese or Venetians,
and even of the Frankish settlers, mainly confined
however, to the islands, and without ethnological
importance, as well as a small number of Jews and
gipsies. Of the origin and development of the ancient
Hellenic races it would be superfluous to speak, and it
is quite beyond the scope of the present work to discuss
all the arguments of the learned Fallmerayer, who first
advanced the theory that the old inhabitants of the
mainland had been wholly replaced by Sclavonic popu-
lations. His reasoning has since been confuted by many
competent authorities, and the most illustrious of these
B
2 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Professor Hopf, has finally pronounced that but few
traces of Sclavonic nationality can be detected in the
Hellas of later times.
\ Probably no race is ever radically exterminated in
the country where it has long been established ; and
the fact that the same language which was written and
spoken by the ancient Greeks is still, with certain modi-
fications, the language of the country to-day affords the
strongest argument in favour of the historical continuity
of a people, whose extraordinary vitality has sufficed
to Hellenize beyond recognition the remnants of the
Sclave element by which it was at one time in danger
of being overwhelmed. Had the number of the invaders
been sufficient to suppress or oust the former inhabi-
tants, a Sclavonic language, or at any rate a Greek
dialect largely tinged with Sclave, would prevail in
Greece' to-day. But later and more critical investigators
than Fallmerayer 1 have failed to discover that any con-
siderable admixture of Sclavonic forms has influenced
the language of the modern Greeks ; and it rests there-
fore with those who maintain the substitution theory to
prove that such few instances as do occur may not have
found their way into the language through the inter-
mediary , of Turkish or Albanian, into both of which
no lack of Sclavonic words have been adopted. The
change which has come over the language, the tendency
to loss of inflection, the increased dependence on the
auxiliary, with the absorption of other similar foreign
forms, is- not greater than it is easy to account for, and is
Certainly far less striking than the transition from Latin
to the Romance languages. Moreover, there still prevail,
1 Miklosich, Thiersch, &c.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 3
as in ancient Greece, certain marked varieties of dialect,
which point rather to a direct inheritance of traditions
than to the artificial reintroduction of the language
o o
from Byzantium or elsewhere. There is direct literary
evidence for the existence of this language in the Morea
as much as 600 years ago, if not earlier. Again, when
geographical nomenclature is examined, it is found that
there are in the Morea at least ten Hellenic names of places
for every one that can be identified as Sclavonic ; and
yet the re-naming of the spots in which they settle is one
of the first cares of a conquering race. Once more, it
has been observed that herdsmen and husbandmen, the
classes among whom the stationary life is perpetuated,
employ a greater number of ancient words than are to
be found in the language of the townsfolk ; and this is
the more evident in districts remotest from old centres,
in the inaccessible region of Maina, in the mountains of
Crete and Naxos, and even in the outlying villages of
Corfu, pointing to the fact that the ancient race has
lived on in all its purity away from the beaten tracks.
Tradition has claimed, for certain districts in par-
ticular, a more direct survival of the Hellenic inhabi-
tants, taking as its point of departure that population
which, before the great period of migration, had absorbed
and Hellenized its Roman and alien colonists, exhibiting
in this country a fairly homogeneous whole, which
contrasted with the more mixed races of Asia and
Byzantium. The strongest advocates of the Sclavonic
substitution have generally admitted the freedom from
contamination of Patras, Corinth, and the islands of the
^Egean Sea. The Mainotes, in their inhospitable moun-
tain promontory, claim to be direct descendants of the
1: 2
4 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Spartans of old ; and there is every probability that they
are of the race of the Perieeci of Laconia, who occupied
the maritime country, while the Spartans proper were
for the most part established on the better land in the
interior. Their language abounds in Doricisms, and is
somewhat akin to that of the Cretan Sphakiotes, who
are held to be of Dorian origin. The Tzakonians, who
occupy a portion of the western shore of the old Argolic
Gulf (Gulf of Nauplia), preserve still more strictly than
the Mainotes the characteristics of the Dorian dialect,
and their language appears to have but little taint of
Sclavonic, in spite of the opinion of Hopf, who while
otherwise opposing the Fallmerayer theory, is inclined
to maintain it in respect of this particular tribe. The
name has been held to be a corruption of Laconia, but
there is no justification for such a phonetic change,
and it appears more probable that it owes its origin
to a small Sclavonic tribe settling on the borders and
subsequently disappearing in the general -suppression
of the Sclaves, their name being ignorantly extended
over a whole region where a language prevailed which
the rest of the Greeks did not understand. 2 The
language is conspicuous for its softness and richness of
vocalization, and contains, besides a large number of
obvious Doricisms, analogies with the still older epic
language, and even betrays evidence of an ante-Hellenic
period. Professor Thiersch, the principal student of the
language of the Tzakonians, also discovers traces of the
2 See Dr. A. von Philippson. " Zur Ethnographie des Peloponnes,"in
Petermann's Mitteilungen. 1S90, II.
In corroboration of this view, Stephen Gerlachius, chaplain to the
Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople in 1573, speaks of the Tzakones
as a people not understood by the rest of the Greeks.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 5-
Ionian dialect, which agrees with the statement of
Herodotus that the Cynurians who occupied these parts
were Ionians. :; The dialect is unfortunately falling into
disuse, and Colonel Leake, early in this century, estimated
the Tzakonians as numbering only some fifteen hundred
families.
In Attica, again, where Albanians have overrun the
whole province, Athens and Megara claim to have
remained to a great extent free from contamination.
But the population of Athens, which even in the days
of Tacitus is described bv that author as containing but
little of its ancient stock, had within comparatively
recent times dwindled to the level of that of a village,
and the present inhabitants have come together from
many quarters. And this suggests another point which
should not be ignored in reviewing the national descent
of the modern Greeks; namely, the constant influx of
population from the islands, and the tendency of Greeks
abroad to return to the land of their origin.
At least, it may be asserted without fear of con-
tradiction, that the Greeks of to-day form a nation of
3 Thiersch, " Ubet die Sprachedei Tzakonen." He thus concludes his
learned monograph : — " To sum up the result of foregoing observations, it
is clear that we have here a language which differs from common Greek,
particularly in the structure of the pronouns and the substantive verb, and
in the personal inflection of verbs, too widely to admit of its being a
dialect of that language ; and that this tongue is connected with the modern
Greek, the Doric, the Epic, and the ancient Laconic dialects, but that it
also diverges from them, and has relations in certain essential forms to a
language wherein the origines of Greek, Latin, and German are found."
This primitive language, he concludes, was that spoken by the primitive
race, which, for want of a better name, we must call Pelasgian, and. a>
will be seen later on, the Albanian language, identified by Ilahn with the
Pelasgic, is found by philologists to contain strong Gothic or Germanic
tendencies.
6 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
considerable homogeneity from the Ionian Islands to
the shores of the Black Sea, speaking a common
language, exhibiting to those that know them well a
conspicuous resemblance in character to the Greeks of
antiquity, and still revealing ample evidence of that
obstinate nationality, which several times nearly
extinguished in its hereditary seat, has nevertheless
succeeded in reasserting itself, in overshadowing and
absorbing the various elements which had threatened to
overwhelm it. And not less remarkable than this
uniformity of language and character is the similarity of
custom, of lore, and of superstition, of all, in fact, that is
most ancient and most national, in portions of the
Hellenic kingdom the remotest from one another. The
customs of the mainland, which has been represented as
wholly re-peopled by Sclaves, are closely analogous to
those of the islands, which admittedly never were
subjected to Sclavonic influence, and they recur with but
slight variation all over those portions of the Turkish
empire where the Greek populations predominate. This
uniformity of thought and tradition will frequently come
to light in subsequent chapters.
In order to form a fair estimate of what part the
Sclaves may have played in the modification of the
present inhabitants of Greece, it is necessary to give a
cursory glance at the scanty materials afforded by
history ; and if such a rapid survey be continued through
subsequent centuries under the Turkish and Venetian
dominations, we shall be able to realize the full measure
of that extraordinary vitality which has succeeded in
reasserting itself, in spite of all the transformations and
vicissitudes though which this land has passed.
litlinology of Modern Greece. \ 7.
The Hellenic populations were undoubtedly in a
rapidly diminishing state when the ancient /name of
Hellene fell into abeyance before the prouder and more
influential title of Roman. During the 3rd, 4th, and,
5th centuries, Goths, Herulians, and Vandals had passed
over the land, and pestilences scarcely less destructive
had decimated the inhabitants. Then the laws of
Justinian and the progress of Christianity blended the
various classes into a uniform whole, by enabling the
Christian slave to acquire his freedom with facility ; and
we must, at the outset, resign any attempt to speculate
how far the population became adulterated by inter- 1
mixture with freedman and slave. It would appear that
at this time also the lands were in the hands of
comparatively few proprietors, whose vast possessions
fell out of cultivation from a want of sufficient interest
to keep communications open ; while it is probable that
the Greeks of those days were, as they have ever been,
far more disposed to mercantile than agricultural
pursuits. The lands which rapidly fell waste passed
into the hands of Sclavonic invaders, descending from
the North, who, perhaps, in many cases occupied them
almost without a struggle, as they had already done in
Thrace and Illyria, while the Greek population prospered
with commerce and manufacture in the towns or under
their immediate shelter. It is possible that they found
not a few of their kinsmen already working in Greece
under Romaic masters, and that the preliminary estab-
lishment of many others as serfs facilitated their final
advance as enemies.
The first historically recorded invasion of Sclaves
seems to have been made under the auspices of the
8 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
Avars, that mysterious dominant race, against whom their
Turkish vassals had arisen, expelling them from their
original home in Asia, who, after a singular career of
victory, have disappeared entirely from the map of the
world. The Avars appear to have employed vast hordes
of Sclaves as conscripts or allies ; much as did another
Tartar tribe, the Bulgarians, who, themselves numerically
small, were ultimately absorbed by the Sclavonic settle-
ments they had conquered, developed, and given their
name to. An ecclesiastical writer of the 6th century,
Evagrius, whose history is continued down to the year
593, mentions this invasion of Avars, or Sclaves and
Avars, as having taken place in 588 and 589, adding
that they plundered and laid waste the whole of Greece;
but there does not seem to be any sufficient evidence of
their having remained as settlers in the land. 4 On the
other hand, the Patriarch Nicolaos, in a letter written to
the Emperor Alexius I. in 1081, when alluding to the
famous defeat of the Sclaves and Avars before Patras
in 807, attributed to the miraculous intervention of St.
Andrew the Apostle, asserts that the Avars had at that
time held possession of the Peloponnese for 218 years,
thus making their domination date from the very year
of the invasion alluded to by Evagrius ; while he goes
on to say that, during this period, no Byzantine official
dared to set foot in the country. But this last state-
ment is manifestly false ; for the Emperor Constans II.,
who had already subdued the northern Sclavonians,
was as near to the Peloponnese as Athens, which he
visited in 662, in order to assemble troops on his way
4 Prof. Hopf denies that any Sclavonic settlers were left in the country
after this invasion.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 9
to Italy ; and it is justly observed by Finlay 6 that, not
only is this casual mention of Athens by Latin writers
fair evidence of the tranquil condition of the city and
the surrounding country at this time, but that, further,
any Sclaves there might have been in the neighbourhood
must have owned perfect allegiance to the Byzantine
Emperor, or he would assuredly have first employed his
troops in subduing them.
The letter of the Patriarch may, however, be considered
as a confirmation of the statement of Evagrius, that a
Sclave-Avar invasion took place at the close of the 6th
century ; and while it is possible that many of the
conquerors acquired a permanent domicile in lands
where circumstances favoured their settlement, it can
by no means be admitted that this establishment was
more than partial, and it was certainly not of a kind
to exterminate the Greeks, who comparatively soon
afterwards turned the tables on them. Had the
immigration of the Sclaves at this epoch been as
universal as the Patriarch describes it to have been, it
would scarcely have escaped the notice of a somewhat
earlier writer, the Imperial author, Constantine Porphy-
rogenitus, who, in his work on the provinces of the
Empire, describes the continent of Greece as having
been subdued and rendered barbarous after the great
plague, which took place in the time of Constantine
Copronymous, had depopulated large districts ; and
who, again, in another passage alludes to the Sclavonic
colonization of the Peloponncse as having taken place
in 746, a time when also a number of Greeks, both from
5 " History of Greece," vol. i., chap, v., § 3.
6 Reigned 741 to 775.
io The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
the islands and the mainland, were transferred to
Constantinople to restore the population which the
plague had attenuated. Again, in 727 we find the
Greeks in rebellion against Leo III., the Isaurian, and
Agallianos, the very officer entrusted with the command
of forces stationed to watch the Sclavonic settlers,
placed at the head of an expedition sent to assist the
Emperor in his capital. The enterprise and resources
of the Greeks, implied by their ability at this time to
fit out such an expedition, is another refutation of
the Patriarch's assertion.
After the great plague, throughout the middle and
latter half of the 8th century, a multitude of Sclaves,
hard pressed by Bulgars in the north, seem to have de-
scended upon the depopulated lands and gradually to have
possessed themselves of the plains. At the same time
the Iconoclastic Emperors set themselves the task
of repressing them throughout their dominions, and
in 783 the Empress Irene sent an army into Greece
to reduce to submission all those who had assumed
independence. It was, perhaps, these repressive measures,
and the necessity of striking a decisive blow for their
own existence, which led to the attack on Patras in 807*
in the accounts of which the Sclaves are again
confounded with the Avars. Here, in spite of the
concerted action of a Saracen fleet, they were absolutely
defeated by the townsmen, who did not wait for the
promised assistance of Byzantine troops from Corinth,
and were reduced to a state of serfdom and vassalage to
the Church of Patras, whose patron saint, St. Andrew,
was held to have fought on the side of his former
executioners. The Sclavonic populations of the
Ethnology of Modern Greece, i i
Peloponnese broke out into rebellion once more, some-
what later in the same century, during the reign of the
Emperor Thcophilus, but were soon reduced to obedience,
and the remnant were subjected to tribute and bound
by oaths of fealty, which, though often violated, were
constantly renewed ; and henceforth the)' gradually lose
importance, until, at the time of the Prankish invasion,
Sclavonic tribes are only found in the district of Mount
Taygetus, but north of the Taenarian promontory, where
the Mainotes had throughout held their own ; in the
heights of Elis bordering on the Olympian plain, and
in some of the mountains of Arcadia. The limits of
their progress in northern Greece it is still more
difficult to gauge.
As far, however, as the Peloponnese is concerned, it
would seem that the conclusions to be drawn from the
scanty evidence at hand are, that, although there had
been a gradual infiltration of Sclavcs into the rural
districts for some time previously, the great movement
of Sclavonic immigration took place in the middle
of the 8th century ; that they occupied large tracts of
country, but by no means the whole of it ; and that
the menace of their numbers induced the Greeks
themselves, with the assistance of the Byzantine
Emperors, to take energetic measures to arrest an
advance which threatened to overwhelm the native
element ; that after this revival the Greeks continued
to increase numericallv throughout the 9th century,
while the Sclave element was checked and kept under,
and finally absorbed and Hcllcnizcd, except in the
regions above referred to, which it needed several
more centuries to assimilate. Up to this point, there-
1 2 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
fore, it seems clear that the Hellenic element remained
the preponderating one, if not actually in numbers
at any rate in wealth and vitality ; while the establish-
ment of the Sclaves was never more than partial, and
probably confined to particular localities.
This view receives additional weight from the
instructive story of Danelis, the widow of Patras,
recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who speaks
with tolerable authority, inasmuch as the fortunes of
his grandfather and the foundation of the Macedonian
dynasty at Byzantium were closely bound up with
her early protection of Basil in the days of his obscurity.
It is recorded that she had inherited enormous wealth
from her husband, that her slaves numbered tens
of thousands, while her treasures in gold and silver
could scarcely be estimated, and this during the reign
of the Emperor Michael III., not fifty years after the
eventful battle of Patras. When, many years later,
the ambitious intrigues of Basil had placed him on
the Imperial throne, Danelis obtained permission to
visit him at Constantinople, and travelled thither over-
land in a litter borne by thirty relays of ten slaves,
while the gifts which she took with her are enumerated
as consisting of 500 slaves, among whom were
too eunuchs, of 100 women skilled in embroidery,
100 pieces of embroidered purple, 300 pieces of
woven linen of various kinds, and 100 pieces of silk
woven as fine as a spider's web, which could be rolled
inside the hollow of a cane. 7 It was Danelis again
7 This fine silk-weaving is one of the few arts still practised in Greece.
Gibbon points out that until the I2th century, when the victorious Normans
carried off into Italy the weavers of Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, Greece
alone of all European countries possessed the silkworm.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 13
who some years later provided the rich carpets destined
to cover the floor of a new and magnificent church
erected at Constantinople. The nature of these gifts
argues a high standard of artistic productiveness in
Greece, of luxury and of wealth, which the inroads
of barbarous Sclaves had not been able to stamp out.
The evidence of this story, which is valuable for the
almost solitary glimpse which we possess of the internal
state of Greece at this period, cannot but be true in
the main. s
From this period until the invasion of the Normans
and the Franks it would seem that Greece remained a
flourishing province, whose wealth and productiveness
were sufficient to allure those crusading buccaneers.
The language and literature of the Greeks, though
probably at this very time undergoing its most important
modifications, was predominant in the most civilized
part of the world ; the commerce of the Mediterranean
was chiefly in their hands ; the land was relatively
rich, and found ample markets for its produce ; the
silk manufacture was a source of abundant wealth ;
all of which resources were fostered and stimulated by
three centuries of comparative quiet. The fusion of
the Sclavonic settlers with the old inhabitants of the
rural districts brought new vigour into the blood ;
8 Finlay (vol.ii., bk. ii., chap, i.) describes lia.-il as a "Sclavonian groom,"
and is led to conjecture that Danelis was also of Sclavonic origin, in order
to account for her patronage of him ; but the balance of evidence goes to
prove that Basil was of Armenian origin, and there is no other re.
assuming Danelis to have been a Sclavc : indeed, in the light oi previ
and subsequent events, there is every reason to believe the contrary.
Gibbon suggests that it was a very human weakness which brought about
an intimacy which the crafty Basil took every advantage of, an explanation
in itself more probable than Finlay 's suggestion of race-sympathy.
14 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
much land that had fallen into neglect was again placed
under cultivation, and mountains were laboriously-
terraced, which the weed-growths have once more
invaded to-day. In the towns the closer attachment
of the province to the central authority had its effect ;
Byzantine manners and fashions became popular, and
the political and ecclesiastical administrations reflected
on a lesser scale the sun of the Eastern capital. There
can be but little doubt, though there is but scanty direct
evidence, that this was the time at which the nation
gradually acquired its new character, and that the
Moreots of to-day fairly represent that mixed popu-
lation of Sclave and Greek in the rural districts, and
those more cosmopolitan townsmen, whose respective
descendants still present the same sharp contrast. Only
the Mainotes and the Tzakonians remained isolated
and unchanged. This was also, as we might naturally
expect, the great era of church-building in Greece,
to which belong the greater part of those small Byzantine
edifices, which many of them in ruins, and all of them
but a poor remnant of their former magnificence in
marble and mosaic, are scattered throughout the length
and breath of the land. On the other hand, in spite
of this material progress and activity, society seems to
have remained in a stationary condition, and there
was no corresponding moral advancement. The Byzan-
tine system encouraged privileged classes, and their
own local jealousies became more important to the
Greeks than the service of the Empire which protected
them.
The successful invasion of Greece by Roger, the
Norman King of Sicily, in the middle of the 12th
Ethnology of Modern Greece. i 5
century, dealt a severe blow to the silk industry, for
the greater part of the skilled artisans of Thebes and
Corinth were transferred by him to Palermo, and there
established under the most favourable circumstances.
Thebes, it is true, continued for some time to produce
the material in considerable quantities ; but competition
in the world's markets now set in, not only from Sicily,
but also from Persia ; and in the next century pro-
tective laws had to be introduced to keep a dying
industry alive. Beyond this removal, however, of the
inhabitants of the most flourishing manufacturing
centres, this passage of the Normans did not greatly
affect the population, nor can the domination of the
Franks or Latins, though it lasted between two and
three hundred years, and still longer in the islands, be
considered to have done so. The Franks were from the
outset very few in number ; and the feudal barons,
established throughout the Morea, must have recruited
their little bands of armed retainers largely on the spot.
The Greece of that time, with its local jealousies, the
selfishness of its privileged classes, and its want of
internal organization, was easily kept under control by
the scattered outposts of daring soldiers of fortune,
which the feudal system of the Franks had organized.
During the period of nearly four centuries, through
which the Italians, Venetians or Genoese, ruled in the
islands of the Archipelago, and the 250 years through
which the Prankish princes and their successors
were masters of a great part of the continent, the
native population here declined in numbers and in
national importance, while Western Europe was steadily
advancing. Among the islands a long series of bloody
1 6 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
fights between Greeks and Venetians followed on the
expulsion of the Latins from Constantinople, and the
unfortunate inhabitants, in addition to being plundered
of all they possessed, were not unfrequently seized and
impressed as rowers in the galleys. The opposing fleets
degenerated into mere corsair bands, and the whole sea
was filled with marauding craft, who carried out the
work of devastation and depopulation, while the Spanish
adventurers of Roger de Luria sailed hither for a share
in the spoil. The Ottoman invasion followed, and these
seas remained a constant battle-field. Knights of Malta,
knights of St. Stephen, flotillas from Spain carried on
the trade of piracy under cover of a holy war. The
commerce of Venice in these waters, and the defenceless-
ness of the Greek coasts, tempted the Barbary corsair
from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli ; the pirate craft of
Italy and Dalmatia ; while the Turkish admirals carried
off the populations of the islands as slaves, and the
system which produced the Klephts on the Continent led
many of the Greeks themselves to take to piracy at
sea. The islands still bear evidence of the struggle for
life through which they passed in these days, with their
fortress-like villages perched on the steepest rocks for
defence, and many of them were for a while totally
abandoned when their trees had been burned down, and
their olive groves destroyed.
During the two centuries which followed the Ottoman
conquest of Constantinople, the Greek nation sank to its
lowest ebb in civilization and numbers. The tribute of
Christian children was inexorably levied in every village,
and a fifth of the male population between the ages of
six and nine was regularly carried off to receive a new
K
*W
TrsV^
Greek Soldiers.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. i ~
religion and nationality. Those who adopted the creed
of their conquerers, . in order to escape from these
indignities, as did a large portion of the inhabitants of
Eubcea, and subsequently of Crete, lost their national
character, and, becoming Mussulman, practically ceased
to be Greek ; indeed, from the time of the Ottoman con-
quest the question of nationality is largely merged in
the opposition of creeds. Sultan Mohammed II. appears
to have foreseen a safeguard against future insurrection
in draining the resources of the country, and literally
exhausting its population ; and he re-peopled the
vanquished Constantinople by transferring to that city
the wealthiest inhabitants of the lands he subsequently
reduced. Slavery awaited the Venetian subjects of
Modon and Nauplia when they fell into his hands in
1463, and a similar fate befell a number of the natives of
Eubcea in 1470. The Ionian Islands were called upon to
yield their quota to the re-population of Constantinople,
and a number of slaves were drawn from Rhodes in
1480. In the last year of the 15th century, and the
opening years of the 16th, when the Morea was again
the battle-field of Turk and Venetian, the occupants of
the plain of Argos and of portions of Attica were
practically exterminated, and .Albanian colonists began
to re-occupy the ruined lands. In the following century
the Ottoman admiral, Barbarossa, carried off the female
inhabitants of /Egina into slaver)', and massacred the
males, leaving the island entirely depopulated until it
was re-colonized by Albanians. He reduced the majority
of the /Egean Islands to subjection, expelled the Italian
nobles, and is said to have carried off 30,000 Greeks into
slavery. Meanwhile, piracy rendered the coasts
1 8 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
uninhabitable ; the olive groves were cut down, and the
material of agriculture destroyed. As representative
of the Greek nation in Greece, therefore, there only-
remained the landowners of the rural districts in the
interior, and the peasant cultivators living isolated in
their separate valleys. Much land fell out of cultivation,
consumption was diminished, and the difficulties and
insecurity of transport increased. The landowners could
no longer avail themselves of the labour of slaves, and
were driven to till the land with their own hands ; while
the profits of pasturage and forest produce were
transferred to Turkish feudatories, and all inducement
towards a bettering of their condition was removed.
Meanwhile, the deserted lands were gradually occupied
by Christian Albanians, moving south before the wave
of Turkish advance. Their earliest immigrations are
lost in the silence of time, but the first recorded
mention of their appearance in Peloponnese occurs
in the middle of the 14th century, when Manuel
Kantacuzen 9 brought Albanian mercenaries to Mistra,
and later established colonies in the peninsula. Again,
at the close of the 14th century, in the reign of
John Palaeologus, some 10,000 of them crossed the
Isthmus, and in the latter days of the despots of the
Morea they are found serving as mercenaries in their
armies. The immigration continued through the
15th century, after the final reduction of Albania
by the Turks. They occupied the greater part of
Bceotia, Attica, and Megaris, portions of the Corinthian
territory, of Argolis and Achaia, as well as small districts
9 Second son of the Emperor John Kantacuzen, appointed Lord of
Mistra by his father in 1348.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 19
in Phocis, Elis, and Arcadia, forcing the remnant of the
Greeks into the towns, where they became tradesmen or
artisans. They entirely re-peopled the islands of Hydra,
Poros, the Spezzas, Psara, Salamis, and /Egina, and
spread over the southern end of Eubcea and the
northern section of Andros. In many of their colonics
they rapidly assimilated the manners and customs and
learned the language of their Greek co-religionists ; and
adopting the Hellenic ideal, they fought in the van, and
bore, indeed, the brunt of the fighting, in the war of
regeneration. The process of Hellenization is still going
on, and the Albanian language is doomed in Greece ;
at present it is kept alive by the women, who, speaking
no other, teach it to their children, and will continue to
do so until the system of primary education for women
is more widely extended in the Hellenic kingdom. 1
There still remains a period during which the population
of Greece was once more seriously affected by the
ravages of war and pestilence, the period of the
Venetian conquest of the Morea at the close of the
17th century. It is calculated that before the com-
mencement of hostilities, the Christian population of
1 The proportion of the Albanian-speaking population in the Hellenic
kingdom at the census of 1879 was as follows : —
Peloponnesus ... 90,000
Central Greece ... S4,ooo
Euboea 10.000
Andros 10,000
Total ■•• 224,000
that is to say, upwards of 11 percent, of the whole population ; and it must
not be forgotten that, besides these Albanian-speaking people, there are
great numbers who have lost their language and speak only (.nek, but
whose Albanian origin is historically certain.
C 2
20 The Customs and Lore of Modern Gi-ecce.
the peninsula, including Greeks and Albanians,
amounted to 250,000, while the Mussulmans represented
50,000 more ; whereas, after the Venetians had established
themselves, their first census returned considerably less
than 100,000, a figure which is, however, probably
too low, as, early in the iSth century, under the
increased security of Venetian rule, these figures are
more than doubled. The Venetians, moreover, induced
many thousands of families from Northern Greece to
migrate to the Peloponnese, and assist in restoring the
ravages of the plague. The subsequent re-establish-
ment of the Ottoman rule was accomplished with
remarkable facility and without similar sufferings on
the part of the native populations. The final revolution
served to blend the Greek and Albanian elements more
closely together, and brought about the withdrawal of
the Mussulman minority; and the national regeneration
stimulated the increase of population and the return to
the parent country of many thousands of Greeks from
other parts of the Ottoman dominions.
Such is a hasty and too rapid survey of the vicissitudes
through which the Greek populations of this land have
passed. The salient feature is the rapid recovery from
what seemed almost extermination of that vigorous
nationality which reasserts itself after every blow,
absorbing, and assimilating, and stamping with its own
unmistakable impress all the heterogeneous elements
that may have accrued to it. The inevitable conclusion
which we must draw is that, in all its repeated disasters,
a far larger remnant of the original stock must have
survived and preserved its vital characteristics than one
would be led to suppose by dwelling on the details of
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 21
conquest and re-conquest, of periodical devastations and
re-populations ; and those who are familiar with the
present inhabitants, and with the life and story of
antiquity, will hardly fail to subscribe to the opinion of
Mr. Finlay, the historian of mediaeval and modern
Greece, who, after tracing all its vicissitudes, has, like
Professor Hopf, definitely decided in favour of this view,
and emphatically states, " No historical facts seem more
evident than that the modern Greeks are a modification
of the ancient Achaian, Dorian, Ionian, /Eolian, and
Hellenic population." 2
The Albanians, formerly better known under the
name of Arnauts, whose colonies have contributed
nearly a fifth part to the population of modern Greece,
are a distinct race among the families of Europe. Their
language, though resembling in its system of inflections
the Greek and Latin languages, stands by itself, and is an
independent offshoot of equal or greater antiquity from
the primitive Aryan language. 3 Their native mountains
are poor and unproductive, and they travel far in search
2 Finlay, Hist., vol. iii., book iii. , chap, iii., &c.
:! The philologist, Franz Bopp, working on the details supplied by von
Ilahn, has shown it to be an offshoot from the primitive Aryan language,
from which Sanskrit also was derived. Ilahn and others have dwelt on
certain points which it has in common with the Germanic or North European
languages. Cp. Thiersch's observations on the Tzakonian language, in Note
on p. 5, Leake considered the Gothic element in Albanian might, perhaps,
be accounted for by the passage of Alaric and Gothic settlements. It also
contains many Greek words, some of which are from the Romaic, and
others apparently absorbed before the deterioration of the language ;
a larger proportion of Latin words, but not as many as might be expected
in view of the constant communication with Italy, and the presence of the
Franks about these coasts over a number of years; and a number of
Sclavonic words ; but in view of the conquest and occupation of Albania
by Sclaves, and of their presence still on its northern and eastern frontier,
the proportion is comparatively small.
22 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
of work, while some of them constitute a permanently-
nomad population. Nevertheless, they are passionately
devoted to their country, and have displayed the most
devoted courage in its defence throughout their history.
Circumstance and inclination have made them a race of
soldiers, and the energies which they devoted to the
defence of their country have also been displayed in
continual petty warfare among themselves or in
mercenary service abroad. They are keen and enter-
prising in action, if relentless in vengeance, and they
exhibit the most devoted fidelity to those to whom their
faith is pledged.
" Their wrath how deadly, but their friendship sure."
Their children are early trained to the use of arms,
and even the women are skilful with the gun ; while they
excel in activity, endurance, keenness of sight, and all
the qualities of the warrior-mountaineer. Agriculture,
on the other hand, is less popular among them, and the
more fertile districts of Albania are largely cultivated
by Vlachs and Bulgarians ; while the native population,
for the most part, follow the vocation of herdsman or
shepherd, bearing out the observation of Gibbon that,
" The pastoral manners which have been adorned with
the fairest attributes of peace and innocence are much
better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a
military life."
The physical type is not an unpleasing one ; the eyes
are light and often blue, the nose is straight and high,
the cheekbone inclined to be prominent, and the face
generally open, with a fair and healthy complexion.
But the type varies considerably, and different travellers
have gathered the most contradictory impressions.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 2 3
Their costume is notoriously picturesque. The Southern
Albanians, for the most part, wear the white kilt or
fustanella, embroidered jacket and gaiters, and shoes
with upturned pointed toes, a dress which was adopted
throughout Greece at the time of the revolution as the
national costume, and which replaced the loose blue or
brown knickerbockers still retained by the islanders. A
picturesque but fanciful legend records that this dress
derives its origin from the tunic skirt of the Roman
soldier, a colony of Praetorian guards having been
established here in the time of Septimus Sevcrus. In
northern Albania there are many dresses varying with
the locality; close-fitting crimson trousers, or trousers
of coarse white wool, tight from the knee down, and
loose above, with broad black seams, replace the
fustanella, and often a little white skull-cap is worn in
place of the fez. Heavy white woollen hooded cloaks,
or cloaks of thick goat's hair, impenetrable to rain, are
the covering by day and the bed by night of the
mountain shepherd. The sleeves and fronts of the
women's jackets arc covered with beautiful embroider}-,
as well as their long sleeveless coats, reaching to the
knee, while head-dresses of coins testify the amount of
the young women's dowries.
A great part of Albania is inhabited exclusivcly
by Mussulmans ; in other districts again, especially
in the south, Christians only arc found. A mixture of
religions is rarer, but, generally speaking, the predominant
and aristocratic elements have embraced the Mohammedan
creed, which has, however, now ceased to make progress.
The Miriditcs in the north, one of the most warlike
tribes, who claim to be descended from the followers
24 Tks Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
of Skanderbeg, have maintained the Catholic religion,
which they had adopted before the Turkish invasion,
and have rigorously expelled from their midst all who
went over to the Mussulman faith.
The country now included under the general name
of Albania is co-extensive with ancient Epirus and
a part of Illyria. The name Albania, adopted by the
Italians— who were in the middle ages to the popu-
lations of the eastern Adriatic much what the Greeks
were to the Sclaves with whom they came into contact,
the superior race in arts and civilization — and through
them by the rest of Europe, is apparently derived
from an insignificant tribe mentioned by the geographer
Ptolemy, as occupying a town called Albanopolis-
This town, under the form of Albanon, reappears as
the centre of a prefecture in the 13th century, under
despots of Epirus, the Albani having in the meantime
acquired sufficient importance for other nations to
apply the name to the whole surrounding country.
The present inhabitants, however, speak of their country
as Skyperi, and of themselves as Skypetars, a name
which appears to mean " dwellers in the crags," being
also applied by them to the mountain eagle.
Herr von Hahn, the eminent student of the Albanian
people and their language, distinguishes two main
stocks among them ; the Gueg or Ngeg, occupying
central and northern Albania, and the Tosk in the
south. Their language reveals two dialects of the
same tongue, differing from one another in somewhat
the same measure as High from Low German. There
is complete separation and considerable rivalry between
the two branches. These two broad divisions are,
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 25
however, not acknowledged by the Albanians themselves,
though the Guegs describe all the southern tribes
as Tosks. Colonel Leake divides the southern Albanians
into three principal groups : the Tosks proper, whose
chief settlement is Berat and whose port is Avlona ;
the Liape, Liapids 4 or Iapids, whose name recalls
Iapygia, the country about Mount Gargano on the other
side of the Adriatic, and who occupy the district south
of Toskeria as far as Delvino ; and thirdly, the Tzame,
Tchamides, Shumiks or Tzamourians, as the Greeks call
them, the most famous tribe in recent history, who
extend inland as far as Jannina and southward to the
Gulf of Arta, and among whose chief settlements
were Suli, Paramithia, and Parga. This fourfold
division of the Skypetars into Guegs, Tosks, Liapids,
and Tchamides has been generally adopted by more
recent writers. In southern Albania there is a larce
Greek element, much Greek is spoken, and in the region
immediately north of the Gulf of Arta, Greeks are prob-
ably considerably more numerous than Albanians. In
central Albania there are few or none, but a mixed popu-
lation of Vlachs and Bulgars occupy the shores of
Lake Ochris, and to the extreme north a number of
Serbs are settled within the limits of Albania proper,
The colonists in Greece belong to the southern group,
and only a very small proportion of them ever professed
the Mussulman creed.
It would be beyond the scope of the subject in hand
to describe at length the internal economy of this curious
4 The name of Liapid, which has come to be a term of reproach among
their neighbours since the days when they served under the Hag of Ali
Pacha, is repudiated by this tribe, who prefer to call themselves Arvans.
26 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
and interesting people, 5 since those that have found a
home in Greece have for the most part adopted the
Greek mode of life, and abandoned the patriarchal
institutions of their native land. A glance, however, at
the theories which have been suggested as to their origin
may assist us to realize why it has been so easy for them
to be assimilated by the Greeks, and how it has come
about, as will from time to time be pointed out in the
following pages, that so many of their customs and
superstitions are identical with those of their adopted
country.
Ponqueville, the author of travels in Greece and
Albania, who resided many years at Jannina as French
Consul-general, is inclined to trace their origin to
Caucasia, where he asserts there might be found in
Mingrelia a tribe calling themselves Toxides ; while he
quotes Pliny as an authority for Colchinium, the modern
Dulcigno, being a colony from Colchis. He would
identify Skypetar with Scythian, and quotes a sentence
from Macrius Patavinus to the effect that Albania took
its name from the Albans, an Asiatic people, who were
driven from their homes by the Tartars. 6 But he does
not go very deeply into the matter, nor is his reasoning
much more scientific than that of the learned Paduan
himself.
The principal authority on the language and ethnology
of this people is von Hahn, 7 for many years Consul-
5 Some account of the Suliotes and their institutions will be found in
chap. x.
6 " Albania dicitur ab Albanis, populis asiaticis, qui a Tartaris expul>i-
istic consederunt."
7 v. Hahn, " Albanesische Studien."'
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 27
general for Germany at various Eastern posts, who,
during his long residence in Albania, brought the
German critical method to bear on the large store of
evidence he was able to collect ; and in so doing
develops a curious and interesting theory, which, though
he may have pushed it rather far in application, is still
generally admitted to be, to a considerable extent at
any rate, warranted by the arguments he adduces.
The first question that arises is whether or no the
Albanians may be considered as autochthonous, the
word being, of course, used in a conventional sense, that
is to say, are they, as far as we know, or have material
for conjecture, the earliest inhabitants of the country ?
Albania comes to light but seldom in ancient history,
in fact, mention is made of it but twice from the days of
Ptolemy, who speaks of the Albani, to the period of the
Norman invasion. At the latter epoch a great part, if
not the whole, of Albania is included in the confines of
Bulgaria, and such geographical names within its limits
as are mentioned by mediaeval historians have a
Sclavonic form. Nevertheless, when the country
reappears in history, it is represented as being inhabited
by a people who do not speak Sclavonic, who are known
as Albanians, and who throughout several centuries
send out colonies in various directions. At the present
time, with the exception of a certain number of Sclavonic
words adopted into the language, the Sclavc clement,
for the predominance of which at one period there is
ample evidence, has disappeared even more completely
than in Greece. If, then, Sclaves occupied Albania after
the great Sclavonic invasion, and whether by subsequent
expulsion or absorption eventually disappeared among
28 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
a people of different race who now occupy the land, two
alternatives arise : either the Albanians are the first
inhabitants of the country, and the Sclavonic domination
is a mere episode in their history ; or, like the Sclaves
themselves, they must have entered these regions
subsequently, and therefore within historic times. But
there is no evidence of any great immigration in this
direction, except the Sclavonic one ; therefore, since the
Albanians are not Sclaves, and present no close relation-
ship with any known people, they must be assumed to
be the descendants of the pre-Sclavonic inhabitants of
the country.
He then endeavours to establish that the Albanians
are the representatives of the ancient Illyrians and
Epirots. He finds the same sharp distinction existing
modern times between the Guegs and the Tosks,
divided by the river Schkumb, which Strabo noted as
existing between Illyria and Epirot in classic times,
the former looking to Monastir, the latter looking south,
and either mutually turning the back on the other. The
divergence between the two Albanian dialects he con-
siders to have been prehistoric, and he assumes that
their inter-relations have undergone no change, and that
though the Epirots were originally of a common stock
with the Illyrians, they had lost all feeling of kinship,
and stood to one another much in the same relation as
the Danes or the Dutch stand to the Germans to-
day.
Illyrians, Epirots, and Macedonians he looks upon as
offshoots of a common race, branches of which were
also to be found in Italy and in Thrace, and considers
this race to have been identical with that known to the
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 29
ancients as Pelasgian. The name Pelasgian has been
much abused, and it must not be looked upon as
indicating a particular nationality, but merely as an
expression, sanctioned by antiquity, to denote the
people inhabiting Greece and a part of the Balkan
peninsula before the Ionian and Dorian immigrations.
The question of interest is whether this primitive people
were of a kindred and Aryan stock less advanced in
arts and civilization, or whether they belonged to a
different family altogether. Strabo, Plutarch, Apollo-
dorus, and Stephanus of Byzantium may be quoted in
illustration of this Pelasgic origin of Epirots and
Macedonians, and the speech of the Argive king in
the suppliants of yEschylus, the great dramatist of
popular myth, includes the area of Macedonia,
which the Greeks evidently did not regard as Hellenic,
among the lands under the overlordship of the
eponymous king, Pelasgos ; while, according to Aristotle,
the Bottiseans derived their origin from Athens, an
early Pelasgian centre. The language of this primitive
people was apparently extinct in Greece proper at the
time of Herodotus, he was therefore not in a position
to record whether the first inhabitants of the country,
whom he describes as Pelasgians, were a people
speaking a tongue in any way resembling that of the
Epirots. 8
He discovers among the customs of the Albanians
8 His observations on the language are not very clear. But in those
unphilological clays it is not strange that he should have called a language
belonging to the same family as Greek " a Barbarian tongue." as he > iocs
the language spoken ai Kreston and on the Hellespont, which he describes
as Pelasgian. Any language which an ordinary Greek could not understand
he called Barbarian.
30 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
analogies so remarkable to those of the Greeks and
Romans as to preclude the idea of their being
accidental, and the conclusion he draws is that these
point to a common origin for all. The analogies are
too close and too detailed to be traced back to a
prehistoric unity before the great " Volkerwanderung."
Then turning to the evidence of etymology, he traces
the analogy between the roots existing in the present
Albanian language and the nomenclature and attributes
of the oldest Greek theology, which Herodotus avers
the Hellenes owed to the people he calls Pelasgians ;
and he further shows how the names of tribes and
of places of the remotest antiquity still survive in the
spoken tongue. Again, the relations of this primitive
people to the ancient Hellenes find a close and interest-
ing parallel in the actual relations of the Albanians
with the Greeks of to-day in the same geographical area.
In modern times the Albanian element has merged
into the Greek, very much as in ancient days the prior
occupants were absorbed and dominated by it. In old
Arcadia there appears to have been little or no infiltration
of Hellenes among the original inhabitants ; nevertheless,
these, surrounded by Hellenes, gradually adopted the
manners and language, and, in fact, the nationality,
of the latter. Similarly, the Albanian immigrants into
the Morea and the islands for a time lived side by
side with the Greeks, a distinct people, speaking a
different tongue ; the Greek revolution broke the ice,
and the Hellenizing of the Albanians set in with such
vigour that it is probable that in a few generations
the Skyp language will have died out within the
confines of Greece proper ; for the Albanian does not
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 3 1
acquire a mixed dialect compounded of the two
languages, he speaks both, and eventually deliberately
abandons his own.
To sum up his theory, then, it is that the Balkan
and Italian peninsulas were, in prehistoric ages,
inhabited by kindred Aryan races; 1 ' that the Hellenes —
a later wave of immigration belonging to the same
stock — arrived in a Greece peopled by this race, whom
they called Felasgians, and gradually imposed on them
their language, which was already a finished and
perfected organ of speech ; but that the more northern
tribes of this family retained their original idiom till
the Bulgars overran Macedonia, and the Serbs, Illyria ;
that Albania was also traversed by Goths, Serbs, and
Bulgars, but that the original inhabitants prevailed
in the long-run against the new-comers, retained their
language until this day, and have survived, tolerably
free from alien immixture, the representatives, through
Illyrians and Epirots, of the primitive Aryan occupants
of the land. 1
Later writers have adopted the conclusions of Ilahn
so far as to identify the Albanians with the Illyrians, and
this view is now practically unquestioned ; 2 it is borne
out by a number of customs noted by Strabo, and other
9 This race, he believes, also spread over the Asiatic sideofthe Archipelago,
where the Argive and Macedonian (Pelasgic) name of Larissa occurs three
times, while the Asiatic Ilion reappears twice in Epirus.
1 Herodotus describes the Ionians as having been themselves Pelasgi
gradually differentiated hum other Pelasgian tribes, whereas the Dorians
were always Hellenes ; which might be interpreted, since the Dorians and
Ionians were obviously nearly related, to indicate three successive H
immigration by kindred peoples, all tracable to a common stock.
3 The Byzantine historian, Pachymer, speaks of the Albanians
indifferently as Albanians or Illyrians, while Nichephorus < hregoras always
calls them Illyrians.
32 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
writers of antiquity, as peculiar to the Illyrians, which
the Albanians still keep up, such as the tattooing of the
body, and the cutting the hair away from the forehead,
while they constantly display the turbulent spirit, the
love of fighting, the intractability of that sturdy race
which gave the Romans so much trouble. On the other
hand, in view of the fact that the ancients drew a marked
line of distinction between Epirots and Illyrians, whom
they regarded as separate nations, whereas the
Albanians are manifestly one people, with varying
dialects of one language, it is now generally assumed that
the Illyrians were driven southwards by the pressure of
Sclavonic conquest, that they swallowed up the Epirots,
extinguished their language, and occupied districts to
which they had originally no claim ; a view which
receives confirmation from the fact that the Liapids or
Iapids, now a tribe of the southern Albanians, must be
assumed to bear the name of the ancient Iapodes, who
were originally settled much farther north, near Istria
and the Julian Alps, and whose district became the
Iapydia of Illyris Romana. Again, the theory has
recently been advanced that the Pelasgians, or whatever
we are to call the prehistoric occupants of these
countries, were an archaian race, a white people non-
Aryan and non- Semitic, perhaps connected with the
founders of the Chaldaean and Egyptian civilizations,
and that the Illyrians were a mixed race of this archaian
people with Aryan Thracians. The Albanians, there-
fore, their present representatives, are described as an
archaian Aryan people. 3 The Ionans and Dorians
3 Mr. Stuart Glennie, Introduction to Miss Garnett's "Women of
Turkey," 1890.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 33
were undoubtedly of Thracian origin, so that this theory
would equally well account for the easy fusion of the
Hellenic race with the former occupants. At the same
time, if it be true that the Tzakonian language shows
traces of an old parent tongue, containing the origins of
Greek, Latin, and German, immeasurably older than
any history we possess, 4 and if Albanian also be
correctly described by philologists as an offshoot from
the primitive Aryan language, from which Sanskrit was
derived, while it is also found to contain forms analogous
to the northern European languages, as well as the roots
of many names identifiable as Pclasgian appellations,
it will require considerable proof to establish the fact
that the people described by Herodotus as Pelasgians,
in the- midst of whom the Ionians arose, were not
essentially an Aryan race.
The ancient civilization of Epirus, which had
enjoyed all the benefits of the Roman provincial adminis-
tration, with its system of high roads and aqueducts,
its flourishing cities and development of local interests,
was first annihilated by the Goths at the close of the
4th century, when Alaric was driven back thither by
Stilicho, after his attempt to establish himself in the
Peloponnese, and the campaign in which the temple of
Eleusis was plundered and overthrown. In the ensuing
compromise he became Master-general of Eastern
Illyricum, and the countries which he had ravaged never
recovered the prosperous condition in which he had
found them. Throughout the 7th, 8th, and 9th cen-
turies Sclavonians, chiefly under the name of Bulgarians,
overran these provinces of the Empire, descending into
4 See note on p. 5.
D
34 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Greece and the Morea. In the 7th century northern
Albania became a Servian province, and did not succeed
in tearing itself away from that allegiance until the
14th. It would appear that during the 10th century
all the more accessible parts of Epirus were occupied by
Sclaves, while the original inhabitants were driven into
the mountain strongholds, and Achris, the ancient
Lechidnus, was the residence of a Bulgarian king. 5
Early in the nth century the Emperor Basil II.
destroyed the First Bulgarian Kingdom, and the Eastern
Empire appears by that time to have generally repressed
the Sclavonian colonists of her European dependencies ;
And soon after this, for the first time since the days of
Ptolemy, the name of Albanians (Arvanitai) reappears
in history. 6
After the Franko- Venetian conquest of Constantinople
in 1204, and the disruption of the Byzantine Empire,
Epirus, Akarnania, and yEtolia formed a separate state,
known as the Despotate of Epirus, founded by a
bastard of the Comneni, who did homage for this
portion of the Empire to the Republic of Venice.
The Despotate continued in a precarious existence, with
varying fortunes and boundaries, until these countries
fell under the Ottoman yoke. During this time the
tribal name of Albanian was gradually extended to
all the inhabitants of southern Illyria and Epirus ;
while the native populations, long banished to the
5 By this time the distinction between Bulgarian and Sclave had
practically disappeared, though the two languages seemed to have been
distinct up to the 8th century. In the Second Bulgarian Kingdom (1116)
the Bulgarian language was extinct.
6 Anna Comnena speaks of Arvanoi (book iv. 8), Arvanilia 'book vi. 7),
and of Amotion (book xiii. 5).
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 35
mountains, expanded once more, and so grew in
numbers and importance, that among the honorary
titles granted by the despot Nichephorus to his son-in-
law, Philip, Duke of Taranto, we find that of Lord of
Albania. During the 14th century the Albanians con-
tinued at one time submissive and at another in rebellion
against the Palaeologi and the restored Byzantine
system, issuing from the mountains, which they had
always retained, to make successful raids on Jannina,
Arta, or Durazzo, and penetrating into Thessaly,
Akarnania, and Macedonia. The historian Chalcondylas
records that, in 1400, Charles Tocco, created despot
by Manuel Palaeologus, took Epirus and Akarnania
from the Albanians, which indicates that they must
for some time have overshadowed, and finally usurped,
a considerable portion of the Despotate, which was
probably always to a great extent a nominal sovereignty.
It was at the close of the 14th century that they
first came into conflict with the Turks, into whose
hands some of their towns at this time fell, while others
were secured by the Venetians. Then followed the
long and heroic struggle made against the Turkish
invaders by the Albanians, now awakened to a sense
of nationality and mutual reliance, under Arianitis and
his famous son-in-law, Kastrioti, better known as
Skanderbeg. The capitulation of Skodra in 1478
concluded this eventful war, and the defenders of the
last stronghold that had held out against Mahomet II.
were allowed to take refuge in Venetian territory, after
one of the most memorable sieges in history.
About this time considerable numbers of Albanians,
flying from the victorious Turks, passed over into
D 2
36 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Apulia, and founded colonies in Italy and Sicily, where
Ferdinand I. of Naples granted several fiefs to the
settlers in return for assistance formerly received from
Kastrioti. Their presence in the Morea as mercenaries
of the later Frankish princes has already been alluded
to, and large bodies of them left their own barren
mountains at various times to take service abroad
in the army of any prince willing to employ them.
Henry IV. of France engaged Albanian mercenaries ;
they were found in the bodyguards of Barbary
sultans and Eastern magnates, and to this day
they are used as kavasses by the foreign residents in
Ottoman dominions. They all live in hopes of some
day returning to their own country ; and if death over-
takes them abroad, their bones are frequently brought
back by the care of a friend to repose in their native
mountains.
The history of the Albanians presents many analogies
to that of the Greeks ; in either case we see a vigorous
nationality surviving a long series of disasters
and defeats, gradually recovering and finally ousting
the alien element. When, however, the two nation-
alities come into contact, the Greek, which had,
perhaps, in the dim past absorbed a kindred race, asserts
itself as the dominant once more.
The Albanians who embraced the Mohammedan
creed became as fanatical as the proverbial convert
in their hostility to the old religion, without, at the
same time, becoming good Mussulmans ; and it was
probably as much due to the ensuing dissensions among
themselves as to the oppression of their masters, that
such large bodies of Christians moved south to occupy
Ethnology of Modern Greece. i~;
the waste lands of Greece. The settlers in the Morea
are the most ancient, for there the Albanian tongue is
dying fast. The Hellenic revolution stimulated the
work of fusion ; the men of Suli, who spoke the Greek
language, are celebrated in popular song as national
heroes ; the islanders of Hydra and Spezza, who bore
off the honours of war, would to-day resent any other
name than Hellenes; 7 and the more prominent island
families, who have migrated to Athens and identified
themselves with the government of the young country,
have long ceased to teach their children to speak the
old Skyp tongue.
It remains to say a few words about the Vlachs or
Wallachs, who contribute a small proportion to the
population, but exclusively in central and northern
Greece. Permanent settlements of this people in
Greece proper are only to be found in the ranges of
Pindus and Olympus ; but they wander with their
flocks from pasture to pasture, and their reputation for
the management and breeding of sheep and goats is so
great that they are frequently hired for this purpose by
Greek proprietors. In fact, the word Vlach (BXdxos)
has come to be synonymous with shepherd in modern
Greek, and so is even applied to the Greek or Albanian
herdsmen in the Morea.
The name Vlach or Wallach would appear to be the
same as that employed by the Germanic races to signify
" foreign," which, passing from the Germans to the
Sclaves, was used by them to describe people of a
different race settled in their neighbourhood. The
7 At the same time, it must be remembered that the name Hellene is a
comparatively modem revival. See p. 1/2.
38 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Welsch of the Germans, applied to the Romans or
Italians was similarly used by the Saxons in England
for the Celts of Wales, reappearing as Walloon in
Belgium, and Wloch in Poland. Similarly, the
Hungarians called the Italians Olach, and the in-
habitants of Wallachia Oidach ; these terms, as will
be illustrated by what follows, having about the same
differentiation as Roman and Rouman. The name is
not recognized by the people themselves, nor did it
exist among the Roumanians until the creation of the
Wallachian principality, the inhabitants of that region
being known amongst themselves as the folk of the
mountains, in contradistinction to the folk of the plains
in Moldavia, while their common name for themselves,
as well as for their kinsmen in Greece and Macedonia,
is Roumouni. The Turks and Albanians call the
Vlachs of Greece Tzubdn, a word signifying shepherd.
The Greeks distinguish the inhabitants of Wallachia
proper by the name of Black Vlachs (Mavp6{3\a)(oi)
from those of Thessaly and Macedonia, whom they call
Lame Vlachs (Kovr^o/SXa^oc), the latter name being
probably derived from an apparent lameness of speech,
which is also implied in another appellation Tsintsar,
bestowed on them owing to their inability to pronounce
ck, which they render by ts? The proper Greek name,
however, for these and similar tribes between northern
Greece and the Danube is Moeso-Dacians (MoiatoSafces),
a name which contributes important evidence to the
investigation of their historical origin.
8 The word " koutso " will, however, bear the meaning of "cut off,"
"divided," and may therefore be interpreted as having its origin in their
separation from the larger population of Wallachia proper, and I have
heard this explanation given in Greece.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 39
Already in the time of Anna Comnena 9 they were
distinguished as a nomad shepherd race, and Pachymer '
alludes to their skill in the chase, and the martial
habits which their mode of life had developed. They
appear in the 12th century to have occupied the same
regions north and south of the Danube, which as Wallachs
in Roumania, and as Vlachs in Macedonia, Thessaly, or
Epirus, they still occupy ; but the Turkish invasion drove
the southern group from the plains to the mountains, and
the two divisions, which seem for a long time to have
maintained a connecting link through possessions in
Mount Rhodope, are now geographically completcly
separated. The southern group must at one time have
been far more numerous in these parts than at the
present day, for historians of the later Empire speak of
Great Vlachia' 2 as including all the mountainous parts
of Thessaly ; while the Jewish traveller, Benjamin
of Tudela, mentions that he entered their country three
days' journey north of Thebes, which would imply that
it extended to the southern boundaries of Thessaly.
They were, however, apparently a distinct tribe from the
White Wallachians of the Balkans, who occupied a great
part of the present Bulgaria, and who, revolting from
the Empire in the reign of Isaac II., founded the
Wallachian or Second Bulgarian Kingdom. Byzantine
historians also distinguish between Black Wallachians
9 Anna Comnena, " Alexias," book viii., chap. 3.
1 Pachymer, " History of Andronicus," book i., chap. 37. They were at
this time apparently numerous in the vicinity of Constantinople, and fears
were entertained of their making common cause with the Scythians.
2 For this name Colonel Leake suggests the analogy of "Ma^na Graecia"
as applied to southern Italy; but Mr. Tozer shows, with more correctness,
that it was opposed to Lesser Vlachia in /Etolia and Akarnania.
4-0 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
occupying the present Moldavia, and Hungaro-
Wallachians, who inhabited the Wallachia of to-day, as
well as between Great Vlachia and Lesser Vlachia, which
seems to have included a part, at any rate, of yEtolia
and Akarnania.
In the latter province of modern Greece is still found
a very individual and characteristic shepherd population
belonging to this family. They are known as Karag-
ounzdes, or Black Cloaks ; 3 they speak the Latinic
form of the Wallach language, and present quite a
different type to the Koutsovlach and Vlachs of Pindus.
The latter division own pleasant villages grouped in the
lower ranges, and enjoy considerable material prosperity
secured by their unceasing industry. At the time of the
Turkish invasion they took up positions in the mountains,
which enabled them to obtain favourable terms and
guarantee themselves against fiscal extortion ; at the same
time, the soil about their settlements is so unproductive
that it barely furnishes sufficient for a few months'
annual consumption, and the greater number of the
people are forced to seek employment abroad. The
poorer people become shepherds, carriers, or muleteers ;
others, again, manufacture the thick coarse frieze material
from which the cloak or capote of the peasant is made ;
while the more skilled among them are the principal
makers of the rough jewellery so much in vogue among
Greeks and Albanians, and excel in the chasing of
silver. They are also fair architects, and have a reputation
for the construction of cupolas. Others, again, go out
3 This appellation is also found in Thessaly, where it is applied to the
shepherds who come down into the plains. But it is a mere coincidence
derived from a similarity of costume, and is not due to any tribal
connection.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 41
as artisans or shopkeepers, and they are found as
proprietors of khans and caravanserais throughout the
East. The richer classes become merchants in various
parts of Europe ; but, nevertheless, like their humbler
kinsmen, they return eventually with their gains to their
native villages. Women, for the most part, cultivate the
land and tend the gardens, besides spinning the thread
and weaving the linen required for domestic uses. It
has been noticed that Vlachs in Greece speak a purer
and older form of Greek than even the Greeks them
selves, which is probably due to the fact that it has
always remained a foreign language to them, which is
taught to successive generations as it was originally
learned.
The geographical link between the Valchs south
of the Danube and the Wallachians north of that river
has entirely disappeared, but the difference in language
between them is but slight. The construction and
syntax of this language, as well as the larger pro-
portion of its vocabulary, are such as to have convinced
many students that it is a lineal descendant from the
Latin. The tradition of Roman descent is, moreover,
universally maintained by the various Wallachian tribes.
Those north of the Danube claim to be descended
from the military colonies planted in Dacia by the
Emperor Trajan in 106 ; while a tradition is also found
among the nomads of Megalovlachia that the}- owe
their origin to the scattered remnants of Pompey's
army defeated at Pharsalia. 4 Their Roman or Italian
descent was never doubted by the Byzantine historians ;
and Pope Pius II., accepting this theory with the
4 Pouqueville.
42 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
facile etymological talent of an unscientific scholar,
derives the name of 'Vlachs from Flaccus, a Roman
general, quoting the lines of Ovid :
" Praefuit his, Graecine, locis modo Flaccus, et illo
Ripa ferox Istri sub duce tuta fuit." 5
The view of recent students is that the Vlachs
mainly represent what is now left of the ancient
Thracian race, their language being really the old
Thracian speech greatly modified by the intermixture
of Latin during the Roman occupation ; and thus
much of the myth and custom which the Roumans
appear to have inherited from the period of this
occupation may in reality be much more ancient, and
may date from an epoch before the dispersion of the
Western Aryans. 6
The question of the origin and migrations of the
Wallachian people has been exhaustively treated by
M. Robert Roesler, 7 and his conclusions, though they
may not be altogether acceptable to those to whom
their Roman descent is a matter of national honour,
are certainly well supported by the weight of historical
probability. He first endeavours to show that the
borderers on the Danube, previous to the Roman
conquest of Dacia, were of a kindred stock, allied to,
and sprung from, the Thracian people. Dacia was
finally subdued in 106 by Trajan, and converted into
an Imperial province ; but the populations remained
hostile, and the Roman system did not apparently strike
5 Ovid, " Epist. en Ponto IX.," 75.
6 Professor Thunmann, " Untersuchungen iiber Geschichte der ostlichen
Europaischen Volker. Prof. Freeman, " Historical Geography." Mr.
Stewart Glennie, &c.
7 Roesler, " Romanische Studien," Leipzig, 1S71.
Ethnology of Modern Greece. 4 J
deep roots, so that the province was little better than
a camp in a foreign land. Then came the pressure of
the Goths from the north, gradually forcing the Romans
out of Dacia, which was finally evacuated under
Aurelian. Fresh seats were found for the army, the
provincials, and all who moved in their train, in the
securer territory on the southern bank of the Danube,
where a portion of Mocsia was occupied by them and
re-named Dacia Ripensis, which also was officially
defined as a province under Diocletian. The evacuation
of Dacia proper was complete ; the culture which had
spread there for upwards of 150 years was wiped out;
and from the end of the 3rd to the 6th century the
country was re-peopled with folk of Germanic origin.
The old Dacian name was maintained in the Thracian
peninsula from which, according to his theory, it had
originally sprung, but it was borne and cherished by the
very Roman provincials who had eliminated it from
the names of nations. The Roman settlers then
mingled with the inhabitants of Moesia and Thrace,
who secured the advantages of the Roman provincial
system. Meanwhile, the ancient Dacia was occupied
by many tribes in succession — Goths and Vandals
fought for it ; the Huns followed and drove the Gothic
tribes across the Danube ; the Langobards and the
Avars occupied for a while in turn ; and then the great
Sclavonic movement ensued. Not only the old pro-
vince of Dacia was overrun, but Mocsia also, and
New Dacia and Thrace ; and then it was that the
Roumans, or Romanized Thracians, took to the inacces-
sible mountains for refuge, and became, for the most part,
a nomad shepherd population.
44 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
He therefore concludes that the present inhabitants
of Roumania re-migrated northwards sometime not
long before the 13th century from Moesia, bringing
back with them a certain number of Greek and
Albanian words acquired from their contact with these
peoples, which they would never have adopted had
they been all along resident north of the Danube, as
they pretend. The Vlachs of Macedonia, Thessaly, and
Epirus represent a southward migration from Moesia ;
the original starting-point of all these movements being
the Roman province of Aurelia, Dacia or Dacia
Ripensis. In their re-migration northwards, the
Roumans must still have found considerable Sclavonic
settlements established in the better lands of ancient
Dacia ; there is, therefore, probably an important Sclave
element latent in the Roumanian people ; and if the
foregoing assumptions are true, we have here once more
the same phenomenon which we have already observed
in Greece and Albania— that of Sclaves— once firmly
established at the expense of the former inhabitants,
gradually merging in and disappearing before the older
nationality, which reasserts its supremacy in the long
lapse of time.
There can be no doubt that traditions and historical
references dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries
concerning the Roman origin of the Wallachians,
analogies of manners and customs, and a similarity of
language subject to certain definite changes and
modifications, all point to some original connection with
Rome ; and it is easily conceivable that the latter colo-
nists may have readily mingled with the remnants of a
Thracian people speaking a somewhat kindred language,
Ethnology of Modern Greece.
h;>
and possessing a mythology and a folk-lore, which
though already considerably differentiated, was still
derived from a common source, and therefore capable
of receiving the new forms which the dominant caste
imposed ; that the pride and power of the Roman name
made it the ambition of all to claim a common orierin
with the colonists, with whom they gradually became
associated, and that so arose a race with many of the
characteristics of the Roman people, whose interest and
pride it would be to emphasize their distinctness from
Illyrian and Sclavonic neighbours ; that later they
dispersed in the general movement which modified the
geographical divisions of the Balkan peninsula, so that
some going north across the Danube became the
Roumanian people, while others drifting south
occupied the securer mountains, and became the
Vlachs or southern Wallachs, while a broad Sclavonic
band separated the two divisions.
The Vlachs of Greece, and even of Macedonia, though
an interesting and meritorious factor in the population,
are, however, not sufficiently numerous to influence the
present or future conditions of these countries ; and this
brief notice of their characteristics and possible origin is
only necessary because an ethnological examination of
the populations of modern Greece would be incomplete
without it.
4 6
CHAPTER II.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.
Out of 2,000,000 and more of souls by whom the
kingdom of Greece, with its adjacent islands, is occupied,
upwards of forty per cent, are engaged in agricultural
pursuits, while nearly ten per cent, more follow the
occupation of shepherds. The country produces almost
exclusively raw material, and seventy per cent, of its
exports are the fruits of agricultural industry. It is,
therefore, rather village than town life with which the
student of national manners is confronted ; and after the
capital, which, with its port of Piraeus, has a population
of 150,000, there are only three other towns in which
it exceeds 20,000, and five more in which a total of
10,000 is reached. 1 Nevertheless, the Greeks are
gregarious, and live together in villages, while isolated
farms and cottages are rare ; so that the cultivator is often
at a considerable distance from the land he tills. This
is largely the case throughout the south of Europe, and
is to be attributed, in great measure, to the want of
security which has prevailed since the beginning of time,
a circumstance which also affects the situation of
villages, for they still, in the majority of cases, follow the
sites of ancient settlements, built where the mountains
offered natural guarantees against sudden attack or
invasion. It is among these villages that the manners
1 (a) Patras, Corfu, and Hermoupolis in Syra ; (/>) Zante, Larissa,
Tripolitza, Calamata, and perhaps Argos.
The Land and the People. 47
and customs with which this volume deals are preserved ;
for although among the poorer citizens in Athens there
is still no lack of such traditions, a stranger might
remain there for a long while, mixing with the wealthier
classes, and with that numerous element of semi-foreign
Greeks who have reassembled there from all parts of
the East, and yet detect but little trace of that
individual life and peculiar bent of the popular mind
which is, perhaps, more characteristic and more full of
interest here than in any other European country.
The enterprising spirit of the Greeks carries many of
them abroad in pursuit of the different vocations for
which they have a special aptitude ; and there is also a
continual thronging towards the capital. In many
parts, and especially on certain of the islands, the nature
of the soil is wholly inadequate to supply the wants of
even a thin population, while there are none of the
conditions that favour the development of indigenous
industry ; a large proportion of the inhabitants arc
therefore forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere,
but a firmly-rooted local patriotism, which seems to
have the strongest hold in regions where nature is
sternest and most unproductive, brings many of them
back again ; while there is, of course, a preponderating
stationary element in a people one-half of whose total
number are employed in agricultural and pastoral
pursuits. Among these, the stationary character and
a marked separate individuality from valley to valley
and range to range has been accentuated by the
physical features of the country which they occupy,
by the difficulty of communication, and the long devious
paths which separate the dwellers in one plain from
48 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
their immediate neighbours across the mountains ; by
the same conditions, in fact, which in ancient times
split up the Hellenic nation into a number of small,
independent, and mutually emulous units. To this day
traces of the ancient rivalries, the local jealousies may
be found, though modified by the circumstance of
altered aims. Without going to districts which have
for many centuries maintained the exclusive independence
of the famous men of Maina, the Boeotian will still be
found to be somewhat of a stranger in Sparta ; and I have
heard those in Sparta express themselves very dis-
paragingly of their neighbours across Taygetus, of the
race of Messenians in general. It would, therefore, be
necessary to deal with each of the provinces separately
in order to give a complete picture of the life and
characteristics of the people throughout a country so
small in area, so rich in vitality and interest ; but as
the majority of the customs and superstitions which
we are about to investigate are the common property of
the whole Hellenic race, and are not grouped according
to locality in the following chapters, a few general
remarks will suffice to give them the necessary relief
and environment.
It has been frequently observed that the Greek is not
by nature adapted for agricultural pursuits, and
undoubtedly the most is not made at present of a
country which alternates between rugged impracticable
mountain and alluvial plains of extreme fertility.
Methods and implements alike are antiquated, and
the peasant, by nature extremely quick up to a certain
age, is also very slow to adopt any innovation, and
content to go on with the ancestral system which his
The Land and the People. 49
fathers used before him. On the other hand, in certain
regions where nature yields but the scantiest subsistence
in return for the hardest toil, the fact that anything is
produced at all is evidence of the effort of which he is
capable, while the laborious terracing of steep mountain
slopes, now often fallen out of cultivation, prove that,
under favourable circumstances, much more has been
and might be accomplished. Many districts, again, are
malarial, and a connection may be traced between
climatic influences and the indolence of the peasant.
The primitive tools in use often entail an unprofitable
expenditure of physical exertion. The plough has
scarcely altered since the days of Hesiod; and it is
characteristic that the land which is worked with the
hoe yields a better return than that which is ploughed
with horses or oxen. Where only the surface is
scratched there is but little use for the harrow, and
consequently this instrument of agriculture is also of
the most primitive kind. A horse draws, by a double
chain made fast to either end, a wedge-shaped board,
on which the driver stands, balancing himself by the
reins, and the seed is thus rather pressed down into the
ground than covered. Thrashing is carried on in much
the same manner ; a number of such boards, on which
the drivers ride, are drawn by a number of horses
abreast round and round the stone-paved thrashing-
floor. No use is made even of the simplest machinery,
although the magnificent unbroken plains of Thessaly
are admirably adapted for farming on a large scale ;
but there, at present, capital is wholly wanting, and the
peasant generally shows but little disposition to adopt
improvements, even when they are placed in his way.
E
5<3 The Customs and Loj-e of Modern Greece.
Subsistence is easy, the climate yields a fair return to a
minimum of labour, and the prospect of improving his
condition by an increase of toil offers but little induce-
ment to him.
The fact is that the Greek peasant has yet to recover
from the moral deterioration of many centuries. All
stimulus to labour and improvement was taken from
him by perpetual insecurity and spoliation, and finally
by the conditions of his tenure under the Turkish
domination. Whether his lot was controlled by the
foreign Aga or the native Primate, the terms of culti-
vation were much the same, and care was taken that
he should never be out of their debt, nor able to glean
more than a bare subsistence by the toil of his hands.
The result was to engender an indifference to indebted-
ness and misery, and to remove all inducement to
develop his holding, since he knew that he would not
be allowed to retain whatever surplus over the
strictly necessary he might by increased exertion
produce. Continued misery and oppression enervated
his natural energies, and he had no part or lot in the
land, where even the fruits of his mountains, the
dye-plants and the vallonea, were all the perquisites
of the privileged class. Among the many historic
causes which contributed to bring about such a result
may be mentioned the " Konakia," or obligation to find
quarters for rapacious mercenaries ; the institution of
the Klephts, who requisitioned whatever the avarice
of the Agas had not seized upon ; the insecurity and
destruction of property caused by their raids, 2 and
the system of tax-farming, under which even their
2 Some account of the Klephts will be found in chap. ix.
The Land and the People. 51
own countrymen grew rich at the expense of the
peasantry. These and many similar causes have
engendered habits which it will need much time
and encouragement, and the interest of ownership, or
secure tenure, to eradicate.
Religion, again, which has a strong disciplinary hold
upon the country folk, is not altogether favourable to the
development of industrious habits. The year is divided
between fast days, on which their nourishment is
insufficient to sustain men engaged in hard manual
labour, and feast days, upon which it is not lawful to
work, occupying about one-third of the year. Meat,
eggs, and milk are forbidden every Wednesday and
Friday, in addition to which there are long periods
of uninterrupted fast: forty-eight days before Easter,
the fast of the Holy Apostles, which must not be
observed for less than fifteen days ; the first fortnight
in August ; and a period of forty days before Christmas.
During the Lenten fast, fish and oil arc also prohibited,
and the diet consists only of bread and olives, with
caviare and vegetables for the few who can afford
them.
Nevertheless, the country people in Greece arc, as
a rule, a very attractive people ; proud, independent, and
hospitable to a fault, of extreme chastity, and sober
and temperate as becomes their thrift. The traveller
will notice that it is not so much the spots where good
wine may be obtained that his guide will indicate, but
the place where there is a good spring or a famous
well. "At such and such a spot," they say, "we will
halt, for there the water is good." They have the
passionate temper of a southern race when the blood
1 2
52 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
is roused, and are too ready to exercise the ruder form
of justice, not having yet learned to appreciate the
extreme value that is set on human life among peoples
whom a long age of security has accustomed to the
blessings of peace ; but, on the other hand, they are
singularly free from many of the vices that a higher
civilization is familiar with. Their virtues are their
own ; their vices are, in a great measure, those of
circumstance.
In spite of the apparent poverty of the peasantry,
their excessive thrift, not to say penuriousness, together
with favourable conditions of tenure, have, since the
Independence, in many parts of the country enabled
them to accumulate a good deal of money, and in the
districts where climatic conditions are favourable, they
are rapidly buying out the larger proprietors, who have,
as a rule, but little taste for country pursuits, and
prefer the life of the city, so that peasant proprietor-
ship is gradually becoming more and more the rule.
Facilities for borrowing at exorbitant interest are,
unfortunately, only too ready to hand, for the Greek
who has gained a small competency abroad returns to
invest it in petty usury at home ; and it often happens
that the peasant turned proprietor is paying the double
in interest for money, borrowed to complete the
purchase or to build a house, of what would formerly
have fallen to the share of his landlord.
In the Peloponnese, where individual proprietorship
prevails, cultivation is chiefly carried on by hired
labour, notably the profitable currant industry, of which
the Hellenic kingdom has a monopoly, which entails
a considerable amount of work at two periods — in
The Land and the People. 53
February, when the soil is hoed in order to expose
the roots of the plants, and heaped into little pyramids
between the vines ; and in May, when it is made level
again. Hired labour is very dear, owing to the cost
of living in a country suffering from abnormally heavy
taxation, but it is brought down by the competition
of Bulgarians, Albanians, and Montenegrins, who throng
the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth at the period
of activity.
Generally speaking, however, a form of Metayer tenure
has, for the most part, prevailed — a system which is,
indeed, as old here as history, for Tyrtaeus sang of the
Messenians :
Aeo-7rocrwacri <pkpovre<; oivayKairjs vtto Xvyprjs
lijj.i(rv ttuv '6(T(tov Kapirov apovpa tpepei. s
In Thessaly, which is still in the hands of large pro-
prietors, the peasants as a rule pay one-third of the
produce in kind. The plains of Thessaly are, however,
subject to bad harvests, in consequence of a succession of
frost and snow too soon after the seed has been com-
mitted to the ground in autumn ; and a series of such
bad years, coupled with want of method and a want of
proper irrigation, have reduced the peasants to very sore
straits ; but facilities are now being offered them by the
Government for borrowing money upon easy terms,
which will enable them gradually to become proprietors
of their holdings. In Eubcea, where the return to
agriculture is large, the payment of a third and less
where the land is poor has enabled the peasantry to
buy out many of the original holders, and already a
greater part of the island is in their hands. In Bceotia,
3 Fragment preserved in Pausanias iv., chap. 14.
54 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
I learned from several large proprietors that it was the
custom to advance seed to the cultivator, which advance
became the first charge on the produce of the harvest,
with fifteen per cent, more as the landlord's share. In
the Ionian islands two systems prevail. Under one, the
owner takes two-thirds of the total produce, but supplies
seeds and implements, manure, all, in short, except mere
manual labour ; the other system resembles the
Italian metairie, under which the tenant cannot be dis-
possessed, save in very exceptional circumstances, which
it is not practically possible to enforce ; a fifth of the
holding is looked upon as belonging absolutely to the
tenant, inalienable from his person and descending to
his next-of-kin. Peasants holding under this system
pay nominally one-half of the produce to the owner of
the land, and furnish themselves with the necessary
equipment ; but it seldom happens that the proprietor
obtains the stipulated share of his dues, and the
peasant is practically master of the situation. For
instance, the olive groves, which represent the chief
wealth of the islands, are approximately valued at their
estimated yield, while the fruit is still ripening, by the
peasant and a representative of the owner. The latter,
however, is generally himself of the peasant class, and in
sympathy with the tenant, and therefore inclined to
under-estimate the yield ; then, when the return has been
made, and the share of the landlord determined, he is
frequently informed after the harvest that such and such
of the trees were despoiled by insects, that hail or storm
damaged so many more, so that his part of the produce
is reduced to about half of the estimate.
The principal agricultural products on which the
The Land and the People. 55
peasant industry of Greece is engaged are wheat and
barley, grown on the dry lands up to a height of 1,500
metres ; Indian corn and maize, on the well-watered
plains, and in such mountain districts as retain the
moisture in the soil, up to a level of over 1,000 metres ;
cotton, tobacco, olives, and grapes ; while in the
Peloponnese and the island of Zante, on the coasts, and
up to a height of 350 metres above the sea, the currant
vine flourishes, and furnishes the staple export of the
country. Among natural products of the forest may be
mentioned vallonea, carob - beans, gall - nuts, and
Prinokokki, 4 a red dye gathered from the holly-oak, one
of the commonest mountain shrubs.
The population of the Peloponnese is considerably
denser than that of central Greece, and central Greece,
again, more closely populated than Thessaly. If Athens
and the Piraeus be left out of consideration, central Greece
can only show twenty-two inhabitants to the square
kilometer, as against thirty-six in the Peloponnese.
Generally speaking, I think the traveller would notice
a considerable difference between the external aspect of
the villages in northern and central Greece, with which I
class Eubcea, and those of the Peloponnese ; while the
island villages, again, have a third and very distinct
individuality ; the first being much the poorest and
humblest in character, the second owing their prosperity
to the greater wealth of the soil, while the third are
maintained in tolerable comfort by the earnings of the
islanders abroad, and their extreme thrift and cleanliness
at home. There is also considerable contrast between
4 Qucrcus cocci/era. In Arabic Kermes, whence cramoisie and crimson.
The dye is formed by an insect on the leaves of the holly-oak.
56 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
the east and western sides of central Greece. The east,
with a dry climate, in which the Aleppo pine flourishes
all over the lower ranges, comparatively easy of access,
with much cultivable land, is smiling, and prosperous,
and covered with towns and villages ; whereas the west,
with its wild mountain-ranges, its deep and gloomy
gorges, its forests of beech and oak, both evergreen and
deciduous, its damp climate and marshy plains, has
remained as in ancient times, undeveloped and cut off
from the rest of the world.
Let us look more closely at a village of the first
category. I will take one with which I am tolerably
familiar, Achmetaga, in the island of Eubcea, as typical
of a village occupied by Metayers, and it will serve for a
model of any other such village in Attica and central
Greece. The houses grouped round the little church are
all one-storied oblong cabins built of the stone which is
almost everywhere ready to hand, from thirty to thirty-
six feet in length by about twenty-four feet in width.
Two-thirds of this area are devoted to the dwelling part,
while the other third is reserved for the stabling of the
beasts in winter ; and there is seldom any partition wall
to screen it, for the peasant likes to keep them in sight,
having the same feeling about them which old Eumaeus
entertained for his swine :
ovSe avfiwrr)
ijvSavev o.vto0i koctos, vwv airo KOLjja)6i]vaL. b
The family live in common, men, women, and children
together ; often, indeed, several generations of them, in
the habitable end, which has a dried-clay flooring, or in
some cases wooden planking raised a foot or two above
5 " Odyssey, " xiv. 524.
The Land and the People. ~ : j
the ground. The fire, on a hearth of stone, is against the
wall in the more recent and better-built cottages which
boast of a chimney, though in many villages it is still in
the middle of the room, the smoke escaping as best it
may through the holes in the roof. Furniture there is
generally none, unless it be a rude cupboard, or a
wooden chest, or, perhaps, a few shelves to hold their
simple cooking utensils. In one corner is a stack of
rugs, mattresses, and cushions. These laid upon the
ground form their beds at night. The mattresses,
stuffed with maize husks, are covered with a rough
carpet material which the women weave, and so are the
square cushions, which serve as seats by day when the
simple meal is spread upon the ground. Sometimes
there is a table, but not often, in the genuine peasant's
huts.
KAt'rru, rpo.—i^ai, Trpoa KttpaXaia, o-T/Ko/xara,
as Aristophanes summed up the household gear, are
still the limit of their ambition. Strings of onions- and
bunches of golden maize hang from the rafters, and a
large earthenware water-cooler, with a number of
smaller red jars and bowls of classic pattern, make up
the humble equipment of the cottage. No house is
complete without its ikon, generally a picture of the
Panaghia or Virgin, but occasionally representing the
saint whose name the householder bears, or in whose
especial protection family tradition has confidence.
Sometimes a little rude shrine is built up round the
picture, and in front of it is always a lamp, which many
families keep burning night and day, often stinting
themselves of oil to keep the saint supplied. On great
,; Aristoph., "Acharn.," v. 10S9.
58 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
occasions the holy picture, which represents the
" sacrarium " of the house, is decked out with wreaths
and flowers. It will be solemnly borne away to the
new dwelling if the family change quarters, like the
household gods of the olden time ; and should the
little lamp go out 'upon the road, it would be held to
forbode some grave misfortune.
Outside the door is the oven, a beehive-shaped
structure of clay, which is heated well-nigh red-hot with
wood, after which the fire is raked out, and the dough
wrapped round with leaves introduced for baking.
Generally, there is also set up without supporting posts
a primitive loom. Sometimes the loom is arranged
with cross-bars between two young trees, behind which
the lower hind-posts are driven into the ground, so that
the weaver sits in the shade of the trees at work, or else
a little thatch is built to shelter her from the sun ; for
the houses are only occupied at night or during bad
weather, and village life is entirely in the open air. All
the women who have not gone into the fields to work
with the men will be spinning in the doorways or
weaving at the loom; and wonderful is the work the
village wives produce from such rude implements, using
the natural dyes they extract from the plants that grow
in the neighbourhood — red from the holly-oak, and brown
from the heart of the plane-tree.
All this folk pay for their houses a nominal rental of
a bushel of wheat per annum, in order to secure the
owner's proprietory claim, which would otherwise pass to
the occupier by squatters' right after thirty years of
unmolested occupation. They are at liberty to cultivate
pretty well as much land as they care to, paying to the
The Land and the People. 59
landlord one-third in kind. An attempt to convert this
form of metairie into a fixed rent-charge, calculated at
a far lower rate than the average annual return, with a
view to encouraging them to effort of which they should
reap the entire benefit, was unanimously rejected by the
peasants, whose congenital mistrust cannot yet place
confidence even in those of whose benevolence they have
experience. The produce here is almost exclusively
wheat or maize, but every family maintains a plot of
vineyard for home consumption. Many also keep silk-
worms, and a small quantity of silk is spun for dress.
This industry, which is of historic antiquity in Greece,
might be much developed in a country where the
mulberry-tree flourishes as it does here. Honey is also
produced in considerable quantities ; and this village,,
though not a large one, has produced as much as
25,000 lbs. in a year. Of late, however, this industry
had almost entirely ceased, owing to the destruction of
the vegetation in the mountains round by the forest fires
so disastrously frequent in Greece in summer, through
which great tracts are rapidly becoming disafforested,
The hives in use are cylinders of hollowed plane trunk
some two feet high, especially suited to the domestica-
tion of the wild bee, whose natural nest is built in a
hollow stem.
The amount that will suffice to support a peasant
family is extraordinarily small. Their wants arc nearly
all supplied by what they can grow ; a few sheep
furnish the wool which the women spin and weave, or if
they have none themselves they can procure it from the
shepherds in return for the breadstuff's which they grow ;
bread and olives furnish the staple of their food, and
<5o The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
many of them hardly see money at all. I remember a
family of six in Boeotia whose actual money expenditure
was reduced to eight drachmas 7 a month ; a little
cotton, sugar, coffee, and tobacco was all they needed to
buy, the rest of their requirements were supplied by the
farm. In Eubcea ten pounds a year will amply support
a married man, and whatever he can make beyond this
is laid by. Thus it will easily be seen that, with wheat
fetching a good price, as it does in a country which only
produces sufficient grain to fed its population for half
the year, it is not difficult for the peasant to accumulate
considerable sums of money, where the land is fairly
good, and it is not surprising to find that in the case of
exemptions from forced military service, which the law
accords to widows' sons and certain other categories, the
Government has found it answer to require a conditional
contribution of ioo drachmas from those exempted, such
contributions being readily forthcoming.
The village of Achmetaga is one under extremely
favourable conditions, and the pappas, or village priest,
was enabled, by the encouragement he received, to pay
considerable attention to the elementary education of
the children of his flock. He was a very superior man
to the type of the priests in small villages, who often
differ only from the rest of the peasants by their
high-crowned hats and home-spun cassocks, and the
knowledge by heart of the simpler liturgies which they
frequently cannot read. The pappas of Achmetaga
counted himself a wealthy man, though his total income
fell considerably short of ^30 a year, to which stipend
each of the villagers contributed an annual bushel of
7 The value of the drachma is about eightpence.
The Laud and the People. 61
wheat, with sundry offerings of loaves on days of
festival. He did no field work, and only cultivated a
little vineyard ; but he contrived to keep himself neat
and to bring up his family respectably.
Not many miles from Achmctaga might be found a
specimen of another Metayer colony under the worst
possible conditions, presenting a melancholy spectacle
of poverty and neglect. The owner of the land had
apparently been quite unconscious of the existence of
any duty towards his tenants, and had gleaned what he
could from them, without ever expending anything on
improvement or restoring its miserable tenements. The
little church was shored up on crutches, and appeared
to be in imminent danger of falling in ; the cottages
were wretched hovels, composed, many of them, of little
more than mud and wattles, with roofs so full of holes
as to afford no protection in the winter and the rainy
season. A strain of madness, generally very rare in
Greece, had crept in, and no care had been exercised to
isolate the wretched victims, or prevent them from inter-
marrying, and a number of children showed the
unmistakable signs of idiocy. The destitution of this
village was extreme, measured by the standard of
comfort in other lands, and it was instructive as a
contrast with other villages, where the peasants arc
themselves proprietors, and yet it was a misery much
tempered by the climate, the bright air, and the sun.
Moreover, the inhabitants had something better to look
forward to ; the lands had just passed into the hands of
a new owner, and their cottages were about to be
rebuilt of stone upon a better and a healthier site a few
hundred yards away. When I was among them the
62 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
white-kilted peasants were busied shelling their maize
from the husks ; the winter provision was gathered in,
great heaps of golden grain lay piled against the
cottages, and they seemed bright and merry enough as
they squatted, men and women together, at work in the
sun. They had known no other experience, and life is
so easy here.
Within easy reach of these two places, the large and
flourishing village of St. Anna, on the heights above
the eastern coast, presents an example of the other form
of tenure, being inhabited exclusively by peasant
proprietors, who with their savings and borrowings
have bought out the original holders, and established
themselves as an independent commune. The country-
folk here make a decidedly good impression ; they are
more independent in their address, and lavish in that
ready hospitality which characterizes the Greek of the
country districts. The houses are larger and more
solidly built than in the Metayer colonies, consisting
o-enerally of two stories with several rooms in each, and
these for the most part clean and not without some
pretension to comfort. But herein also lies the burden
that weighs upon these villagers ; when they become
proprietors they are apt to grow too ambitious, and vie
with each other in the pride of their establishments.
Consequently they all get into debt over house-building,
and the rate of interest exacted by the small country
usurers is enormous. Meanwhile, the spirit of indepen-
dence which their new position fosters, makes them shy
of appealing to those who might be willing to help them
on reasonable terms, and they prefer to go on renewing
their bills at a ruinous rate. Externally, however, and
The Land and the People. 63
in his surroundings, the peasant owner presents a far
more well-to-do appearance than the fanners of the
proprietary villages. They are a light-hearted people,
proud of being able to offer hospitality to the stranger,
fond of talking and amusement, with something in the
pocket always, as the doctor at St. Anna observed, to
pay the piper with when dancing is in prospect, though
less ready to remember his own little account. They
are famous dancers in Eubcea, and talking and dancing
are their chief distractions. Not long ago village
games were still an important feature in country life,
running and jumping, and the throwing of heavy stones,
a survival of the old athletic contests ; but change is
creeping in apace, the spread of cheap and worthless
newspapers is substituting rapidly a taste for political
discussion over the coffee or mastic, for the old healthy
competition of corporeal exercises ; nor does any man who
has held some small office under the Administration
care, at the expiration of his term, to return to simple
husbandry, but spends his time in political agitation,
and in disseminating the ineptitudes of petty partisan-
ship.
The description of one such village will answer
tolerably well for any other throughout central Greece :
small one-storied stone-built cottages, more often than
not set in a square or oblong round the little church,
all facing inwards and turning their backs on the
world outside. In the west, villages are rarer, and
great tracts, like the plain of the Achclous, are only
tenanted by nomad shepherds, who build themselves
a rude rush shelter for the severe weather, when winter
drives them to the lowlands. The little towns arc
64 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
more pretentious, and many of them can boas
comfortable and roomy houses, owned by successfi
merchants. Some, like Chalcis or Naupaktus, ai
circumscribed by their mediaeval fortress ring, and L
these a richer quarter has sprung up as a suburb outside.
The port of Volo presents a flourishing appearance ;
and so does Lamia, with its rich tobacco-fields. Thebes,
with its three main streets, called after Pindar, Pelopidas,
and Epaminondas, retains some little trace of its
middle-age prosperity, and is very picturesque in
summer, with its open shops under their broad sheltering
roofs, the straw mats stretched as awnings across the
street, and the lines of young acacias down the main
thoroughfare, with its groups of white-kilted country-
men discussing bargains at the tables of the cafes which
straggle across the road.
In Thessaly there is still a Turkish character about
the villages, with the minarets of ruined mosques
standing solitary, like landmarks of a vanished race.
Those at the foot of the mountains and on the slopes
are also built of rough-hewn stone ; but in the great
plains, where the sites are far from the nearest quarry,
and even at the principal town, Larissa, the houses are,
for the most part, constructed of mud-bricks, or latl
and plaster, with the trellised windows and tr
enclosing wall which mark the Eastern character. Tl
population of the plains is much thinned since th
exodus of the Mussulman peasantry, and, as has bee;
already mentioned, impoverished by a succession o.
bad harvests and want of method. A favoura'
contrast is presented by the inhabitants of the floui
ing villages which cover the slopes of Mount Pe?
The Land and the People. 65
nd the promontory of Magnesia. When the Turks
onopolized the plains they left the mountains to the
tive Greeks, who, however, in this region enjoyed
jnsiderable privileges and conditions, stimulating them
d unusual industry. The higher villages produce silk,
wine, honey, and garden-stuffs, and those at a lower
level, in addition to silk, oil, cotton, and abundance
of fruit and oranges. One of them, Zagora, was,
even under the Ottoman rule, an important commercial
centre, where the cloth for the rough overcoats of
the country people was manufactured, together with
a great deal of silk for export ; and to this day the
antique art of gem-cutting is preserved in Makrinitza,
whence hail many of the intagli offered for sale as
curiosities to the unwary traveller in Greece. Silken
cords, tassels, and girdles are also made, and the men
have a reputation for working in leather. The houses
are comfortably and stoutly built, many of them being
constructed tower-fashion to render them easily capable
of defence. Trikeri, situated on the heights at the
extreme end of the Magnesian promontory, is a
maritime colony, whose inhabitants are boat-builders,
or seamen, who cut sponges, or fit out small ventures
for the carrying trade, after the manner of the
•slanders.
The standard of comfort in the Peloponncse, where
he peasants are, for the most part, proprietors, is
generally higher. The southern shore of the Gulf of
Corinth, with its miles of currant vineyards, is the most
billable property in Greece; but being also the groat
hway to the capital from the west, traversed by the
pt railway of any considerable extent, it has, perhaps,
F
66 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
fewer peculiarly individual characteristics. Patras, the
chief centre of export, has a very modern aspect, and a
cosmopolitan population, including a number of Italians
and a colony of foreign merchants ; while its quays are
thronged with Albanians, Montenegrins, and Jews. The
rich valley of ancient Lacedaemon, lying like a hollow
shield between Taygetus and Parnon, with no lack of
water from either slope, is full of wealthy farmers : a
truly idyllic land, in which one searches in vain for some
prototype in nature of the rugged ideal which the
Spartans set before themselves ; while Sparta itself,
fragrant with gardens and framed in groves of acacia,
mulberry, and poplar, is an important and busy little
centre not without some tinge of the ancient jealousy of
the capital, and a headquarters of provincial conservatism.
Tripolitza, the capital of the Morea before the insurrec-
tion, is famous for its smiths. Though neither iron nor
coal are to be had on the spot, and it is quite in the
centre of the peninsula, and stands at a height of 3,000
feet above the sea, this industry has for some
unaccountable reason established itself there, and
ploughshares and axe-heads, horseshoes and all kind of
iron and steel wares are sent out to all parts of the
Greek continent and islands. The greatest external
prosperity, however, is exhibited by the villages of the
fertile plain of Messenia. Kalamata, the principal town
and port, has an extensive bazaar, and a direct trade
with the north African coast. Dried figs are exported
in great quantities, as well as what currants are grown
in the south of the peninsula ; while the mulberry is
largely cultivated for the silk industry. The villages of
the plain are surrounded with thick hedges of the
T/ie Land and the People. 67
prickly pear, which grows luxuriantly in the stoneless
soil, and walls in the fig plantations. The houses arc-
mostly two-storied, with glazed windows and balconies,
and vine-trellised pergolas below, presenting an appear-
ance of order, neatness, and comfort which contrasts
with the hovels in which the peasantry live in central
and northern Greece. There is a prosperous look, too,
about the people, whose linen kilts are of the cleanest,
and whose waistcoats are brave with various embroidery.
The condition of the villages is a certain indication of
the wealth or poverty of the soil, and in the mountains
of Arcadia every degree is represented, from the
picturesque tetrapolis of Andritzena, set in a bower-like
nook of fruitful slopes, with solid, well-built houses,
whose projecting roofs and balconies almost meet above
the climbing streets, and exclude the fierceness of the
summer suns, to the starving villages of the high central
plateau, where the ungrateful land yields so small a
return to laborious cultivation that it does not suffice to
feed the sparse population, and the inhabitants are
obliged to descend to the coasts and work as
labourers through the winter, returning to their homes
to cut timber in the spring.
One other district deserves special mention, on
account of the distinct individual character of its
inhabitants, and their curious mode of life, which
remains an anachronism even in Greece. The country
of the Mainotes, who have been alluded to in the previous
chapter, occupies the ancient Taenarian promontory,
which is a prolongation of the range of Taygetus
terminating in Cape Matapan. The modern province
extends westward to within a short distance of Kalamata
]•' 2
68 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
in Messenia, and eastward beyond Gythion, the port
of Sparta. But it is especially in the region of Mesa
Mani, or Inner Maina, including the south-western
coast as far as Matapan, the table-land between the
central spine and the cliffs arising abruptly from the sea,
that district which acquired for itself the ominous
name of "the land of evil counsel," s that a primitive
people have retained to this day their own peculiar
social code, a mode of life, and a number of curious
customs to which frequent allusion will be made in
subsequent pages.
It is the proud boast of the Mainotes that they
are the lineal representatives of the Spartans, unadul-
terated by foreign immigration, and that their rocky
promontory has never been conquered by the various
invaders of Greece. It appears, however, more probable
that they represent, in some remote degree, the Periceci
of Laconia, the descendants of the older Achaeans,
who preceded the Dorian invasion, and who were
secured with a certain independence in the enjoyment
of their property. For the Periceci seem to have
occupied the maritime districts, for the most part, at
the time of the Roman conquest, while such of the
genuine Spartans as still remained at that time
occupied lands in the interior ; and the southern
peninsula of Maina, the only part of the province in
which the inhabitants can claim immunity from foreign
immixture, is so barren that it would never have been
occupied by the invading Dorians while the vanquished
race were left in possession of the better lands. The
Roman conquest freed the Periceci from their traditional
8 KaKofiovXia Mavj).
The Land and the People. 69
semi-servitude, and established the self-governing com-
munity of the Eleuthero-Laconians, whose chief town
was Tacnaron. Whatever may be the truth about
their origin, it seems certain that they are a very
ancient and unmixed race, differing in marked character-
istics from the people who surround them ; and though
their vaunt of never being vanquished may be a little
overstated, it is undoubtedly true that the various
invaders of the Morea found their inhospitable moun-
tains difficult to occupy, and preferred to conciliate
the dwellers in the rocky promontory with privileges
which ensured them against foreign colonization. The
Frankish princes overawed them w r ith the strong castle
of Passava, which guarded the northern passes, and
built later on the fortress of Maina, which gave its
name to the whole peninsula, in the neighbourhood
of Matapan, thus holding them in some sort of control.
After the battle of Lepanto, the narrow creeks became
the stronghold of corsairs, who kept up a desultory
warfare with the Sultan's fleets ; but a payment of
tribute to Constantinople was secured by the establish-
ment of Turkish garrisons in the castles. When Moro-
sini expelled the Turks from the Morea, the Mainotes
were the first to join his standard, and they gained
in return an independent administration with special
immunities ; and from this time probably began the
local feuds and jealousies which survive in the form
of the vendetta to this day. After the re-establishment
of the Ottoman rule, they became once more a
dependent, but never a servile, race, and were ever
ready to rise in rebellion against their foreign sovereign,
though following with a more than feudal loyalty their
70 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
own patriarchal leaders and the Bey, elected by the
eight hereditary captains, the chiefs of the principal
Mainote families.
Their condition has been aptly compared to that of
the Highland clansmen in the latter days of the Stuarts.
They owed a nominal submission to the Sultan, and
paid their tribute to the Capitan Pasha, who had the
/Egean islands and Maina under his control ; but if the
tribute was not forthcoming, no Turkish emissary was
likely to advance far into Mesa Mani to demand it.
During the last century they acquired a bad name for
piracy and brigandage ; for the country is excessively
poor and sterile, and being for ever at daggers drawn
with the sovereign power, they were compelled to
support themselves by plunder and rapine. Their
services in the war of Independence under the famous
Petrobey are matter of history ; they were among the
first to take the field, and they held out to the last,
resisting all the attempts of Ibrahim to penetrate their
passes. It was with great difficulty only that they
could be induced to surrender their semi-independence
so long maintained, and accept absorption in the new
Hellenic kingdom ; and to this day they are treated with
peculiar indulgence, and conciliated by immunity from
taxation, granted under colour of the great services they
rendered to the cause of Greece.
The interior of Maina is the most barren land
imaginable: a plateau of rock and rolling stones; the
only trees are figs and stunted olives, and the most
laborious cultivation barely yields enough here to keep
body and soul together. The larger stones are collected
and built up into walls which intersect the plateau in
The Land and tJie People. 7 1
labyrinthine lines ; in the narrow spaces enclosed by
these is grown a little thin grain, which there is no
moisture to swell, and which is plucked almost ear by
ear. Lupins, " the grapes of Maina," seem to flourish in
a land apparently devoid of soil. Terrible winds sweep
across the promontory, and it is necessary to build
sheltering walls of stone round the young figs and olives
until they grow strong enough to resist the force of the
blast. Wherever it is possible, a little red marl is
collected in the rock hollows to grow something in, and
many of the patches thus secured to cultivation are only
a few yards in area. There is no fuel but the wild
thyme from the mountain, and the roots of the stunted
rock-herbage, which scarcely suffices to feed a few-
undersized sheep and goats, and even this must be
fetched from a great distance. The pigs fare best, for
wild lupins are plentiful. There is no water but what
can be collected in underground reservoirs during the
rainy season, and this is always thick and muddy. It is
not strange that the inhabitants look prematurely old
from the hardness of their life, and the faces of the
children are often lined and contracted.
The old feudal chiefs are a more real power here than
the law or the gendarmerie, and it is still impossible to
put down the vendetta between family and family when
blood has once been spilt. The slayer flies to the
mountains, where he is safe from the gendarmerie, and
his relatives bring food to the appointed places ; his
enemies would never denounce him to the authorities,
but by the unwritten law of custom seek to avenge the
blow on himself or his nearest relative, who is consequently
always armed and on the alert. Sometimes these blood-
J 2 The Customs mid Lore of Modern Greece.
feuds have reached such a pitch that a whole village
becomes involved, and the men shut themselves up in
their towers and only the women go abroad. Then the
hereditary chief endeavours to compose the feud ; a truce
is declared and terms are drawn up, and he who has last
taken blood becomes the man of the family to which the
victim belonged, and serves them faithfully for the rest of
his life. Such truces were common enough in old times,
though well-nigh impossible now, and they were never
broken.
The character of the population is reflected in their
villages. Every house is a tower, loopholed for defence.
In the lower story is the stable or the olive-press, while the
upper chamber, reached by a ladder which can be drawn
up through a trap, is the dwelling-place of the family.
They present a most singular appearance, these nests of
square towers fretting the horizon above some blue rock
creek or dotted about on the mountain heights. Each
house has its own cistern outside the village, and its
circular stone-paved threshing-floor. The prickly-pear,
the little olives, and the fig-trees make a green belt round
the village, which is approached only by a narrow bridle-
path as rough and stony as a torrent bed.
The people, from their savage blood-feuds and their old
reputation for piracy, have a bad name among their
neighbours, and yet nowhere in Greece are the pre-
scriptions of the Church observed with greater exactness ;
and to those few who come amongst them with a word
of recommendation from one of their chiefs they exhibit
great hospitality, according to their powers. In physical
type they are not particularly prepossessing, but their
faces are finely cut, sensitive, and intelligent. This
The Land and the People. J$
characteristic applies generally to the peasant population
throughout Greece ; only in Arcadia it appeared to me
that the type was somewhat less refined and more like
that of the country-folk in heavier-soiled countries. The
men of Maina are spare and active, dark-haired and dark
in complexion, wearing a thin beard in full, with then<
prominent, the check slightly hollow, and the forehead
vertical and high. There is a general absence of
costume, due no doubt to the poverty which now prevails ;
a few old men still wear the baggy knickerbockers of the
Greek islanders, but the rags of European dress arc the
universal garb of the population. Only the women retain
some trace of it, in the presence of a broad red stripe
round the skirt, which is removed in mourning and not
worn for two years after the death of a relative.
Since the war of Independence, the Albanian costume
has become the national dress of continental Greece.
The white kilt {fustanelhi) with its many pleatings is
now worn quite short, though a few old-fashioned people
may still be seen with the more graceful skirt in use at
the beginning of the century, which fell an inch or two
below the knee. The fustanclla is really, I imagine, a
decorative development of the shirt, worn like a tunic
belted at the waist, as still seen among the poorer peasants
who cannot afford such "ungrudging" folds of linen.
Round the waist is a leathern belt with a large punch in
front, like a purse of many pockets, containing flint and
steel, tobacco, and a long knife in a sheath. The poorer
countrymen wear white woollen leggings descending like
gaiters over shoes with upturning points (tzaroukia), the
wealthier folk brocaded greaves of red, or blue or buff.
The shirt has loose hanging sleeves, and over it is worn
74 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
a waistcoat, or rather, a short jacket, the sleeves of which
are allowed to hang from the shoulder behind. In some
cases the hanging sleeves have been replaced by a sort
of flat wing, and in others they have disappeared
altogether. In Euboea this jacket is generally of a dark-
blue colour, in Thebes black prevails, in Messenia the
buff or dark-blue cloth is elaborately embroidered with
brown or red ; each district has its own fashion, and on
festival days crimson velvet jackets worked with gold are
not uncommon. On the head a red cap with a long silk
tassel completes the costume, but the poorer people
merely knot a handkerchief round the hair. In Thessaly
the prevailing dress is a loose garment of coarse black
cloth belted at the waist, and reaching to the knee, with
white woollen leggings below. White or blue woollen
overcoats with a hood are worn in winter, or heavy cloaks
of impenetrable frieze. Every district has its own
peculiarities, which it would be only tedious to
enumerate.
The old dress of the Peloponnesian ladies is rarely seen
now with the exception of the cap, which is still much
worn in Patras, and is not yet rare in Athens. It con-
sisted of a short gold-embroidered velvet jacket, open on
the throat and breast, and fastened with a hook at the
waist, with sleeves tight to the elbow, and from thence
spreading into large hanging cuffs. With this a silk
skirt would be worn, and on the head was a loose red
cap (fezc), with a tassel of silk or gold wire hanging by a
cord some eight inches long. This dress was also worn by
the ladies of Hydra and Spezza, where, however, the cap
was replaced by an embroidered muslin veil, gracefully
arranged so as to frame the face.
The Land and the People. 75
Outside the Peloponnesus, again, the older Greek dress
survives at Mcgara, where the women in holiday attire
don a jacket reaching to the hip, open at the neck, and
tight at the waist, which is cut very high. The front, the
shoulders, and the cuffs are elaborately embroidered with
gold or silver braid. The skirt is of a dark blue or green
material lined with white, and trimmed with a broad
band of red, which the unmarried girls turn back and
fasten up behind, so that the skirt is much shortened in
front. Over this is either a bright and rather crudely
embroidered apron, or a sash fastened gracefully round
the hips. The head is covered by a cap of cloth with
rows of overlapping coins stitched on to it, and over this
again a veil, often of the finest weft of silk with threads
of gold interwoven. Strings of coins and chains of gold
and silver hang down over the breast.
But the dress generally worn by the peasant women
in Greece is also of the Albanian type. The short
white jacket (kondogouni) has wide sleeves either plain
or embroidered with silk ; over it is a long sleeveless
coat {zipouni) reaching to the knee, of white wool
trimmed with a band of red, or blue, or black cloth,
embroidered with a similar colour at the arm-holes and
the corners. The skirt is also white, and has embroidery
of wool or silk of great richness for weddings or feast-
days. A yellow handkerchief of coarse muslin is
knotted round the face on working-days ; but veils
of silk and muslin, with a string of coins across the
forehead, are the proper complement of the costume.
In Eubcea the women also wear a broad plait of false
hair hanging down the back, and at St. Anna in that
island the coins of the head-dress are hung upon a red
j6 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
band, which has a very pretty effect under the soft
shadow of the veil.
The general impression produced by a crowd in such
costume is very brilliant. White is the prevailing note,
relieved by the red of the men's caps and the bright
colours of the embroidery. It accords with the brilliancy
of the landscape, the vivid polished green of the foliage,
the intense sunlight with its purple shadows, the blue of
sea and sky, and the clearness of the atmosphere.
The islanders still retain a costume more genuinely
Oriental in character ; long blue or brown knicker-
bockers of voluminous fold hanging below the knee,
with shoes and stockings or high boots of yellow calf-
skin ; a blue embroidered jacket, and a sash wound
round and round the waist. In the smaller Greek
islands, where many of the population are compelled
to seek work abroad as sailors or artisans, and are
brought into frequent contact with other men, costume is
rapidly disappearing ; but in Crete and the other
Turkish islands it is seen in all its glory. The dress of
a Cretan chieftain, of the finest dark-blue cloth lined
with crimson, with his ample sash of silk sustaining his
silver-mounted pistols and yataghan, will often cost him
little short of fifty pounds, and may even far exceed this
sum when the workmanship of his weapons is
•exceptionally good. Two peculiarities of costume
struck me in the islands which I visited. At Kythnos
the women wear a sort of canvas mask over the face to
protect the complexion from the sun, and long coarse
gloves reaching above the elbow. The head is draped
in linen, and the mask begins just below the eyes.
And in the island of Nios, the ancient Ios, they dress
The Land and the People.
their hair in a treble plait made to stand upright
behind the head, after the manner sometimes represented
in ancient sculpture, and especially in the small terra-
cotta figurines.
The smaller Cyclades are for the most part rocky
and bare. For centuries after the fall of Constantinople
the /Egcan was a perpetual scene of warfare between
the rival fleets of the Crescent and the Cross. Barbary
corsairs, pirates from Italy and Dalmatia, ravaged the
ancient sites, cut down the olive-groves, and bore the
population away into slavery, and the isles still bear the
trace of these long years of desolation. The delicate
mountain forms are very lovely still, as they show like-
pearls and amethysts across the sunrise haze, or when
they float like fretted rubies and sapphires at sunset on
a milky sea ; but within there is a total absence of
vegetation, and only in the interior mountain hollows
small olives cluster or the stunted Aleppo pine.
There is one moment in the early spring when all the
terraced heights are covered with the emerald verdure of
young corn, and whole slopes are a vermilion blaze of
poppies ; but the general aspect on the shore is sad, and
barren, and brown.
The scantiness of subsistence forces many of the
inhabitants to take service on the mainland, where they
have a high reputation for thrift, industry, and sobriety,
and many islands have developed their own particular
industry. Thus the Andros folk are famous as cooks,
and Tenos has for many years supplied even Constanti-
nople with nurses. But the majority of the male
population are sailors by nature and profession, or enga
in the kindred occupations of fishing and diving for
78 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
sponges. A great deal of the minor carrying trade is done
by little vessels fitted out on the Greek islands, when the
owner, the captain, and the sailors all have shares in the
venture, the latter generally dividing a half among them
in lieu of all other demands. They are as abstemious
as their brethren of the mainland, and so little victualling
is required that such a venture is started with an
expenditure of capital slight enough to defy competition.
Bread, cheese, and a few olives are all the islander
demands, and it may be that even the ship is borrowed
under security, and the hire defrayed out of the profits
of the voyage. Consequently, in spite of the unpro-
ductiveness of these rocky isles, the people are generally
well-to-do, and their villages are better provided than
those of the mainland, and are models of order and
cleanliness.
The village or group of villages on the smaller
islands is generally high up in the interior, and its posi-
tion is due to the instinct of self-preservation and
defence dating from the old corsair days. A few houses
may cluster round the little port, where the caiques are
moored to the quay, and thence a rough bridle-path mounts
up the rocks behind. The hills will all be laboriously
terraced, and here and there the slow-growing olive is
reasserting its ancient right of tenure. In a nook
sheltered from the most prevailing wind you will come
upon the white village. Without, is a row of wind-
mills, round towers with five long poles crossed like the
spokes of a wheel, to which ten small jib-shaped sails
are attached. In the village all is dazzling white. The
church is whitewashed from foundation to cupola and
cross ; the little cube-shaped houses are whitewashed,
The Land and the People. 79
roof and all, up to the chimneys made of earthenware
pots with the bottoms knocked out. The whiteniner is
perpetually renewed, and even the flags in the courtyard
are marked out white at the joints. Some houses have
little gardens, a few fig-trees, an oleander blossoming, or
a trellised vine supported on columns, all dazzling bright
and fresh to look upon — a perfect little idyll of white-
wash. Within, the houses are as clean and well-ordered
as without, the coppers and pans gleam on their shelves,
and the floors are evidently well scrubbed. The people
look cleanly and prosperous ; and the very dogs, unlike
the Molossian of the mainland, are gentle and friendly
here. 9
In conclusion, it remains to say a word about that
most distinctive and interesting feature in the population
of modern Greece, the race of nomad shepherds, who
cither as herdsmen earning a wage, or as owners with
their own. sheep and goats renting the pastures they
occupy, wander through the length and breadth of the
land. They are all generally known by the name of
Vlachs (BXd^ov), though by no means exclusively of
Wallach origin. In northern and central Greece they
are generally divided in Arvanit6vlachi, or Albanian
Vlachs, and Sarakotzani'vlachi, a name of which I have
not been able to discover the import, unless it perhaps
contains the same root as Koutzovlach, * the tribe to
which most of the Greek Wallachs belong. In the
Peloponnese the genuine Wallach is not found, but the
shepherds, Greek or Albanian, who occupy the more
9 In the above description I had especially in my mind the little island
of Siphnos ; but these characteristics apply to the Cyclades generally.
1 See chap. i. p. 38.
8o The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
limited pasture lands, are also called by the generic title
of Vlach.
Whatever their race, however, their manner of life is
the same. Their days are spent entirely in the open
air, and in wet weather or dry they sleep with their
flocks, enveloped in their rough frieze cloaks, on the
mountain side. In the summer they explore the higher
altitudes, and make their halting-place in the lambing
season under some dark vallonea's shade. A blanket
stretched over crossed sticks serves as a shelter from
the sun, while around lie the churns, milk-pails, and
cheese-pans, their only household goods. In the winter
they come down to the plains and build themselves a
frail hut of twigs or rushes, fencing in some sheltered
angle of rock with a rude shelter of brushwood to
protect their flocks from the wind and weather — the
winter quarters (^ei/xepia) and the fold (/xavSpt). The
women share their free and roving life, but more often
take refuge during winter in the villages. Their diet is
of the simplest, being almost exclusively confined to
bread in the lambing season, with cheese and curds
when the milk can be spared for them, and a little wine
and tobacco are their only luxuries. Illness is unknown
amongst them, and they generally live to a very great
age. Gigantic dogs with shaggy coats follow them over
the mountains, alert to the master's voice, and trembling
at his least reproof, but ferociously savage to all the
world besides. The eyes of these hillsmen are keen as
the hawk's, and their voices reach, without effort, from
ridge to distant ridge ; the goats understand their
uncouth cries, and come in response to the call from
heights a mile away.
Greek Shepherd.
The Laud and the People. 8]
It is a curious sight to watch the shepherds moving
camp. One may often see them on a November
morning marching round the outskirts of Athens, when
they move down from the high pastures of Cithaeron to
winter in the lower slopes round the foot of Pentclikon :
the women accompany the mules, bearing the camp
gear, the rugs, and churns, and cauldrons ; the goats
march in companies two or three hundred strong, flanked
by their subalterns, the dogs ; the shepherds, like the
officers, in their brown hooded cloaks, with their crooks
across their shoulders, follow upon each company ; and
so they move, some thousand strong, with all the
regularity of an army. The goats appear to understand
perfectly what it all means, and lie down in groups when
a signal to halt is given, marshalling themselves in
perfect order again when the time comes to move on,
and all the air is alive with bells once more.
It is in this folk of the mountains and the open air,
living their changeless life apart, with their tanned faun-
like faces, and the laughing look in their clear brown
eyes under the matted curly hair, that the link with the
older world is closest. Their habits, their methods, their
very dress have hardly changed ; and living face to face
as they do with the miracle of nature, the wcirdness of
mighty forces unaccounted for, and the evidence of
strange phenomena which they cannot explain, still
keep alive in them the mystery of the ancient Pantheism.
G
82
CHAPTER III.
VILLAGE FESTIVALS. — FAIRS, DANCES, AND MARRIAGES.
The most important episodes in village life are
marriages and deaths, and the annual Panegnris, or
fair, held on the day of the saint to whom the local
church is dedicated. The very name Paneguris suggests
an historical connection between the modern festivals
and those ancient religious assemblies similarly
designated ; and were it possible to fix the dates of
the latter, we should probably find that they corre-
sponded precisely with the period of the modern
celebration ; and that, to take a suggestive instance,
the annual gathering at the monastery on the summit
of Mount Ithome in Messenia is merely a survival of
the musical contests of the primitive Ithomaea. In the
larger towns the peculiar customs of the people are
rapidly disappearing; but every Greek village celebrates
its fete, and nothing has as yet interfered with the
patriarchal picturesqueness of these occasions.
On the eve of the saint's day, the inhabitants of the
more distant villages of the neighbourhood come in
with their musicians and their store of provisions for
v the holiday, and each group establishes a little camp to
itself. Where the feast is of several days' duration, or
the reputation of the saint for miraculous cures is likely
to attract a very numerous attendance, tents and booths
are erected, and even in some cases, as before the
Church of the Virgin in the island of Amorgos,
Village Festivals. 83
permanent stone huts have been constructed for use
during the Pancguris. Often, again, as in Rhodes and
Lesbos, the women are allowed to pass the night in the
church, a suggestive reminiscence of the antique custom.
On the following morning at daybreak the folk from
the nearer villages flock in on mules and donkeys, all
dressed in their cleanest kilts, their finest veils and
newest aprons, in honour of the saint. Mass is said in
the church, and offerings are made according to the
custom of the locality and the reputation of the saint
for the healing of disease, which may, perhaps, entail
on the patient an uninterrupted sojourn of two or three
days within the sacred precincts. Then the rustic feast
is prepared ; lambs are roasted whole on spits, and the
resinous wine is consumed in abundance, though scarcely
ever to excess. The rest of the day is spent in dancing,
in visiting, in listening to the musicians and rhapsodists,
now, alas, growing rarer and rarer, or in making,
purchases at the booths, which are furnished on these
occasions with all the stores and furniture their simple
wants require.
Of these festivals the most curious are those held at
the miracle-working shrines, such as the great Pancguris,
celebrated twice a year on the island of Tenos, to which
the sick and maimed are brought by their kinsmen from
all parts of Greece and orthodox Turkey. Others, again,
are merely viewed as pleasant holidays, generally held ;it
some chapel or monastery in the country, to which the
people flock with the sole object of amusement, after due
respect has been paid to the ikon of its saint and due
contribution made to the church, which has no small
interest in the maintenance of these annual gatherin
G 2
84 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
The most frequented are those which fall in spring and
early summer, when the weather is settled and the even-
ings are growing long. The traveller will often come
upon them unawares. He will pass through a number
of apparently deserted villages, and suddenly, as he
enters some shady valley, round some little half-
ruined thirteenth-century chapel nestling in a clump of
plane-trees, he will see the whole area covered with
picturesque groups ; the mules tethered near, and feed-
ing quietly ; while in front of the very church door
perhaps, to the sound of the lyra, the pipes and the drum,
the women are dancing, led by some young pallikar in
spotless white, linked by his red handkerchief to the
many-coloured winding chain of girls.
Thus far of the Paneguris generally. Peculiarities of
worship and ceremony incidental to such gatherings
will be alluded to later on in their proper place, but I
cannot refrain here from mentioning a curious custom
which characterizes this festival at Limni, in Eubcea,
where I landed one September morning to find the
narrow shore, along which the brown houses of the
village are huddled together between the green slopes
and the sea, alive with a bright crowd moving to and fro
between rows of booths, where all the simple neces-
saries of peasant life were exposed for sale — iron spits
and cauldrons, red-leather shoes and brilliant coloured
handkerchiefs and counterpanes. A mile or so up the
steep mountain road in the interior is a little chapel
dedicated to the Virgin, and in the Church of Limni is an
ikon or picture of the Panaghia invested with a peculiar
sanctity. On the first day of the Paneguris this picture is
carried from the church to the chapel, and the privilege
Village Festivals. S5
of carrying it is supposed to confer especial favour
on the bearer throughout the ensuing year. This
privilege is accordingly disposed of by auction, at the
instance of the priest in church, to the highest bidder,
and the Limniotes will offer as much as two hundred
drachmas for this distinction. The successful competitor
takes the picture in his arms, and runs all the way up
the mountain-side, with the crowd following at his heels,
while the virtue proceeding from the picture is held to
lend speed to his feet. Near the chapel is a spring and
a shady grove of plane-trees, and there, after the cere-
mony, the people encamp and spend the afternoon in
dancing, a pastime for which the inhabitants of Eubcea
are famous.
The dancing of the peasants is somewhat solemn, and
well befits the semi-religious character of these occasions.
There is little abandonment to the hilarity of motion,
apparently little sensuous pleasure in the common
rhythmic step ; but the suggestion is ever recurring that
some unconscious tradition of an ancient sacred
significance preserves the decorum of the dancers.
It has even been maintained that in the various local
figure-dances traces of some former pantomimic action
may be detected ; and as each dance in the different
localities has its own particular song of accompaniment,
this has, perhaps, replaced the narrative or dramatic part,
while the dance has taken the place of the mimic
representation.
Four principal forms may be distinguished among
the many varieties of the popular dance. That called
the Leventikos 1 is executed either by two men or two
1 From AefievTTis, nimble or quick.
86 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
women, who stand side by side, a pace or two apart,
looking straight in front of them. They move forward
and backward, springing up and round, making long
turns, and then coming back to the original position,
each following the movements of the other, but always
dancing apart. The men frequently accompany their
steps with clapping of hands.
The Syrtos, a word signifying " drawn along," is danced
by men and women in a line ; but where there are male
dancers the leader is always a man. He holds with his
left hand the right of the next dancer, or is linked by a
handkerchief; the second in line similarly holds with his
or her left hand the right of the next dancer. The chain
winds round and round rather solemnly ; now one foot
is lifted, now the other ; and the bodies swing inwards
or outwards together, according to the rhythm of the
dancing song, or pipes and drum. 2
The Clistos z differs from the Syrtos only in the
manner in which the chain is linked. The leader has
the right hand free, and holds with the left the arm of
the second dancer. The second, with his right hand,
holds the right hand of the third, and with his left the
right hand of the fourth, and so hands are linked across
each alternate dancer along the whole line.
The Tsidmikos is a dance in which the leader of the
line does all the dancing ; the rest, who are linked to
him by a handkerchief held in his left hand, only follow
and keep time, generally singing in accompaniment a
martial air. When the leader gets tired, he drops to the
end of the line, and the second in order succeeds him.
- A note on the dance music will be found in an appendix.
3 K\«<tt6s = closed.
Village Festivals.
The leader, who often waves a handkerchief in his fr
right hand, follows the measure of the pipes or the son
moving alternately fast or slow, leaping into the air-
then at regular intervals passing under his own and his
companion's linked hands, and occasionally enlivening
the step by falling forward on the knee and springing
up with a rebound from the floor. The great art
consists in throwing the head as far back as possible
without losing balance, and in this the second dancer
supports him. Sometimes even, to show his suppleness
and agility, he will place a glass of water on his forehead
and dance a round without spilling its contents. This is
the favourite dance of the soldiers, and they may often
be seen engaged in it when the word is given to fall out
in the intervals of drill. It is also danced by the
Albanians, and its name would seem to imply that it
owes its origin to the Tzame or Schumik tribes.
Of these dances, and especially of the last, there are
numberless variations, and each one has its distinctive
name ; such are the Siganos, Pediktos, Sousta,
Ankaliastos, the Tservos, probably of Sclavonic origin,
and the Syndetos and Gonatistos, which are favourite
dances in the islands. In these last the dancers
advance with two or three forward steps to the right
and one to the left, then retire again, and wind round
to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument called
the lyra. The differences between these various dances
are all well defined, and they are looked upon as quite
distinct ; but the general effect produced is much the
same in all.
In Rhodes there is yet another method of forming
the line. The girl immediately behind the leader, who
88 TJie Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
will generally be her future bridegroom, holds fast by
his girdle with her right hand. His right is free, holding
the handkerchief which he waves, and with his left he
takes the right hand of the third in line, the second
being- linked to the fourth, and so on. On ancient
vases discovered in the island a dance extremely similar
to this Rhoditikos is found represented.
The famous dances at Megara, which are held on
Easter Tuesday, and on every subsequent feast-day
until the day of St. George (April 23, O.S.), are more
elaborate in character. The dances above described
may be seen there ; but it is the dance of the women
known as the Tratta, a word of Italian origin, but
similar in etymology to Syrtos, which has excited so
much curiosity. In the morning it may be seen outside
the town on a little plateau of hills among the trees, and
in the afternoon in the central square of the town. On
these occasions the whole population gathers at the
dancing place, while numbers of spectators flock in from
Athens, Corinth, and all the neighbourhood.
It has been suggested, and with much probability,
that this dance, as well as the Syrtos, is a rhythmic
adaptation of the familiar action of drawing in the
seine net. A row is formed of some twenty women,
each linking her hands to the right and left across her
immediate neighbour's to those of the dancer next but
one; so that here also, as in the Clistos, the line is joined
together by a chain of crossing arms. The married
women dance together, the unmarried women form
other chains, and a particularly pretty feature in the
festival are the lines of dancing children. The move-
ment is by the right, and the leader, who with her left
Village Festivals. 89
hand holds the right of the third dancer, and with her
right the right of her neighbour, has to draw the whole
line along ; the work is very hard, and they often grow
tired out under the hot spring sun, There is plenty of
rude music of pipes, drums, and fiddles in the square ;
but these are chiefly engaged in playing the accompani-
ments of the men who are dancing the handkerchief
dance, while the girls and women move to a kind of low
twittering song of their own, in time with the step,
which sounds like the note of a large company of
swallows. The body is turned to the right, and the
line advances obliquely with four long rapid steps, all
the feet moving together with perfect precision, the
points of their red slippers coming rhythmically forward,
and all the bodies swinging as one. After the four
advancing steps follow three shorter ones backward,
and then the line winds round like a snake, always
moving by the right, with a moment's pause as the
leader and the last dancer stand back to back. The
step appears to be extremely simple, not to say
monotonous, and yet the precision with which it is
accomplished, the simultaneousness of every movement,
cannot be easy to^ acquire ; while the general effect of
these serpentining chains of linked figures, in their
bright dresses and floating veils, advancing, retiring,
and winding round, is particularly graceful and pretty.
Throughout there is no confusion nor noise ; a sense of
moderation and restraint prevails. It is a sight not
easily forgotten this village festival — for Mcgara, though
it covers a large area, is scarcely more than a big
village — the blaze of colour in the skirts and aprons of
the women, the red caps and clean white kilts of the
90 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
men, the universal participation, the refined and pretty
features of the young girls, the handsome bronzed faces
of the pallikars — and all this in a wonderful setting of
mountain, sea, and Lies, under the April sun of
Greece.
The peasant's dance leads on by a natural sequence to
the consideration of the peasant marriage, for not only
is dancing one of the characteristic features of wedding
festivities, but it is also on the dancing ground, where all
the villagers assemble to make holiday, that marriages
are most commonly arranged. The social life of the
peasants in Greece abounds in symbolism and ceremony,
a ceremony which has very often long survived its
significance, and in no aspect of it is this more apparent
than in the customs which have attached themselves to
marriage. They are everywhere extremely elaborate,
and differ not a little in different parts according to
local and tribal tradition.
Marriages take place at all seasons, except during
the month of May ; but they are generally celebrated on
a Sunday, and the favourite seasons are the last weeks
before Lent, the late autumn after the vintage and the
olive gathering, and especially the last Sunday before
the Christmas fast begins. In Cyprus, the first Sunday
after the full moon is selected, and no marriages take
place there during leap-year.
Even in the larger towns such occasions are still
marked by a good deal of ceremonial. The wedding
gifts, which are generally of a practical kind, are boAe
round the streets in a procession of carriages, the first of
the file containing the bridal bed decked out with
flowers. The religious service is more often performed
Village Festivals. 91
•in the house than in church, at an improvised altar in
the middle of the room, radiant with candles, round
which stand the priests in gold-embroidered robes, and
the bride and bridegroom both crowned with wreaths of
orange-blossom. At the close of the ceremony the
priest and the newly-married couple join hands and
solemnly walk three times round the altar through the
incense fumes, while the wedding guests pelt them with
sweetmeats, a symbolism which has its origin in anti-
quity, 4 and which among the peasantry takes the form
of the smearing of honey on the lintel of the young
bride's door. An important part is played on these
occasions by the Koumbaros, as he is called, an
influential friend or relative, who, among the poorer
people, provides the wedding entertainment, and is
saddled with a number of other responsibilities should
the wife and children be left destitute. He it is who
holds the orange-blossom crowns over the head of the
bride and bridegroom until the time comes to put them
on, and changes them at the given moment in the
ceremonial. The same name of Koumbaros is applied
to godfathers by their godchildren, and reciprocally to
the godchildren by the godfathers, and is extended to
cover all the members of families between which such a
tie exists. It acts as a bar on intermarriage, and creates
an artificial relationship, which is most solemnly
regarded, so that a man of property and influence will
often have the whole countryside attached to his
interest and service by such a connection.
Marriages are rather a matter of contract and arrange-
ment than of inclination among the peasantry ; and,
4 KaraxtV/uara : see " Schol. ad Aristoph.," Hut., 76S.
92 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
indeed, the rules which govern them spread upward, and
have still considerable hold upon the educated and
wealthier classes. Such, for instance, is the notion that
it is wrong for the sons to marry until all the daughters
have been disposed of ; and, again, that the latter must
marry in order of seniority, so that the younger sister is
not entitled to contract an engagement while an elder
sister remains single. Under these circumstances, the first
and most anxious care of the parents is the provision of
a suitable dowry for their daughters, and to this the
brothers often contribute by their labour with exemplary
devotion, or provide it entirely if the father of the family
be dead.
In northern Greece and Epirus the prevailing customs
admit of a general description, though there are many
slight modifications depending on local usage. When a
man has made his choice, and secured the approval of
his future bride's parents, a day is immediately fixed for
the ceremony of the betrothal, until which the couple
must on no account be seen together. Upon the day
appointed, the parents on either side meet in the house
of the priest, where the young girl is introduced, veiled,
by two of her friends, and presented to her future
husband, who leads her up to the priest. The priest
blesses them, and rings are exchanged in his presence,
after which the obligation not to meet nor converse
until the wedding day is re-imposed. When the day
fixed for the marriage draws near, the invited guests and
relatives send presents, consisting generally of a goat,
a sheep, or a lamb dressed out with ribands, as their con-
tribution to the wedding fare. On the eve of the
ceremony the parents on either side provide a banquet
Village Festivals.
v &
93
for their guests ; and in the house of the bridegroom, at
any rate, this banquet is prolonged all through the night ;
the pipers and musicians attend, and many songs are
sung till day-break, when the young man, escorted by
his friends, sets out to fetch the bride. The bride, mean-
while, is dressed by her girl friends, who accompany the
robing, hairdressing, and veiling with appropriate songs ;
she then takes formal leave of her parents and her home,
and as the procession sets out for the bridegroom's house,
on foot if it be in the same village, or on horse or mule
back if it be at a distance, the wedding songs are
sung
" To-day the sky is fair.
And bright to-day the morning ;
To-day they hold their wedding,
The eagle and the dove.
Or, again —
" I leave a ' farewell ' for my village, a 'farewell ' for my kin ;
And I leave for my mother three phials of bitter savour ;
From one she will drink at morning, from the second one at noon,
And the bitterest one of all, the third, she will taste on holidays."
The priest is fetched, and heads the train with the
Koumbaros or the Paranymphos, the bridegroom's best
man (for the old name has survived), and they proceed to
church for the religious ceremony, unless it be performed
in the house of the bride. From church they return to
the husband's house, and all sit down to the table except
the bride, who remains standing and veiled in the
deferential attitude which is considered becoming in a
bride, until a certain point in the feast, where the
Paranymphos goes up to her and removes the veil. At
the marriage-banquets of the ancients it would appear
that all the women sat at a separate table with the bride
still veiled amongst them. The banquet is followed by
94 The Customs mid Lore of Modern Greece.
dances and much firing-off of guns and squibs. The
ceremonial ends with a curious custom the second or
third day after the wedding, when the friends and
relatives of the newly-married couple escort them in
state to the village spring or fountain. The bride here
throws sweetmeats into the water, and fills a new jar,
after which the day is kept as a holiday and dances take
place round the spring.
In the villages of Mount felion the local custom pre-
sents certain interesting peculiarities. In the first place,
marriages are arranged between two families by a third
person as intermediary, related to neither house. The
priest is therefore generally selected, and conducts the
necessary bargain as to the amount of dowry which will
form a sufficient inducement to the bridegroom. The
latter is not bound here by the obligation which else-
where prevails to refrain from speaking to his future
bride until the wedding day. On the Thursday before the
Sunday fixed for the marriage the formal ceremony of
publicly kneading the wedding loaves takes place both in
the house of the bride.and bridegroom. The bridegroom's
male relatives and friends who conduct the festivities
on his behalf are known by the name of Vratimi,
and one of these, whose father and mother are both
alive, is selected to knead the dough, while the
others standing round throw into the kneading-
trough presents of money, which become his property.
On Friday morning the bride and bridegroom partake of
the communion together, and Saturday is spent in
feasting in the houses of the two families concerned.
On the morning of Sunday the bride's friends bear her
presents to the bridegroom, while she receives his in
Village Festivals. 95
similar fashion; these presents consisting generally of.
articles of dress to be worn at the ceremony. Then the
Vratimi repair once more to the bride's house to fetch
the dowry and household gear, which is loaded on the
backs of mules amid much discharge of guns, while
the bride's mother throws upon each load a piece of raw
cotton, a custom which is repeated by the bridegroom's
mother on their arrival at his house. This is, perhaps,
symbolical of future abundance in the fruits of the
soil ; and if no very satisfactory explanation is forth-
coming, we may point to the analogous custom found in
Laconia and elsewhere of throwing cotton seed upon
a newly-married couple. The actual crowning of the
bride here takes place in her future home, to which
she is conveyed with the usual state, to the sound' of
pipes and musical instruments.
In the Morea the usage is tolerably similar, but of
course the nearer to the highway and the withering touch
of civilization, the less rigidly the old formalities are
observed. At a little village in the neighbourhood of
Sparta I noted two or three customs that were
particularly characteristic, such as, for instance, that
after the crowning, which here takes place in the house
of the bride's father, the newly-married couple take
their stand on a high wooden press, or on the sofa,
if there be one, while the rest of the company surround
them singing songs or making speeches in their honour,
to which they frequently bow their acknowledgments.
Rice and cotton seed is thrown over them on their
departure ; and upon their arrival at the bridegroom's
cottage, his mother stands waiting at the door holding a
glass of honey and water in her hand. From this glass
g6 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
the bride must drink, that the words of her lips may
become sweet as honey ; while the lintel of the door is
smeared with the remainder, that strife may never enter
in ; and in the meantime one of the company breaks a
pomegranate on the threshold.
The symbolism of the honey, which recurs in many
places, has a curious parallel in the ancient law of Solon,
which prescribed that a newly-married couple upon
entering the bridal chamber should eat a quince
together, in order that their conversation might ever be
sweet as the savour of the fruit The use of honey is no
doubt as old or older, and probably the marriage custom
differed in its details from valley to valley in ancient
days much as it does now, while preserving a general
uniformity.
The usage of prolonging the banquet through the
night until the wedding morning seems to be universal.
While travelling once on a November night from
Pyrgos to Patras, I halted at Gasturi, a village of Elis,
to rest the horses. From a cottage by the roadside
came the lively sound of pipes and beating of drums, and,
impelled by curiosity as to what such strains might
portend in a quiet village at an hour long after midnig ,
I opened the door with some hesitation. It was a two-
roomed cottage, and in the outer chamber a broad table
was spread with many meats and a host of wine-bottles,
while round it sat some twenty peasants in their white
kilts and goatskin cloaks, for the night was very cold.
The proprietor was a well-to-do peasant from Sparta,
and his son was to be married the next day. The old
mother was busy with much serving, and her pretty
daughter, who was assisting her, was the only other
Village Festivals. gy
woman present. In a corner two gipsies from the
neighbouring village of Trajano were blowing on shrill
wooden pipes as if their cheeks would burst, producing a
wild and piercing sound like that of many bagpipes,
while a third was beating a drum. The pipes and the
music were exactly similar to the instruments and airs
one hears among the Egyptian villages, and in the
narrow space the noise was literally deafening. I was
made welcome, and accommodated with a seat at the
board. " Come and make merry," they cried; " we have
lots to eat and lots to drink ;" and thereupon the old lady
divided little cubes of meat imperfectly cooked and much
spiced, and impaling them on the first steel fork which
came to hand, and which had already done duty for
several hours, presented them to my unwilling lips, while
my tumbler was kept constantly replenished with
resinous wine. The pipes screamed louder and louder ■
the barbaric music excited the wedding guests, who rose
and swayed their bodies like dervishes to the air,
clinking their glasses and joining in a wild chorus.
Then each of them in turn, as the impulse seized him, rose,
and pulling a hundred-drachma note from his pocket,
folded it, and inserted it between the gipsy's red cap and
his forehead, till a fringe of them surrounded his head.
At last there was a breathing space of silence, and the
notes were transferred to the piper's pockets. This pro-
cess, like the filling of our glasses, was repeated several
times, and the wealth and lavish expenditure of the
community surprised me not a little, until I afterwards
learned that a strict account is kept by each of what he
has given, and that in the cooler air of morning the
money is returned, and one per cent, only retained by
H
98 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
the gipsies. It would seem, therefore, that there is a good
deal of vanity displayed in paying the p'iper. At the
same time it is difficult not to imagine that when the
drinking continues with the lanterns until dawn, there
may arise some slight confusion in the accounts, to the
obvious benefit of the musicians. It was past one
o'clock when I arrived, and they had only just got to
the dessert ; the next day, (Sunday), they said, after the
ceremony the feast would be resumed, and Monday
also would be spent as a holiday. The scene was a
bright but strange one : the old mother dancing before
me with flowing glasses in her hand, the quick welcome
and ready hospitality, the costume of the wedding guests,
and the wild physiognomy of the pipers in that little
cottage room, with the cold November stars burning out-
side. The next day at Patras it seemed as if all the
world were being married, for it was the eve of the long
fast which precedes Christmas, and in every street I met
wedding processions headed by the priest and the
Koumbaros on their way to fetch the bride.
It is interesting to compare with the usages described
the customs prevailing in some of the islands, and
especially in those in which, under the Turkish domina-
tion, the manners and population are essentially Greek.
In Rhodes, the wedding ceremony begins with an
exchange of presents ; the bridegroom sends his bride
a skirt, a braided jacket, a pair of shoes, and a veil
embroidered with gold, and receives in return a silken
shirt, and a tobacco pouch embroidered by her own
hands. The bride is then solemnly dressed by her
friends in the bridal clothes sent by the bridegroom ;
her hair is cut in front so as only to cover half the
Village Festivals. 99
forehead, while the rest is plaited into several small
plaits hanging down behind ; then the veil is put on,
and the palms of her hands are anointed with cinnamon.
After this musicians arc introduced, who accompany
their strains with pantomimic gestures, passing their
instruments over the head of the bride, while those present
throw money to them. Much the same, in the mean-
time, takes place in the bridegroom's house, after which
the two parties proceed to the church, and are thence
solemnly conducted to the new dwelling, which constitutes
the dowry of the bride. The husband on arriving dips
his finger in a cup of honey and traces a cross over the
door, while those present cry aloud, " Be good and
sweet as this honey is." A pomegranate is placed on
the threshold, which the young husband crushes with
his foot as he enters, followed by his wife, over whom
the wedding guests throw corn and cotton seeds and
orange-flower water. Within, he takes his place on a
chair in the middle of the room, the bride sitting on a
pile of cushions set against the wall, while the musicians
again surround them, singing their praises, and passing
the instruments over their heads. The bride then
kneels and kisses the hands of her husband's father
and mother, after which she is conducted to a neigh-
bouring house, where food is prepared for her, while the
girls sing to the clashing of a kind of rude cymbal. At
night the dancing begins, and festivities continue during
two whole days. The patron saint of the new house is
not forgotten, and the water on which floats the oil in
the lamp before his ikon is replaced by wine. After the
wedding, it is usual to send to all the wedding guests a
cake made with honey and sesame. 6
Biliotti et Cottret, "L'lle de Rhock .
II 2
IOO The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
As far away as the distant island of Cyprus we shall
find the same general forms prevailing, with one or two
very individual features which are, perhaps, not to be
found elsewhere. Here when two families of the
peasantry have agreed on a marriage alliance, the future
bridegroom and his parents are entertained by the parents
of the bride, and the father welcomes them to table with
a distich, which may be rendered :
1 ' My friends are welcome here from miles and miles away,
A thousand, thousand ducats less dear to me than they."
To which the bridegroom's father replies :
" We come to eat and drink with you,
Your love to win, and love bestow."
At this banquet the future bride does not appear. A
few days later the ceremony of betrothal takes place,
and a formal contract is drawn out, in which the amount
of the bride's dowry, as well as the property which the
young man will receive from his father, is specified.
Some days before the wedding the women and girls of
the village assemble at the spring or river side, and there
takes place a solemn washing of the fabric of the marriage
bed. The great antiquity of this custom as a preliminary
of the wedding festival is, perhaps, suggested by a line in
the " Odyssey," where on that famous washing-morning in
Phgeacia, Nausicaa, in craving her father's permission,
makes the raiment of her brothers the plea for her
expedition to the river side.
cu'SeTO yap OaXepbv ydjxov i^ovo/xyvai
irarpl <£i'A.co. 6
The filling of the mattress of the marriage bed is also
6 "Od." vi. 66, " For she shrank from speaking of her own ripe marriage
to her father dear."
Village Festivals. 101
■S5
a ceremony performed in the presence of the assembled
friends and kinsmen, who throw pieces of money into the
stuffing, which remain there until a year has elapsed*
when the mattress is ripped open, and the money put to
use. On the Saturday before the crowning, the
solemnity of bathing the bride and bridegroom takes
place in their respective houses — a custom also
universally observed by the ancients, who employed
for this purpose the water of particular springs, such
as the fountain of Kallirrhoe at Athens. 7
Two curious episodes mark the progress of the
bridegroom to the house of the bride on the wedding
morning. If he belong to the same village, he
is carried there by his friends, who, crossing arms
and joining hands, form a kind of chair, on which
he sits ; if, on the other hand, he come from a distance,
he and all his retinue arrive on horseback. The
young men of the bride's village go out to meet them,
and attempt to tear him from his horse ; his friends
endeavour to ward off the attack, and often the horseplay
degenerates into serious earnest. Should he be
dismounted, his comrades carry him into the village on
their shoulders, or in the manner alluded to above ; but
it is their ambition that he should, if possible, ride up to
where his bride awaits him, and his triumph is not to
draw bridle till safe in the court of her house. As he is
about to pass in, a fowl is brought and held down by
head and feet upon the threshold of the door ;
the bridegroom takes an axe, cuts off the head, and only
then may enter. 8
7 Thuc, ii. 15.
Sakellarios, KvirpiaKa. Athens, 1890.
102 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Thus from island to island we shall find an infinite
number of local usages and traditions modifying the
general uniformity of the ancient rite, while in every region
the popular muse has stamped a different individuality
upon the lyrics and songs which accompany each stage of
the proceedings. I will quote but one more instance
from the island of Skarpanto (Carpathos), which lies half
way between Rhodes and Crete, and which, like its
greater neighbours, received a Dorian colony. The
interesting feature of the ceremonial here is the progress
of the bridegroom to the house of the bride on the
wedding morning. A girl precedes carrying a vessel full
of water containing some aromatic herb, a reminiscence
probably of the old lustral solemnity which still survives
in Cyprus. Arrived at the door of her house, he is
greeted by the mother of the bride, who touches the nape
of his neck with a censer containing incense, a proceed-
ing which is said by the islanders to symbolize pros-
perity in husbandry. She further gives him a present,
called embatikiou — that is to say, " the gift of in-going " —
and then places on the threshold a rug or blanket folded,
with a stick resting on one of the corners. The
bridegroom advances his right foot, breaks the stick, and
passes in ; and this is said to symbolize the future sub-
mission of the wife.
The kindred manners of the Albanians and their
capacity for assimilating Hellenic usages have been
alluded to, and this portion of the subject would there-
fore be incomplete without a brief description of the
ceremonies prevailing among the Christian Albanians of
the Orthodox creed, which, it will be observed, resemble
the Greek very closely, with the important distinction
Village Festivals. 103
that the women, as a rule, receive no dowries, and that
the bridegroom, as it were, purchases his bride.
Marriages are arranged by the parents, and on the
Saturday before the wedding the bridegroom sends his
betrothed her trousseau and a sum of money, which is
practically the price for which she is purchased, and in
virtue of which he becomes her absolute master. The
wedding itself is celebrated on Sunday. On the pre-
vious Monday corn is ground for the wedding banquet,
while songs and salvoes of firing accompany the pro-
cession to the mill. On the Thursday the wood
for the fires is solemnly brought in, and the baking
of cakes takes place : the dough must be kneaded by a
young girl whose parents are both alive, and special
songs accompany this ceremony. A curious feature
in this part of the proceedings is that one of the girls
is selected to represent the bridegroom, and puts on
his clothes and weapons. She pursues the real bride-
groom, and tries to smear his face with dough ; while he
and his friends throw pieces of money into the kneading-
trough, which fall to her lot to keep. When work is
over, dancing begins. On the Saturday the bridegroom's
nearest relatives join him, each contributing a lamb to
the feast, and dancing and carousing are continued
throughout the day and night. Meanwhile, all is quiet
in the bride's house.
Early on Sunday the guests assemble at the bride-
groom's, each bringing bread, wine, and a small money
contribution to the wedding banquet. Then they repair
in procession to the bride's house, the Pappas walking in
front, or riding on a mule if the distance be great ; the
women close the train, leading a horse or mule decked
104 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
out for the bride, while songs in her honour are
sung on the way. The bride's mother receives them at
the door, where the bridegroom kisses her hand ; then
she sprinkles him with water from a vessel held for the
purpose, with a dipper made of flowers. She also
gives him a handkerchief, which she places on his left
shoulder, giving a similar present also to the Vlam, the
bridegroom's friend or best man. The men then go
to a chamber, apart, where a meal is prepared
for them, while the bride is dressed by the women in
another. Last of all, the Vlam goes in to the bride, and
puts on her girdle and her shoes. And hereupon occurs
a curious feature in the ceremony. The Vlam has to
steal two spoons or other objects, which are placed ready
for him, and which are duly restored later on. This
would seem to suggest either a reminiscence of the
ancient forcible abduction of the bride, or represents the
propitiation of Nemesis during the general rejoicings by
some tangible loss.
Then the procession is reorganized, and all proceed to
the bridegroom's house, the Vlam attending the bride, to
see that she does not fall off her horse. On arriving,
particular care is taken that the threshold should be
crossed with the right foot foremost. The bride is
unveiled by the Vlam, the veil being lifted with some silver
instrument, such as the handle of a dagger or yataghan,
whereupon the wedding ceremony and the crowning of
the bride and bridegroom follow according to the rites
of the Orthodox Church. During the meal which ensues,
the bride stands with bowed head and crossed arms in a
corner of the room. The afternoon is spent in singing
and dancing, and the bride remains with the women in
the evening.
Village Festivals. 105
On the Monday the wedding guests witness the
symbolical eating of bread and honey together by the
bride and bridegroom, and then a procession is formed
to the village well, where they sprinkle one another with
water. On this day the bridegroom entertains his
father-in-law, and on the following day is feasted by
him in return, together with the chief wedding guests.
The wedding ceremony is then closed, but custom
requires that the wife should be excused from all heavy
work during the first year of her marriage.
The marriages of the mountain shepherds, and
especially of the genuine Vlachs, exhibit a curious
survival from remote antiquity, when, like the Sabine
maidens, brides were carried off by force. A large
party strongly armed come down to fetch the bride,
and a concerted show of resistance to her abduction
is made — guns are fired, and there is much display
of mimic battle, till at length the willing bride is borne
off on horseback, surrounded by her suitor's comrades ;
whence comes a proverb often quoted in Greece, " Drive
on, and never mind my tears ! "
The various races, Greek, Albanian, and Wallach,
marry severally among their own folk, and mixed
marriages are rare. The chastity of the peasantry is
extreme, the family tie strong, and women are generally
well-treated, though a considerable portion of the heavy
work falls to their share, which tends to age them
prematurely ; while divorce, so prevalent in the upper
class, and rendered so facile by the Church, is quite-
unknown in village life.
9 Hahn, " Albanesische Studien."
io6
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTH, DESTINY, AND DEATH.
IN this and the following chapters I propose to deal
with a number of ideas and superstitions which consti-
tute the real spiritual equipment of the people in Greece.
In the ereater number of them the connection with
the old pagan mode of thought will be sufficiently
apparent. Some are disguised under a thin veil of
Christian assimilation, but many still wear the classic
garb unaltered. They are, no doubt, for the most part
superstitions which are common to all primitive people,
and which constitute among them the genuine popular
religion ; but a special interest attaches to them here,
because they have retained so vividly that individual
form in which the ideality of the ancient Greek en-
veloped them, and in which they have become familiar to
us. That the Church in Greece to-day still has a strong
hold upon the people, there is no doubt ; but it is rather
as a disciplinary and national institution than as a
spiritual force. The ignorance of the clergy is so great
that it would be idle to expect of the people even a
rudimentary understanding of the intent of doctrines to
which they all subscribe. The result is a curious mixture
of Christian symbolism with pagan tradition, an uncon-
scious effort to harmonize inherited superstition with the
dogma of authority. The peasant observes his fasts
strictly, abstains from manual labour on the days pre-
scribed, believes implicitly in the miraculous power of
Birth, Destiny \ and Death. 107
his patron saint and the ikon in which his presence is
localized; but the human saint is the limit of his spiritual
capacity ; and much as he would shudder at the accusa-
tion of any taint of paganism, the ruling of the Fates is
more immediately real to him than Divine Omnipotence,
and the sunless Hades than the kingdom of Heaven.
The Greek child at birth is surrounded by an environ-
ment of spiritual influences, and evil spirits, on the look-
out for the control of its destiny, abound in the house in
which a woman has just been delivered of a child. These
are most readily rendered innocuous by fire, and at night,
therefore, the house should only be entered after flame
has been touched by the hand. From sunrise to sunset
the outer doors must be kept closed for fear of the
Nereids, 1 who are sure to be abroad on such an occasion,
and anxious to exchange one of their own offspring for
a human child. The newly-born infant is subjected to a
very singular treatment, being washed in luke-warm wine
with myrtle leaves, after which it is generally covered
with a layer of salt. This is, however, probably rather
sanitary than symbolical in intention. When the salt is'
being washed off, money is thrown into the water by the
relatives, and becomes the perquisite of the midwife.
In the island of Rhodes an elaborate ceremonial may
still be witnessed. On the eighth day after birth the child
is subjected to a final aromatic bath of wine and myrtle
leaves, and is then for the first time placed by the mid-
wife in a cradle surrounded by a number of lighted
tapers ; its lips are touched with honey by another child,
who must, according to prescribed usage, be the eldest
of a family, saying, " Be thou as sweet as this honey."
1 Nereids, see chap. vii.
io8 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
The midwife then comes forward with a loaf of bread
under the left arm, and a censer in her right hand ; the
infant is placed in her arms, and she advances three times
to the door, exchanging good-byes and being welcomed
back anew, on behalf of the child, by those who take
part in the ceremony. She then incenses the ikons
throughout the house, and restores the child to its mother ;
after which, collecting the tapers which were burning
round the cradle, she makes three crosses out of them ;
one is hung over the door, one by the bedside, and one
under the ikon — from this moment the mother takes over
the exclusive care of the infant. 2
In Cyprus, at the conclusion of a somewhat similar
procedure, the nurse solemnly carries the infant round
the hearth, on which a fire is expressly lighted. Here
also when the infant's first tooth appears the friends of
the family assemble, songs are sung celebrating the event-
and the child is bathed in water and boiled wheat. After
which thirty-two of the boiled grains are strung upon a
thread, and stitched to its cap or bonnet, to propitiate the
cutting of the teeth. 3
In Athens, among the poorer classes, it is customary
to cover the newly-born child with a dress made from
an old shirt of the father's ; while under the pillow is
placed a black-handled knife, a gold coin, and a gospel
in the case of a boy, or ornaments and jewels if it be a
girl, significant of the gifts that life should bring —
courage, and wealth, and piety. The mother is also
subjected to a somewhat tyrannical discipline. For
forty days she must not be seen ; then, after a bath,
2 Biliotti et Cottret, " L'lle de Rhodes."
3 Sakellarios, KviroiaKa.
Birth, Destiny, ami Death. [09
taken with much ceremonious detail, she goes to church-
a relic of the ancient rule for purification. The day
upon which she may first get up is definitely prescribed,
as well as the manner in which her hair should be
dressed; and when she does rise, it is proper that she
should lean at first upon an iron spit, while for a long
time silence is imposed upon her, " lest the Fates should
snatch her speech." These customs are none the less
rigidly observed because the origin of many of them is
lost.'
Soon after the birth of the child appear the Fates,
under their ancient name of Moirai, to determine, like
the fairies of Northern lore, the fortunes of its life.
jThey are generally supposed to be three in number,
though it would appear that in the island of Zante they
are held to be twelve, while one of them has the
especial attribute of the Queen of the Fates." They
are conceived as wrinkled old women dressed in
black, who inhabit mountain tops, and, according to
one tradition, the summit of Olympus. They are
also frequenters of caves and grottoes, and there
especially invoked under one of their attributes, of
which more hereafter. The most universal superstition
with regard to the Moirai, and that still prevalent
4 The christening generally takes place before a week has elapsed.
Baptism, according to the Orthodox Church, involves complete immersion
three times ; and the priests are especially instructed how to hold the child,
so as to cover the mouth and nostrils with the fingers while it is dipped in
the font. After immersion, the child is passed through the air in the form
of a cross, and confirmed by anointment with consecrated oil. The god-
father is variously called in different parts Koumbaros, Anadochos, or
Nonos (godmother, Nona), and the relationship involved extends to the
whole family of the godchild.
5 See " Volksleben der Neugriechen," by Dr. Bernhard Schmidt, who
made a special study of the folklore of /ante.
no The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
in Athens, is their appearance on the third night
after the child's birth, to decide upon the course of
its life. In some parts, however, it was observed by
Pouqueville, they are expected on the fifth day ; and
in certain islands their advent is postponed until the
seventh. In Epirus a distinct function is assigned to
each of the three; one bestows fortune, another mis-
fortune, while the third spins the thread which determines
the length of life.
Although the period of their visitation seems to differ
in different districts, the manner of receiving them
appears to be universally similar. The dogs must be
tied up, and superfluous furniture should be removed in
order that they may not trip. Moreover, the mother
must not be left alone about the time when they are
due, for the Fates are ever envious of child-bearing, and
might do her an injury. They are propitiated by a
banquet ; cakes, honey, sweetmeats, bread, and wine,
all or some of these are spread upon a table on the
night prescribed ; while in Corfu gold is also displayed,
as though even Fate could be amenable to corruption.
In the island of Kassos three lamps are also lit upon
the table, one for the Baptist, one for the Virgin, and
one for the Saviour, which is probably an instance of
the superimposition of a Christian application on the
three lamps originally lighted in honour of the three
Fates, who are then supposed to enter in.
On these occasions if the Moirai are mentioned at all,
it is only with honeyed speech, that they may not be
offended; and it is, perhaps, owing to their proximity,
and the vis maligna which they are apt to exercise, that
all allusion to the beauty or strength of the child is
BirtJi, Destiny, and Death. i i i
carefully avoided ; or if the word should slip out
unawares, it is immediately atoned for by one of the
traditional expiatory formulae. The destiny of the
child is supposed to be written by the Moirai on the
nose or forehead, and any little mark or abrasion of the
skin found there is taken as evidence of the writing, and
called to fioipa)/jLa rwv Mocpcov, " the fating of the Fates.'
What once has been written (to ypa/xfiivo) has rarely
been reversed, nor do they ever spin the lot of a wholly
happy life.
Nevertheless, there is another aspect of the Fates who
preside over marriage and childbirth, under which they
are invoked in caves and grottoes, which would seem to
imply the belief that in this respect they are amenable
to prayer and propitiation, though it is, perhaps, rather
with interrogation as to the future that women approach
them than with invocation to change the doom assigned.
A custom, which is not quite extinct, is described by
; writers of the last century and the beginning of this as
j generally prevalent among unmarried girls, of offering
i cakes made of honev in caves to the Moirai, with a view
jlto hastening marriage. Pausanias relates that among
the Sykionians honey was used as a libation in sacrific-
ing to the Eumenides, and similarly on the altars of the
Moirai. Athens has now become so large a capital and
so subject to Western influences that the old world
superstitions are more rarely met with, but former
travellers describe such invocations to the Moirai with
offerings of honey, salt, and bread, made especially on
nights of the new moon, in the neighbourhood of the
Panathenaic Stadium, or near the rock spring in the
6 Paus., "Cor." chap. j^qJ
112 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
Ilissus bed known as the fountain of Kallirhoe. In con-
nection with these localities it is interesting to notice
that on one of the heights which form the sides of the
Stadium, there stood, according to Philostratus, a temple
of Fortune ; while, with regard to the latter, Pausanias
describes a temple of Aphrodite " in the gardens," near
the Ilissus, as you proceed from the columns of
Olympian Zeus— that is to say, close by the fountain — in
which there was an inscription alluding to Aphrodite as
the oldest of the Fates. 7 The intimate connection
between Aphrodite and these deities is established by
various inscriptions, by a fragment of Epimenides, 8
and especially by the Orphic Hymn, where she is
described as their ruler, and again as the " Mother of
Necessity." A similar cult observed by Pouqueville in
a cavern on the slopes of Mount Rigani in yEtolia, where
the Moirai are propitiated with honey cakes, recalls the
mention by Pausanias of a cave near Naupaktos, in which
Aphrodite was worshipped, and more especially entreated
by widows who desired to be married again. 9 Dodwell
also witnessed such an offering of cakes to the Moirai in
the rock chambers under the Museum Hill at Athens,
popularly known as the prison of Socrates, which are
now closed with gates, so that these female votaries are
perforce excluded ; and he deeply scandalized his
attendant by removing the delicacy in question, and
giving it to the donkey which had carried his camera
obscura up the hill. 1 Wordsworth, again, observed a
similar rite in a grotto near the village of Kephissia,
7 Paus., "Att.," chap. xix.
8 Schol. Soph., CEd. Col. 42.
9 Paus., " Phoc," chap, xxxviii.
1 Dodwell, " Tour through Greece."
Birth, Destiny, and Death. 1 1 3
where the falling of a pebble from the roof was supposed
to signify the acceptance of a prayer by the Fates.
These are the principal functions of the Destinies,
according to popular tradition in Greece. The reappear-
ance at the deathbed is more rare, though a picturesque
superstition is found in Zante, that when a man dies,
" his Moirai " sorrow for him, and put on the dark dress
of mourning.
Side by side with the notion of a dominant Fate
directing the course of human life, is found in many
parts of the country the conception common to most
Christian peoples of an angel in charge of the soul,
which is warned or encouraged by this spiritual influence.
One is at once reminded of the demon of Socrates, the
genius of the Romans, and the guardian angel of the
Christians. This angel, the good angel, as he is called,
is frequently found contrasted with and struggling against
an opposing influence — the bad angel, or sometimes the
devil himself; and the same idea is perhaps implied by
the common expression of the good or evil " shadow."
Sometimes the good angel is permanently scared away,
and the destiny of the man is left in sole charge of his
darker genius. Very universal is the idea that in the
hour of death the angel becomes visible to the dying
man, and a number of phrases are found in different
districts for the agony of death which refer to this belief:
such as "he sees his angel," 2 or, again, "his angel shadows
him." 3 After death the angel takes the soul, which
resides in the interior of the body, ' and issues forth
2 In Cerigo and Kythnos.
3 In Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus.
4 Whence the popular phrase for a pain in the stomach, jxk novti 77
\pvxv fJ.ov — literally, "my soul hurts me."
I
114 TJie Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
from the mouth, as in the Homeric poems, to bear it away.
The soul retains the form which the body wore in life,
and not unfrequently has wings ; or, again, it takes the
form of a small winged child, 5 or even that of a butterfly.
It is borne by the angels over the spots which it has
known in life, and its good and evil deeds are revealed
to it ; and, according to a Cypriote song, after remaining
with the angel forty days, it is carried into the presence
of God. But more commonly it is the archangel Michael
whose duty it is to convey the departed into the presence
of their Maker ; and his appearance and equipment, as he
is represented in religious pictures, prove him to be the
direct successor of the ancient Hermes Psychopompos.
Such are some of the popular notions with regard to
death, which, in spite of the direct reminiscence of
antiquity in the last mentioned and the faint echo of
the Psyche myth, are shared by the Greeks in common
with most simple Christian folk, and suggest the
influence of the Church working on the old traditions.
But co-existent with these in strange confusion, and of
far more general prevalence in the popular attitude
towards death and the after life, are a number of ideas
directly connected with the grimmer conceptions of the
ancient world.
Of these the most important and the most widely
disseminated are the superstitions connected with
Charos, or Charontas, whose name is of course identical
with Charon. 6 But it is no longer as the boatman of
the forgetting river, who
" Batte col remo qualunque s'adagia,"
5 At Arachova and in Zante. Schmidt, "Volksleben der Neugriechen. "
6 Compare the analogy of the substitution of 8p&Kos for Spanuv in certain
dialects ci the modern language.
BirtJi, Destiny, and Death. 1 1 5
that Charon reappears in the popular tradition, but
rather as the angel of death, and the agent of Divine
Omnipotence. His character as the direct emissary of
the Deity is illustrated in a popular song, where the
following lines occur : —
" O Charos, I beseech thee, and I entreat thee, God,
To grant me yet ten other years to live." 7
or, again, where the line is put into his own mouth :
" For God has sent me hither to take thy soul away." 8
The identification of Charon with Thanatos occurs
[more than once in classical authors, 9 and the conception
'of the ferryman of Styx is unknown to Homer ; so that
it is not impossible that we have here surviving in
[popular superstition a still older and less complex idea.
He is pictured in the folk-poetry and folk-language as
an old man, sorrowful of face, and inexorable in
melancholy austerity ; like the Walkyre of the Norse-
men, or the rider of the pale horse in the Apocalypse, he
is constantly alluded to as on horseback —
" I see Charos approaching on horseback through the fields ;
Black he is, and black his raiment, black the horse he rides on,
And black the flowers are that spring up at his side." 1
Or, again, in that remarkable poem admired and trans-
lated by Goethe, which is quoted in full on page 286,
where the vis maligna of his presence casts a shadow and
a weirdness upon the mountains as he rides across then:,
driving the young before him, leading the old behind,
7 Lelekos, " Demotike Anthologia," p. 151.
8 Chasioti's " Collection of Popular Songs."
b Cp. Bianor (1st century a.d.) in the Greek Anthology.
HavTa Xdpoiv &Tr\ij<jre, ri rbv viov tfpiraaas ai'Vws
"AttclXov ; ov cos (rfv, k&v ddvf yr]pa.\4os ;
lelekos, " Epidorpion,*' p iXp.
I 2
1 1 6 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
with the little dead children slung at his saddle-bow.
He is dressed in sable garments, and bears a sword to
strike with ; 2 and sometimes, like " far-darting " Apollo
or Artemis, he has his quiver full of arrows. Again, he
appears as a hero in strength and stature, wrestling
with human nerve and sinew, and using craft if
necessary to overcome ; or as a monster in size and
appearance, dark of visage, like the black Thanatos of
Euripides, 3 with the flashing eyes which Virgil, 4 doubt-
less quoting popular tradition, as was his wont, attributed
to Charon —
" The sun flashed in his hair, the lightning in his eyes." 5
Or again —
" Like lightning flashed his glance, his skin was hue of fire,
Two mountains were his shoulders, and like a tower his head. " 6
iiHe has, moreover, a Protean power of metamorphosis,
land appears at times in the form of an eagle, a swallow,
[or a snake. In a fresco in the monastery of Vatopedion
on Mount Athos is a representation of Charos, as is
indicated by the inscription beneath, in the form of a
skeleton with a scythe upon his shoulder, where he is
thus incorporated among the ministers of the Christian
Deity, just as Dante in the " Inferno," and Michael-
angelo in the Sistine Chapel, included the ferryman
of Hades in their visions of Judgment. 7 Far rarer
are instances in the popular poetry of his appearance as
a boatman, though traces of such a conception are said
to exist in the island of Zante, and a Greek author "has
s Cp. Eurip., " Alkestis," S43.
3 Troad, 131 5.
4 " Stant lumina flamma," /En. vi. 300.
5 6 Passow, Carmina Popularia.
7 Politis, MeXeT77 7repi rod f3iov tuv vewrepwv 'EXXj/i/oc, B. , p. 256.
Birth, Destiny, and Death. 1 1 7
described the myth of the ferryman as still surviving
among certain Greeks of Asia Minor, who, moreover,
placed between the lips of the dead a coin which they
call TreiparUiov, signifying " passage-money." 8 Then,
exists, it is true, among the Mainotes a song in which
Charos is represented as a boatman, u but in this instance
he has none of his ancient characteristics ; and the con-
ception is easily accounted for in the wild peninsula, the
only passes into which were perpetually blockaded, so
that the inhabitants, engaged in seafaring and piratical
pursuits, would more naturally figure Charos as arriving
by sea than as riding over their pathless mountains.
A reminiscence of the ancient mistrust of Nemesis is
found in the Charos legends ; it is ill to speak lightly
of him, or to take too great pride in one's strength, to
glory in youth and health, and to defy his might. A
little bird bears the word to his ear, and he is tempted to
put it to the proof forthwith. l Sometimes he measures
his strength with the strong in jumping matches or
wrestling bouts, which almost always end in the same
way, though in the Cretan version of a song which is
otherwise nearly identical with one found by Fauricl in
Thessaly, he spares a young shepherd who has wrestled
well with him, because his wedding crowns are still
hanging in the Church, and even Charos honours the
love of married life. 2 This, however, is one of the few
instances to be found in the Charos songs in which he is
moved by prayer ; inexorable he is as the law of nature
8 Schmidt, " Volksleben dor Xeugriechen," p. 237.
;) Translated on p. 283.
1 See the poem translated on p. 280, " Charos and the Maiden."
- This poem, as well as the Thessalian version, is translated on pp, 281,
282.
n8 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
he represents : " deaf and hearing not," " cruel," " crafty,"
" a subtle thief," " a prince of Klephts." Grimmest of all
is the picture given of him in the Cyprian songs of the
hero Digenis, the old man of eighty years who wrestled
with Charos for life ; and where Death gripped, the blood
flowed ; where Digenis gripped, bones were broken ; so
three days and nights they wrestled, till Digenis had the
mastery, and he opened his arms and gave praise to
God. But Charos is rebuked by God, " I sent thee to
take life, and not to wrestle" ; he therefore has recourse to
craft, and taking the form of a golden eagle, lights on
the head of Digenis, and driving the talons through his
skull, draws out the soul that way. 3
In the Ionian islands Charos is sometimes spoken of
as married ; his- wife is called Charontissa ; and there
exists an old song which gives a grimly grotesque
picture of their table, spread with its feast at sunset : the
linen is black instead of white, the plates are upside
down, the service is performed by the severed hands of
the brave, and children's heads are piled high upon the
board.
Among Athenian Paramythia, or folk-stories, such as
have been collected from the mouths of old women, and
thus saved from oblivion, is a curious and picturesque one
in which Charos figures in the character of Koumbaros,
and as such recognizes the obligation to do a good turn
to the family with which he is thus connected.
" The children of a couple who had celebrated their marriage in
May in violation of usage and tradition, did not live. Four had
3 Sakellarios, " Kypriaka." Legends and songs of the hero Digenis are
found in nearly every part of Greeee, but most of all in Cyprus. They
are perhaps scattered fragments of a long epic history.
Birthy Destiny, mid Beat It. 1 19
already died, and when the fifth was born, they resolved to choose
the first passer-by as his Koumbdros. So seeing first by chance
an old man in rags, they called him in, and he duly went through
the necessary formalities, and disappeared. One day, some years
later, the husband came upon him, and asked him why he had
never seen him in the meantime. ' It had been better,' replied
the Koumbaros, ' if you had not seen me now: I am Charos.'
He was then entreated by the husband to reveal when he meant to
take him ; so Charos led him to a solitary church, where he showed
him a great number of lamps, some of which had much, and others
but little oil in them, while others again were at their last flicker.
" Every man,' said Charos, ' has his lamp.' Then he perceived
that his son's lamp was full of oil, and that his own contained but
little. So he said, ' Compere, will you not pour a little oil from my
son's lamp into mine — I want to live a few years yet, that I may
earn money and leave it to him?' In the first respect Charos
refused to assist him, on the ground that it was out of his power ;
but in the second matter he promised to advise him. He bade him
whenever any one was reported very ill, to set off at once, and when
he saw that Charos, who would be visible only to himself, was
sitting at the sick man's head, then he might be certain that the
sick man was going to die ; if, on the other hand, Charos were sitting
at his feet, he was destined to recover ; in this case he was to under-
take to cure him, and thus he would be able to earn a great deal of
money in the short time which was left him to live ; and so it fell
out." 4
Some vague ideas of heaven and hell are necessarily-
entertained by a people professing Christianity, and
these find expression, the former in the word Paradise,
and the latter as KoXao-ts, or punishment; while the
nature of such punishment is suggested by the synonyms
of Uiaaa, the "sea of pitch," or "the river of fire"; or again,
the familiar Tartara, the place of darkness. Paradise,
like the garden of Eden, is figured as a region abounding
4 Kamporoglou, 'laropia tQiv \\.0r)vaiwv, vol. i. p. 330,
120 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
in all that is so often lacking in the wild mountain land,
in shady trees and broad perennial rivers. But quite
a different and a more purely pagan conception of the
after-life is revealed in the popular poetry — the truest
indication of the unassisted popular imagination. In
many a village where the priest is a tiller of the soil, as
ignorant as the other villagers, where his duties do not
extend beyond baptisms, burials, and the formal
repetition of a ritual he sometimes cannot read, much
less interpret, the people are quite dependent for their
notions of another world on these songs and the
unconscious tradition of antiquity. For them it has
remained the ancient Hades, a common meeting-place
of all whose lives are ended, without distinction of merit.
Death is deprivation of the joys of life, which, with all
its troubles and cares, is sweet. The old uneasy
feeling that after death it is not well is ever present ;
and the dying man laments that he must see the sun
no more, nor the light of the moon, the mountains, the
shade of plane-trees, and the cool fountain, because in
Hades there breaks no dawn, and sings no bird, and no
fountains of water flow. Body and soul are still
strangely identified, and the dying Klepht requires his
sons to make a window to his grave, that he may hear
the nightingale, and know when spring comes back.
The dead are always praying Charos to let them return
and see the sun, and commune with their children ; but
he is ever inexorable, "When the sea becomes a garden,
and the raven grows white like the dove, then will ye
get back to earth again." Instances are not wanting in
the folk-literature of attempts to escape from this dark
and dreary region ; one well-known song records how
Birth, Destiny, and Death. 1 2 1
three braves determined to break away, when a young
mother, newly dead, appealed to them to take her up
with them, because her child is crying for the breast.
"We cannot do that, fair one," they reply;
" Because of the rustling of thy dress and the shining of thy hair,
The clank of thy gold and silver ornaments, Charos would overhear."
" Hut I'll take off my dress, and I will plait my hair,
And tie the gold and silver trinkets in my kerchief."
But Charos he is cunning, sharp as a prince of Klephts,
He knows all treacheries of Klephts, a wronger of women ;
And Chains in his craft met them in the narrow way,
He clutched the girl by the hair, the young men by the waist.
' ' Let go my hair, O Charos, and only hold my hand ;
And if thou wilt give my child his milk, I'll not try to fly again ! " 5
In the stories and fables current among the people
there is not unfrequent mention of the expeditions of
mortals to a strange subterraneous world ; but it is
rather the kingdom of goblins and the realms of magic
that are here alluded to ; and these tales are all included
by Hahn, the principal authority on Greek and
Albanian folk-stories among those of Sclavonic or
Germanic origin. In the popular poetry I have only
come upon one instance which records the feat of the
hero Zachos, who rode down on a horse with a golden
saddle to visit his friends in Hades ; Charos wrestles
with him for his life, and is three times thrown to the
ground, but at last clutches him by the hair and over-
comes him, so that for Zachos also there is no return-
ing. 6
The superstitions regarding the dead are sometin
mutually contradictory, for while in the songs sung by
the Mainotes and others at the grave, messages are sent
5 ' G Passow, Carm. Top.
122 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
by the dead they are lamenting to those who have gone
before, and while, again, the dead are represented as
questioning the latest comer about those in the world
above, it is maintained in other parts that the dead do
not recognize one another. And similarly, against the
often reiterated sentence of the popular poets, that from
Hades there is no return, we may set the prevailing
superstition of the Saturday of Souls, the Saturday
preceding Whitsunday, when from midnight until day-
break the dead are permitted to revisit earth ; and again
the period between Easter and Whitmonday, when the
same privilege is conceded to them. The haunting of
individuals by those whom when living they have wronged,
or who endeavour to exercise some particular influence
over them, and the manner of laying these ghosts, will be
dealt with in a latter chapter. Enough has perhaps been
said to indicate the close analogy between the modern
feeling towards death and the after-life, and the dreary
conception of the ancient world ; and in conclusion it
may be mentioned that just as in former times certain
caverns and gorges were reputed to be the entrances of
hell, so still to-day there are caves, and notably that
Taenarian grotto near Cape Matapan described by
Pausanias, which are alluded to in the people's language
as the Gate of Death.
All who have travelled in the East are familiar with the
picturesque but at first somewhat startling aspect of the
Greek funeral procession. First walks a bearer with
the coffin-lid carried erect, covered with black velvet or
white silk, with decoration of purple muslin, flowers, and
tinsel ; boys carrying the cross and banners of the
Church follow ; behind these are the priests in their
Birth, Destiny, ana Death. 123
bright robes, and one or two professional mourners in
plain clothes, who sing a sort of low wailing lamentation
as they pass along ; while in front of the friends and
relatives, the coffin, open, with the corpse exposed,
propped up on a pillow, and dressed as for a festival,
is carried by four or six bearers. Various explanations
have been offered for this curious custom, to which a
stranger finds it difficult at first to become reconciled.
Until a year ago, high dignitaries of the Church, such as
the Metropolitan, were carried to the grave sitting erect
on the episcopal chair, and dressed in the full canonicals
of their office. This would seem to indicate the high
antiquity of the custom of carrying the dead uncovered ;
and without insisting too much upon a necessary con-
nection, it is interesting to recall to mind the existence
of a law of Solon, which, in order to guard against foul
play and make the whole Athenian public the witnesses
of death, enacted that corpses should be carried out to
burial exposed as far as the chest. At the grave the
clothes in which the corpse is dressed are, in the case of
the wealthy, cut up, so that they may not afford a temp-
tation to sacrilegious theft, and, in the case of the poorer
people, often removed and brought home. A pillow
filled with earth 7 is placed under the head, and the lid of
the coffin, which is made of the lightest and most
destructible material, being put on, the body is lowered
into the grave. When the earth is filled in, the wooden
bars on which the coffin was carried by the bearers are
stuck upright in the ground, and a candle is left burning.
7 In Cyprus the pillow is stuffed with flowers and leaves of the lenion-treo,
and there, it appears also, that a dish of flour or grain is interred with the
body, a provision for the last journey.— Sakellarios, KvirpiaKa.
1 24 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
generally fixed in a hole bored in the bottom of an
earthenware pitcher, to shield it from the wind.
Upon the first Saturday in Lent, dedicated to the
" Holy Theodores," every one flocks to the cemeteries.
In Athens a mass is performed at the principal grave,
that of the patriot Michael Totsitzas, and afterwards a
discourse in honour of the dead is pronounced by the
Professor of Theology at the University. Outside the
door of the cemetery chapel the ikon of these saints is
exposed, the devout file past and kiss it, while a
plentiful supply of wax tapers are burnt in their honour.
Wreaths are hung on the graves by the relatives of the
dead, and the heroes of the revolution are not forgotten.
Among the Greeks of Asia Minor a similar celebration,
known as the Sai'a, takes place on the ~l of January.
But the more ancient usages connected with the inter-
ment of the dead are no longer to be found in the
capital, where the tendency to cosmopolitan uniformity
has set in ; for these we must go farther afield.
Tolerably universal still in the provinces and islands
is the custom of flinging an earthen pitcher out of the
door, so as to break it on the step when the funeral pro-
cession leaves the house ; and in Corfu, the poor people
throw water from the windows when a funeral has passed
by — a habit which is, perhaps, a survival of the ancient
feeling of the necessity for purification after contact with
death. There also it is made an invariable rule to return
from the cemetery by some other road than that which the
funeral procession has passed along; and, if it is possible,
the coffin is carried out of church by a different door to
that by which it entered. After a death the house is
kept unswept for a term of three days, and it is impera-
Birth, Destiny, and Death. i 2 :
tive that the broom which is then used should be
burned immediately. This neglect of the house is, perhaps,
an outward indication of mourning ; another not un-
common one is the habit of allowing the beard to grow.
One curious little detail of domestic mourning I came
upon in a deme of northern Arcadia, while pa\ ing a
visit to the Demarch. His daughter, when serving the
usual refreshments which Greek hospitality offers to all
comers, brought in coffee, but none of the sweetmeats
which usually precede it. The Mayor apologizing for
this, explained that he had recently lost an aunt, and
that it was customary there when in mourning to abstain
from these delicacies, adding at the same time that in the
case of a foreign guest his daughter should have made an
exception. In Maina only, as far as I am aware, is
there to be found some trace of the ancient
custom of mutilation and disfigurement, the men
scratching their faces with their nails, and the women
cutting off locks of hair to fling into the grave, like
Electra at the tomb of Agamemnon. v In northern
Greece the women of the family in which a death has
occurred dress themselves in white for mourning, and
keep the head uncovered, with the hair hanging down ;
the doors of the house where the body lies are left open,
and the villagers flock in and out ; while those who have
recently lost a relative whisper messages, or lay upon
the bed some flower or little token to be conveyed to
their friends in the other world.
Allusion has already been made in passing to a survival
among the Greeks of Asia Minor of the ancient custom
of placing Charon's obol between the lips of the dead ;
8 Soph. EL, 448, &c.
126 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
and traces of a similar survival are still to be found in
Macedonia and Thrace and the islands of the Archi-
pelago, as well as among the Albanians. Indeed, there
is considerable evidence that up to recent times the
custom was universally prevalent in European Greece,
where the coin was not unfrequently accompanied by a
key destined to open the gates of Paradise 9 The
Orthodox Church long waged an unsuccessful war
against this most tenacious superstition, and repeated
canons of holy synods forbade its continuance in vain.
Sir Charles Newton, in his Travels in the Levant, records
the measures which the Archbishop of Mytilene told
him he had taken to put an end to it in Macedonia, by
representing that a Turkish coin, inscribed with a quota-
tion from the Koran, was no fit object in a Christian
grave. Ingenious methods of evading the prohibition,
while fulfilling a superstitious obligation, may still be
found among the Orthodox peasants, such as, for in-
stance, the substitution of a little waxen cross for the
coin between the lips of the corpse, or, as in the island
of Rhodes, of a fragment of tile or pottery, inscribed
with the five letters, IOXON, known as the Pendalpha,
the monogram of the words, 'Irjaovs Xpicrrbs vaca.
In Rhodes, again, and in the Peloponnese, as well as
among the Greeks of the Turkish Empire, on certain
dates and anniversaries funeral cakes are made, known
as Kolliva, which name is also applied to the days on
which such cakes are baked and eaten, generally the third,
ninth,- twentieth, and fortieth days after burial, when
masses are also said for the departed. The ingredients
of these cakes are boiled grain, sugar, almonds, sesame
9 Schmidt, " Volksleben." pp. 238, 239.
Birth, Destiny, and Death. 12J
parsley, and pomegranate seeds. When baked, they arc
taken to the priest to bless ; part is given away, part
consumed, and part broken up over the grave. There
is doubtless a symbolical significance in eai h of the
elements of which the Kolliva are composed ; and the
pomegranate seeds immediately recall the story of
Persephone.
Greeks and Orthodox Albanians alike dig up the bone-
after they have been three years underground. These
are washed in wine, and then deposited in an ossuary :
and the superstition not uncommonly prevails that it is
possible to determine the fate of the deceased by tri-
colour of the bones. At any rate, if they are bleached
and white, it is a sure sign that the soul is in heaven.
For the peace of mind of the relatives, it is to be hoped
that the converse docs not necessarily hold good ; but a
form of denunciation very common in the country, " May
earth not consume your body ! " would seem to indicate-
that it is held a very evil omen if decomposition does
not at once ensue, and may indicate that the departed is
haunting the earth as a vampire. '
Among the Albanians, with their nomad and migratory
life, a very large proportion of the male population die-
abroad. The bones of these wanderers are afterwards
collected and sent home, or, at any rate, a portion of
them — a skull or a single bone is brought back to their
native place. In illustration of the probable great
antiquity of this custom, it is worthy of notice that
MM. Pottier and Reinach, in their work on the Necro-
polis of Myrina, draw attention to the fact that
in the course of their excavations they came upon a
1 See chap, vii., pp. 192, &c.
128 The Ctistoms and Lore of Modern Greece.
number of skeletons in which the skull was absent, while
in certain cases both the skull and the feet were missing.
In the early days of Rome, when the practice of burning
the dead came in, some portion of the body, the os rescc-
tiun, was reserved for burial, in order to humour the old
conservative tradition which clung to the sentiment that
the dead man should be genuinely inhnmatus. As,
however, this custom of mutilation had an obvious senti-
mental objection, a law of the twelve tables in 450 B.C.,
which is quoted by Cicero, put an end to it, sanctioning
it only in the case of persons who died abroad or in war,
so that a portion of their bodies might be restored to
their relatives for burial. At Myrina no traces of
ashes were found in connection with the bones which
would warrant the supposition of a double process
of inhumation and incineration ; and as, moreover, it is
always a small portion of the whole skeleton which is
wanting, the authors have adopted the conclusion that
these graves at Myrina are those of strangers, and that
the missing bones, like those of the Albanians to-day,
had been restored to the countries of their origin. 2
And finally it remains to speak of the myrologies
(fxvpoXojlat) or dirges for the dead, of which so much has
been written. The traveller in Greece, especially in the
remoter parts of the country, who passes a village burying-
ground will often come upon groups or pairs of women
sitting or kneeling by a grave, from whose lips proceeds
a strange sort of wail of lamentation. If he pauses to
listen, he will generally find that it consists of a rhythmic
song taken up in a broken voice by each woman in turn.
The burden of the song assumes the form of questions to
2 Pottier et Reinach, "La Necropole de Myrina," p. 75.
Birtli, Destiny, and Death. \ :
the dead, such as " Why do you leave us ? " " Why did
you go so soon ? " " How do you think the house can get
on without you ? " From the tone of their voices, he-
will imagine they are in floods of tears, but their eyes are
dry ; and when they tire of the crooning song, they will
pause, and talk in a matter-of-fact way about every-day
things, until suddenly one of them takes up the wail
again. These are the relatives of the dead singing
myrologies on anniversaries or commemorative days.
In northern Greece the women of the family sing such
dirges from the moment of death until the corpse is put
in the ground, even in some cases accompanying the
funeral processions with their songs of lamentation, and
they will sing no other songs for a year. Xor will they
ever pass the churchyard without lingering to sing for a
few moments by the grave of a dead relative. This form
of lamentation is confined to the women ; the men content
themselves with a word of farewell, and a kiss on the lips
of the dead.
The genuine myrology is eminently topical and
spontaneous, evoked by strong emotion and therefore
improvised, to some air which custom prescribes, and
forgotten as soon as sung. Its archetype may be found
in the dirges sung over the body of Hector by
Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen. The women of the
family are often joined by other women of the
neighbourhood, who take their part in the dirge,
intoning messages for their own dead, which the passing
spirit is to deliver. Fauricl records that the myrologies
sung in Thessaly and northern Greece are of remarkable
beauty, and that the women of those parts seem tc
possess a peculiar poetic talent ; and it would be said
K
130 The Customs mid Lore of Modern Greece.
in praise of a certain woman that she was a noted
myrologist, just as in Italy a man might be pointed out
as a talented improvisatore. He mentions that he has
overheard them practising their muse while at work in
the fields, turning such episodes as a broken flower or
the death of a bird into symbolisms to sing at a grave.
Of these ephemeral flowers of sorrow and of song it is
difficult to give a specimen. Fauriel quotes the substance
of such an outburst as it was repeated to him by a
Greek who had heard it from the lips of a woman of
Metsovo, in Pindus, who had just lost her husband ; but
this only comes at third hand. The sense of it runs : —
" I saw, a day or two ago, at the door of our house, a
young man of lofty stature, with a glance of menace in
his eyes, with white wings extending from his shoulders;
he stood erect upon the threshold of our house, with a
drawn sword in his hand. ' Woman,' he asked me, ' is
thy husband in the house ? ' ' He is there,' I replied ;
' he is combing the hair of our child, and caressing him
to prevent his crying ; but do not enter in, dread youth,
for you will frighten the child.' But the youth with the
white wings persisted, and would enter in. I tried to
thrust him out again, but I had not the strength. He
rushed into the house ; he rushed upon you, oh, my
well-beloved, and struck you with the sword. He
struck you, ill-fated one; and see, see here, your son he
tried to kill him too ! " And with these words she flune
herself upon her husband's body.
But besides this form of improvised dirge, there are a
number of songs known by heart to the women in other
districts, which it is customary for them to come and
sing over the dead. As I was riding through Maina, I
Birth, Destiny, and Death. 131
came one day upon a group of some seventy women
sitting round the door of a tower where, two days before,
an old woman had died. They were chanting, to a
weird monotonous air, a series of songs peculiar to these
occasions, sung on the three days following a death,
most of them tinged with the savage character which
marks this wild and primitive race. I wrote down one
or two from their dictation. One of the shorter ones
ran: —
"Wife of Ligorou, Paraske,
When you come down to the world below,
If you chance upon men of ours,
Tell them the fort is taken.
It was Babouloyanni took it,
And the deacon Dikaiakas,
With Katsibarda's bastard,
And the children of Stella."
The character of these songs varies with the district,
and every woman will know a considerable number by
heart. There are special songs for the death of a
husband, a father, a son, or a daughter, and the custom
is still tolerably universal in Greece proper, in Macedonia,
Asia Minor, and the islands. They are generally
thoroughly pagan in inspiration, and it is from these
songs of death handed down through long tradition that
the popular ideas regarding the after-life are for the most
part drawn. 3
3 See chap, xi., pp. 2S1-6, for specimens of such myrologies.
K 2
132
CHAPTER V.
BELIEFS AND CEREMONIES.
SURVIVALS OF THE ANCIENT IN THE NEW.
ALLUSION has already been made to the assimilation
and adaptation by the Church of certain primitive
pagan ideas, and there exists in new Greece very ample
material for remunerative investigation into this special
field of inquiry. It must suffice here to draw attention
to a few of the most obvious reminiscences of ancient
superstition in the modern worship, and in that still more
binding " religion," in the old sense of the word, by
which the daily life of the people is hemmed in.
In the first place, we are met by the survival in the
popular language of a number of attributes of the Diety,
connecting him with natural forces, and especially with
the control of the weather. The Zeus whose dominion
was the upper air, whose weapon was the thunderbolt,
and who with his " red right hand " struck the lofty
summits of the world, or sent " the snows and hailstorms
dire," has passed on his power over the elements to the
God of the Christians," so that Bpe^ei 6 &eo<; (God is
raining) is a common saying still to-day. 1 In the
popular poetry we find the lightning alluded to as the
" fire of God," 2 and, again, it is said that " He compels
1 The name of Zeus survives in Crete in a name ZotXawcov {The Valley of
Zeus) on Mount Ida, and in a common form of invocation 'EUoOre /mov Zuive
Qei ! {Divine Zeus, hear my prayer).
2 Passow, Carm. Pop. Dist., 287.
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 133
the clouds, He thunders and He rains." 3 The peasants
of Arachova describe an icicle as the " staff of God ;"
and stranger still, when some stout tree is struck by
lightning, they have been heard to say, " the stroke
consumed a demon," as though some dim echo of the
mythus of the Gigantomachia were still lingering here.'
The very name of the thunderbolt, ao-TpoireXe/ci {the
starry axe), would seem to suggest the idea of a weapon
in the hand of the Supreme, while there is surely a reminis-
cence of the earth-shaking Poseidon suggested in the phrase
which in the island of Zante, so subject to earthquakes,
such phenomena are wont to evoke, " God is shaking
His hair."
Of sun, moon, or star worship I have come upon few
survivals, but it has been suggested that there is perhaps
a trace of classic fancy in a myth current among the sea-
faring folk of the ^Egean, who tell that Orion is the
wooer of the Pleiades, and that these are six sisters who
have murdered the seventh ; behind which imager}- there
lies the fact that the constellation consists of seven stars,
of which only six are visible to the eye. 6
In Thessaly, Macedonia, and elsewhere, there exists a
pretty custom in seasons of drought when the water of
the village spring is dry. The children come together,
and one of them is selected, generally speaking an orphan,
since the prayers of orphans are always accepted, to
play the part of Perpcrouna or Perpcria. This child Is
stripped of its clothes, dressed in a garment of leaves,
and crowned with flowers ; the others form into pro-
;; II)., Dist, 242
4 Schmidt, " Volksleben."
"' Wacismuth, " Das alte Griechenland im neuen."
1 34 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
cession, and, with the Perperouna at their head, they go
from door to door of the village singing a song which
varies slightly in different districts, but of which the
burden is generally the same. At every door a few
drops of water are sprinkled on the head of the child.
The song runs as follows : —
" Perperouna goes her round,
Makes a prayer to God.
Let it rain a shower, Lord,
A shower of gentle rain !
Let them sprout and let them flower,
Give the world their increase,
Growing corn and cotton plant
Every herb that is athirst !
Give us, give us water,
Corn in heaped abundance,
Let each ear till a bushel,
And every vine a cask. " 6
The origin and nationality of this particular form of
intercession for rain I have not been able to trace, nor is
it easy to connect with any observance of antiquity
another singular piece of weather-lore which may be
found in the neighbourhood of Trcezen, in the Pelo-
pennese, a district very subject to severe hailstorms.
Here, when the peasants see the dark clouds gathering,
they take a black-handled knife — and it is only a black-
handled one that will serve — with which they make
passes in the air in order, as they say, to "cut the
storm." With this we may associate the not uncommon
usage of sailors in these waters, of fixing a knife upon
the mast, presumably with the same object of cutting,
and thus diminishing the strength of, the wind.
There is no lack of weather-superstitions for all the
different seasons. A popular proverb runs, " If you
6 Marcellus, "Chansons Populaires."
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 135
have a daughter dear to you, do not let the March
wind see her." And accordingly in March, when the
sun in these latitudes first finds its strength, it is usual
to tie round children's wrists or fingers a twisted thread
of red and gold, or blue and gold, which is supposed to
prevent the sun from tanning the skin. The colour of
the thread appears to be a matter of indifference, but
there must be gold in it, which, perhaps, represents the
survival of the propitiatory offering. Similarly in the
first weeks of August the rays of the sun are held to be
very pernicious, and during those days the people take
no sea baths, and hang no clothes out to dry. These
sun-rays are sometimes personified under the figure of
old women, known by the name of " Drymes," who will
make sore places in the skin of those exposed to them,
and will most certainly pierce holes in any linen put
out to bleach. Such a survival of the ancient Pantheism,
the attribution of a personal character to natural forces,
is by no means uncommon still. The p lague, for
instance, at the time of its appearance in Greece, was
sometimes typified as assuming the shape of a blind
woman rushing madly on her way ; or, again, was
represented as a trio of weird sisters, armed respectively
with a broom which sweeps all before it, with a roll
bearing the register of the doomed, and a pair of sheers
with which to cut the thread of life, like the dire sisters
of antiquity ; while the same personifying tendency,
coupled with the old euphemistic dread of offending
destructive omnipotence, is indicated by the word which
is still used for the small-pox, namely EuXoyia, or, " she
that must be named with respect."
Two domestic festivals associated with particular
1 36 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
seasons are tolerably universal in Greece, the one on the
first day of the year, the day of St. Basilios, and the
other on the first of March, which, allowing for the
difference of climate, corresponds with the first of May
in northern Europe. The latter is directly inherited
from ancient times, and there is good reason to assume
that the former has a similar origin.
The custom of the first of March is in reality a
celebration of the return of spring: bands of boys carry
round a rudely carved figure of a bird fixed on a wooden
cylinder, and sing a song announcing the arrival of the
swallow, and all that she brings, begging a little gift in
acknowledgment of their good news. Such a custom,
we know, prevailed of old in the island of Rhodes, and it
is in its nature not likely to have been peculiar to one
locality. The song of the Rhodian boys preserved in
Athenaeus began : —
? HA#' r\kBz y^eXiSwv, KaAas oipas
"Ayovcra kcu xaAovs evcavTovs
'Eirl yao-repa XevKa, kutt! vwTa fxeXaivaJ
and the version sung by the companies of boys to-day is
only an echo of this : —
^YipOtv, fjpOe xeXiSova,
^Hp6e ki <xAA?7 /zeAi^SoVa,
Kct^cre kou AaA?^cre
Kat yXvKa KeAaS^cre.
And very similar is the appeal to the householder for a
little gift, with which the two renderings close. There
exists also in the compilation of Athenaeus a song of
similar import, the song of the crow (Koronisma), which
7 Athenaeus, " Deipnon," viii. 360. Variations of the modern Chelidon-
isma, or Swallow Song, will be found in the chapter dealing with lyrical
poetry.
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 137
appears to have been sung under similar circumstances ;
and in the life of Homer, attributed to Herodotus, men-
tion is made of a collection made by boys singing a song
called " Eresione " at the festival of Apollo in Samos.
On New Year's day visits are made and presents
exchanged, and, as on the first of March, bands of boys
go from house to house, singing the song of St. Basil,
with others in honour of the master of the house and
the family, wishing them success in the coming year.
In the towns these boys receive in return small donations
of money ; in the country, presents of eggs, bread, and
cheese. On the analog}' of the swallow-custom, it is
perhaps justifiable to assume at once the sanction of
antiquity for this usage also ; but there is another point
in connection with it which tends to confirm the
assumption. In Athens, and, as far as I have been able
to ascertain, in Athens only, the boys carry round on this
occasion a rude model of a ship, and the first obvious
explanation assigned to this model is that it refers to the
opening line of the song, which begins —
"St. Basil is come from Cresarea,"
since he could not well have come without a ship. But
it may be that, just as a number of other customs
sanctioned by the Church are only survivals of far older
institutions, upon which a new form has been imposed,
so this ship also may date back even to the ancient
worship of Theseus, instituted and developed by
Pisistratus, in which the ship of the famous Cretan
journey played so important a part. A trireme
figured in the Panathenaic ceremonies, and Dr.
Waldstcin has pointed out that this was probably due to
a blending of the Athena and the Theseus worships, so
138 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
that at last the Peplon of Athena became the sail of the
ship of Theseus. The very name of Basil suggests an
adaption of the mythical King, turned to account in the
Christian conversion of popular usages, of which many
similar instances will be cited in their proper place.
Taking these facts in consideration, I am inclined to
think that the custom of St. Basil's day is probably no
less ancient than we know that of the the first of March
to be, and that it may present an extremely curious
form of survival. On the other hand, it may be main-
tained that a ship is a very natural symbol to select in
a land where a large number of the people follow sea-
faring pursuits, and that there is no necessity for seeking
a more elaborate explanation.
This may, perhaps, be the most appropriate place in
which to say a word about a festival once regularly
observed in mediaeval and modern Athens under the
name of Rousalia, which is now, however, practically
extinct, but which was undoubtedly the survival of some
Paneguris, the origin and occasion of which is lost in
obscurity. This festival was held in the open space
round the Theseion on Easter Tuesday, and not upon
the day of St. George, to whom this temple was
dedicated when consecrated as a church. It was
apparently an occasion upon which the countryfolk
flocked into the town ; for up to recent times the
inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, now occupied
exclusively by Albanians, who inherited from their
predecessors a custom which they could not explain,
came into the town on that day with drums and musical
instruments. Before starting, a song was sung, of which
the import is also lost, beginning —
Beliefs and Ceremonies, 139
KaXrj/Mepa crov, Kvpd jxov
K(U KaXQs TO. TO. 7TtttSltt uov.
" Good-day to you, my lady ;
And well be with you, my children ;"
while the male children were lifted three times into the
air, with prayers that they might grow up brave and
strong, and then the villagers marched into town to the
sound of rude music, to remain making merry all day
long in the space round the Theseion. 8
Politis, on the other hand, thinks there is evidence
for asserting that the Rousalia was in the beginning a
ceremonious observance in honour of the dead, and
maintains that in the interior and south-west of the
Peloponnese the name is occasionally found applied to
the Saturday of Souls ; while there existed also in
Roman Thrace a festival similarly called, held in
commemoration of the dead. 9 The Athenians of old
held their Nckusia or Thanqtousia in the month
Ajithcstcrion (= February and part of March), therefore
somewhere about the average date of the Rousalia at
Athens. In this connection the vicinity of the Theseion
to the old burial-ground is also suggestive. In the
month of Anthesterion were also celebrated the Dionysiac
Anthesteria, a name which means etymologically the
Feast of Flowers, just as Rousalia or Rosalia means the
Feast of the Roses ; and the chronicler Balsamon, in the
1 2th century, speaks of the icafc>] avv^Oeca, the " depraved
custom" of this Rosalia as though something of a Bacchic
character still attached to it. 1 In Greek Sicily and
southern Italy also it is not impossible that the formcr
8 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath.
9 Journal, 'AearoXi/cv; 'Ewidtuptats, Jan. 15th, 1S73.
1 Balsamon, "Ad Concil." vi. 62.
140 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
prevalence of some such festival similarly named may
account for the popularity of the Festival of St. Rosalia ;
but in the absence of any direct testimony this must
remain in mere hypothesis. As regards the modern
Greek Paneguris, its origin cannot now be definitely
accounted for ; but there seems to be some ground for
supposing that its name is virtually a modification of
the Anthesteria, and that it partook somewhat of the
character of that festivity, while it retained perhaps
here and there a trace of the ancient Thanatousia, an
aspect which the Church, if indeed it in any way
recognized the Rousalia, would, no doubt, have
endeavoured to substitute for the other less commend-
able form of celebration.
The numerous churches and chapels scattered over the
country in Greece, and frequently in spots far removed
from human habitation, are again and again found to
have been built upon the foundations as well as with the
materials of early pagan temples ; consequently it is not
surprising to find that the saint to whom they are dedicated
has, as it were, by compromise in the old struggle between
Paganism and Christianity, often inherited the miraculous
power attributed to the deity whom he has superseded ;
while the localization of the worship of certain saints is
strongly marked, just as in former times particular places
claimed the exclusive patronage of a particular god.
The ubiquity of little shrines, of rustic statues or altars,
of sacred enclosures in the ancient world may partially
account for the very large number of churches, mostly
half ruined, but none the less revered, which dot the
country side, when we realize that they would be
deliberately set up in many cases in order that the worship
Beliefs ana Ceremonies. 141
of their saint might replace some Artemis of the cross-
ways, some Priapus of the garden, or Cypris of the sea-
shore.
It is sometimes the name, sometimes the attributes of
the ancient deity, and occasionally both, which the
modern saint has inherited. Thus a Church dedicated
to the Panaghi'a Blastike (the Virgin of Fecundity) has
been shown to occupy the site of a temple of Eilythuia,
the deity who presided over childbirth, represented also
not unfrequently now by St. Marina. In Crete, on the
other hand, a saint of the name of Eleutherios (the
Liberator) is appealed to on such occasions, and some
have endeavoured to trace in the name a corruption of
Eilythuia, a theory which becomes less improbable when
we take note of the fact that the ?/ is pronounced like/"
before tli. There is also reason for supposing that the
little church which stands by the side of the Metropolitan
church at Athens, and which is dedicated to the same St.
Eleutherios, occupies the site of a shrine of Eilythuia ;
it is much visited by those who would in ancient times
have deposited their ex voto at the altar of the pagan
divinity.
Similarly, a chapel of St. Cosmo and St. Damiano,
patrons of medicine, who are known by the joint title of
the ciyiot, avdpyvpoi (the saints who take no fee), is found
to have replaced a temple of yEsculapius ; and the
twelve Apostles have succeeded to the altar of the
"Twelve Gods." Churches dedicted to St. Demetrius
occupy the foundations of several shrines of Demcter,
and a portion of her attributes as the protector of
husbandry, and thence of cattle, have been passed on to
the saint, to whom the month of October, when the
142 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
sowing takes place, is sacred under the name of
" Demetrite." St. George, whose name etymologically
signifies the husbandman, has also a share in the
protection of agriculture. St. Nicholas has taken
over the functions of the god of the sea, and is the
object of the prayers of those in danger of shipwreck.
He is appealed to under the name of NavTi)s or
0aX.aa-a-LT7]<i, and at Athens one of the churches
dedicated to him occupies the site of a Hieron of
Poseidon. 2
The legend of the expulsion of snakes from the island
of Crete by Herakles is now carried over to the credit
of the Apostle St. Paul, who in other parts, again, is said
only to have made them innocuous. Shrines of the
" Holy Virgins " are found near fountains once dedicated
to nymph and naiad, and the numberless virgins of the
cave and saints of the fountain have doubtless similarly
replaced the ancient protectors of the spot in the land
when every grotto and grove and glen had of old its
tutelary genius.
In the island of Naxos, once devoted to the worship
of Dionysus, popular tradition ascribes to St. Dionysius
the introduction of the grape ; while in the neighbouring
isle of Paros, St. George is worshipped under the title of
the "drunkard" {fjuedvcrry'-js:), because his festival there on
the j-V November is the signal for broaching the new
wine. The story of the introduction of the grape to
Naxos is told as follows : —
When Dionysius was still young, he made a journey through
Greece in order to cross to Naxos. Being tired upon his way, he sat
2 A similiar appropriation of a site sacred to Neptune has taken place at
Ancona. It is, in fact, one of the commonest instances of such transformation.
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 143
down upon a stone to rest. As he sat there, he perceived a very
small plant growing in the ground before him, which appeared to
him so beautiful that he determined to take it with him. to plant
there. But fearing lest the heat of the sun should wither it before
he got to Naxos, he placed it in the thigh-bone of a bird, the better
to carry. As he went on, however, the plant grew so rapidly in the
hand of the saint that the shoots came out at either end of the
bone. Fearing anew that it would wither in the sun, he cast about
what he should do, and finding the thigh-bone of a lion he inserted
into this the plant with the other bone. But still it grew and filled
the lion's bone. Then he lit on the bone of an ass, and into this he
slipped the two other bones with the plant, and so brought it safely
to Naxos. But when he came to plant it the roots were so firmly
fixed in the bones that he was forced to plant bone and root
together. The plant grew and prospered and bore magnificent
grapes, and from these they made the first wine, and the saint gave
it men to drink. And then the wonder of it was that when they
had drunk a little they sang like birds, when they drank more they
grew strong as lions, but then if they drank yet more they became
like asses. 3
One is once more reminded of Silenus and the Bacchic
rout of jollity in the curious mediaeval cult at Xaxos
of St. Pachys (St. Fat), a saint whose intervention was
held to confer the desirable gift of obesity, a quality
which must have been much esteemed in the early
middle ages, seeing what work Duke Sanudo had to put
this worship down.
The French traveller Lenormant gives in his account
of the Sacred Way 4 a story which recalls the myth of
Demeter and Kore, told him by a centenarian priest at
Eleusis, and which is so interesting that I cannot refrain
from quoting its outlines in this connection, at the- same
3 Hahn's " Neugriechische Maichen." The story was picked up by
Christian Siegel in a Boeotian village in 1S46.
4 Francois Lenormant, " La Voie Sacree," chap. vi. note.
144 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
time remarking that such tales of the seizure of maidens
by magicians or by Turkish Agas are not uncommon in
this country, and that the story would not necessarily
suggest the rape of Persephone if it were not for the
name of Demetria, who is described as a saint, though no
such saint occurs in Greek hagiology ; and for the locali-
zation of the scene at Eleusis, where the majority of the
people are, as a matter of fact, Albanians. The story is
rather Germanic or Sclavonic in character than Hellenic.
Many such tales of dragons and sorcerers have found
their way into Greek folk-lore, and it is just possible that
the tale is a hybrid one, the magician's dress being
fitted on to some tradition lingering here of the Demeter
myth, and the magician becoming a Turkish Aga at an
obviously later date. The story, which I quote with all
reserve, runs as follows: —
St. Demetria was an ancient dame of Athens, renowned for her
goodness and charity, who had a daughter of incomparable beauty.
A Turkish Aga, who was also a magician, fell madly in love with
this daughter, but she rejected his addresses. Thereupon he came
one night when her mother was in church and carried her off to
Epirus, where he lived. When the mother came back from church,
and found her daughter gone, she went with much tribulation
questioning every one for tidings ; but none could give her any.
She asked the tree before the house, but the tree made no answer ;
she asked the sun, the moon, and the stars, but these answered
not. Only the old stork on the roof, who had long been her
pensioner, answered saying, " A Turk who rode upon a black
horse has carried off thy daughter to the parts where the sun goes
down ; I will go with thee, and try to find her." After long
wanderings, the ancient dame came to Eleusis ; there she fell sick,
and her companion could do nothing to assist her. But the wife
of the Khodja Bachi Nikola found her, and cared for her, and his
son, a youth of great strength and comely withal, learned her story
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 145
and undertook to help her, asking only for her daughters hand as
his reward. So he went his way accompanied by the stork, and
after many wanderings they came to a forest, where they found
forty dragons sitting round an immense cauldron of boiling water.
The youth lifted the cauldron with one hand, and stirred the fire
with the other, and then replaced the cauldron. The dragons were
astonished at his being able to lift with one hand what it had
taken forty of them to move, and asked him, being so strong, to
rescue for them from a fortress a damsel who had been taken by an
Aga. They conducted him to a tower, which he climbed by driving
nails into the wall, so as to get in by a small doorway. He then
dared the dragons to follow him, and slew them one by one as they
came in. But he had hardly got rid of these dangerous guides
when the Aga returned, and a terrible combat ensued, which lasted
three days with varying fortunes, till, on the third day, the magician,
who had the power of assuming various forms, such as that of a
lion, a serpent, or a flame, got the better of the youth and cut him
into pieces. During the night, however, the faithful stork brought
a magic herb, by means of which he was restored whole. He then
appealed to the Panaghfafor assistance, vowing that if he prevailed
he would become a monk, and so the combat began again. The
stork came to his assistance, and pecked at the Aga's eyes as well
as at a white hair which grew in the midst of his black locks, and
in which lay the secret of his strength. So the youth conquered,
restored the damsel to her mother Demetria, and himself withdrew
into the monastery of the Phaneromene (the Virgin of the
Annunciation) in the island of Salamis.
The same writer mentions a tradition found in Epirus,
near the country assigned to the mythical king Aidoneus,
of the carrying off by the Tchiflick Bachi of a young
Demetrius, who being put to death was afterwards
venerated as a saint, and traces of the survival of the
myth are perhaps also to be found in the folk-talcs
collected by Hahn. In one case it is a demon who
assumes the form of thunder and lightning, and carries
off a king's daughter to a desert place, where, striking the
L
146 The Ctistoms and Lore of Modern Greece.
ground with his hand, he opens a chasm in the earth and
bears her down to a subterraneous palace. In another we
have a hero descending through a chasm into the bowels
of the earth to bring back the purest woman in the world
kept a prisoner there, who, on arriving at the palace of
the king of the underworld, finds it guarded by a three-
headed dog.
Perhaps enough has been said to suggest what a large
field still remains open for investigation in this direction,
in examining into the re-occupation of ancient sites, and
following up analogies of name and worship in popular
lore and religion to-day. One must beware, however, of
pressing these analogies too far. It would seem to be a
little fantastic to seek to establish a corruption of
' A'iBcovevs, as certain travellers have done, in the name
'AiSovdros, which is the popular form of r/ A<yio<; Aovdros,
(St. Donato), a saint well known on both sides of the
Adriatic, a bishop, and no legendary one, of Zara. Again,
the common identification of St. Elias, whose shrines
occupy the summits of rocks and mountains, with the
worship of the sun-god Helios, perhaps assumes too
much. For in ancient Greece a very limited number of
mountain summits were dedicated to the sun-god, whereas
in the modern landscape there is scarcely ever out of
range of the eye some little white chapel crowning a
prominent crest of rock, dedicated to the prophet whose
assumption would naturally suggest the high places as
the most appropriate for his altars. It is true that St.
Elias now occupies the highest peak in Taygetus, and
that on this summit, the Taletum of antiquity, horses
were sacrificed to the sun. But, on the other hand, he
has taken the place of Zeus Panhellenios in ^Egina, of
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 147
the Muses on Helikon, of Menelaus at the Menelaon of
Sparta. Of course, when the saint was once established
as the patron of a mountain summit, his shrines would
naturally multiply in a mountainous land, and it is not
impossible that the church on the Taletum may have
been one of the first ; but it must not by any means be
assumed, as some travellers appear to do, that every peak
now dedicated to him was once the home of sun-worship.
The exhibition and worship of plastic images or
statues of saints is forbidden by the Orthodox Church ;
but on the other hand a peculiar sanctity is attached to
their ikons, or pictures, which vie with one another in
the popular estimation for miraculous power; and
allusion has already been made to the ikon of his
patron saint, which hangs in the cottage of every
peasant, as well as to the lamp which is kept ever
burning before it. Many are the offerings in silver or in
wax, shaped to represent arms, and legs, and eyes,
suspended round the ikons, to which a miraculous power
of healing is ascribed; images of children stamped out
in silver are brought by grateful mothers, and model ships
are hung up by those who owe their rescue to the
intervention of the saint ; while no small part of the
revenues of churches and monasteries depends on the
offerings of tapers, of oil, of first-fruits, of a portion of
the profits of a business transaction which have been
vowed to the saint in acknowledgment of a successful
speculation. The ancients brought similar anatheniata
to the shrines of the patrons of healing; and numerous
specimens of votive tablets, on which the ailing member
was carved in marble, have been found on the sites once
sacred to Amphiaraus and /Ksculapius. Sometimes the
L 2
148 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
ikon, or a part of it, is covered with silver or even with
gold by the grateful votary; and a more primitive form
of this intention may still be observed, among other
places, in the island of Rhodes, where golden coins are
sometimes stuck on to the faces of the saints in the ikom
with a piece of wax. Even for this an analogy can be
found in antiquity, for we read in Lucian 5 of a statue of
Pelichos, to the thighs of which silver coins were affixed
with wax, as were also plates of the same metal,
offered by some of his votaries in return for his curing
them of their fevers.
That the gods were amenable to gifts was the con-
viction of the ancient world, and following up the train
of ideas suggested by the permanence of this persuasion,
one is tempted to inquire whether any survival of the
rites of sacrifice may be detected.
One very curious relic of folk-custom undoubtedly has
its origin in sacrifice, and its continuance until the
present day, even in the capital of modern Greece, is the
more curious, inasmuch as it is bound up with a religious
observance which is never omitted. After the ground
has been cleared for the foundations of a new house, the
future owner, his family, and the workmen attend
together with the Pappas in full canonicals, accompanied
by incense, holy water, and all due accessories. A prayer
is said, and those present are aspersed, and the site is
sprinkled with the consecrated water. Then a fowl or
a lamb, which you will have noticed lying near with the
feet tied together, is taken by one of the workmen,
killed and decapitated, the Pappas standing by all the
while, and even giving directions ; the blood is then
s Lucian, " Philopseudes," § 20.
Beliefs and Ceremonies.
smeared on the foundation stone, in the fulfilment of the
popular adage that " there must be blood in the
foundations." The sacrifice, however, has no connection
with the prayer, and is, it would seem, rather intended
to propitatc the tnoi^eiov, or familiar of the spot, to the
belief in which, as well as to the custom here described,
we shall return in dealing with the supernatural. The
point of interest in the present connection is the
apparent sanction which is given to the superstition by
the presence of the priest.
Dr. Schmidt 6 is, moreover, of opinion that a sugg<
tion of the ancient sacred offering is to be found in those
cakes which are prepared on different festivals in
Greece under the names of Sperma, Stari, Koukkia,
and Kolliva, for the name Kolliva is not only applied
to the funeral cakes already described, but to others
similar in composition which are baked at the time of
the annual sowing, at harvest or at vintage time, and
which, being in the nature of a propitiatory or thank-
offering, are taken to the church, where a portion is
crumbled over the altar, while the rest is distributed
among those present, who consume it while expressing
some wish— for long life, or for abundant harvests in future.
More interesting and more suggestive yet in this respect
is a ceremony which he was fortunate enough to witness
himself one Christmas in the house of a priest, at Xante,
a ceremony which is also found in Cephalonia, but which
in Zantc itself is quite universal in the villages, and still
observed in some of the great houses. Throughout the
Ionian islands at Christmas a monster Koitlloiin, or ring-
shaped cake is prepared, in which a coin is concealed, as
"•• Volksleben," p. 59, &c.
150 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
in the plum-pudding at home. The head of the house-
hold on these occasions fills a vessel with equal portions
of wine and olive-oil, adding a little incense and four
small fragments cut from the cake in different places.
Then, accompanied by his family, he proceeds to the
the hearth, and, either holding the Koidlouri himself or
giving it to two of his children to hold over the fire, pours
the contents of the vessel through the open ring of the
cake on to the flames in the form of the cross, at the
same time thrice repeating with his family a gloria
for the birth of Christ. The primitive sacrifice to
Hestia, the oldest of worships, has, as he points out,
undoubtedly here survived, and is renewed from year to
year on the day that is above all others a domestic
festival, when all the family are united together under
one roof.
It would be beyond the scope of the present chapters,
which are concerned rather with the beliefs and super-
stitions of the people, to enter at length upon the curious
and interesting ceremonial of the Greek Church at its
religious festivals, but a few words are necessary with
regard to the celebration of Easter, which, following upon
the long Lenten fast, observed here with great strictness,
is essentially a popular feast, with which not a few
singular and suggestive usages are connected.
Upon the eve of Good Friday takes place what is
called the reading of the twelve Gospels — that is to say,
the three concluding chapters from each of the four
evangelists — a somewhat exhausting proceeding, which
occupies about three hours. The night of Good Friday
is devoted to the ceremony of the EpitapJuon, or funeral
procession. In the centre of the church the ikon of the
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 1 5 1
Saviour is disposed on a kind of bier, with candles burn-
ing at the corners, and over it is a thin muslin veil on
which consecrated flowers are scattered. The devout
press round to kiss the ikon and obtain one of these
flowers. The latter, generally roses or detached rose-
leaves, arc particularly valued by sailors, who here, as
elsewhere, are notoriously superstitious. They endeavour
to secure several, which they wrap up in cotton wool and
preserve with the greatest care, being firmly persuaded
that if they are overtaken by a storm during the ensuing
year, they have only to throw two or three of these petals
on the waves in order to abate their violence ; but it is
essential that the leaves should not be quite dry or
withered.
Between nine and ten at night the funeral procession
is organized, and the ikon is carried round the streets as
if it were a corpse for burial, with all the funeral insignia,
the cross, the banners, and the officiating priests, amid a
blaze of lighted tapers. Such a procession is organized
from every church, attended by its own congregation.
The most remarkable for pomp is, of course, that from
the Cathedral at Athens, where the service is conducted
by the Metropolitan in person ; military bands playing
dead marches accompany the bier, which is borne by
the officiating priests in their gorgeous robes of golden
embroidery. The whole city is in the streets and in the
balconies, everywhere there is a blaze of lighted tapers
and Bengal lights, so that the whole effect is far more
that of a national festival than of an occasion of penitence
and mourning.
For some time previously the city will have assumed
a picturesque aspect from the number of shepherds who,
152 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
with their flocks, have come down from the mountains,
and are camped in every available open space, to
negotiate the sale of their lambs, for there is no family
so poor that they will not break the long fast with an
Easter lamb, the value of which is about five francs, and
a veritable massacre of the innocents goes on.
It is late on Saturday night that the real Easter
celebration takes place. An immense crowd fills up all
the approaches to the Cathedral, and such parts of the
church as are not kept clear. Without, a raised plat-
form has been erected and decorated with evergreens.
In the Cathedral the Royal Princes, the Ministers
of State, and the high functionaries of the kingdom
assemble to attend the midnight service. As the hour
of midnight approaches, the Metropolitan with his
assistants, preceded by the cross and banners, advance
with lighted tapers. The various notabilities light their
tapers from that of the archbishop, and so the sacred
fire is communicated to the crowd. As the midnight
hour sounds, and Easter succeeds the last day of Lent,
the Metropolitan, a blaze of silver and gold, with his
tiara, the silver gospel, and the episcopal crozier, ascends
the platform outside the church, and proclaims to the
assembled people the tidings Kpiaro<; aveart], " Christ
has risen ! " In a moment all the bells are ringing far
and near; bands of music strike up, guns are discharged,
rockets ascend, Bengal fires are lighted, and the sparkle
of the tapers spreads from house to house, and from
street to street, till the whole city is alive with sound
and flame. The clergy return to the church, and the
Easter ritual continues, long and tedious. And now
the long fast is over, and the people, who for the last
CjHt ff/estj
Beliefs and Ceremonies. 153
two or three days have tasted no food but bread and
olives and a little black coffee, and who have man)- of
them on Good Friday observed literally the rule, to
suffer no food to pass their lips between sunrise and
sunset, are released from their probation, and feasting
becomes the order of the night. Fires are kindled, ovi r
which early on Easter morning the lambs are roasted
whole. The ceremonial is over ; only the greeting
XplcrTG<; avearr), and the answer, '-4\?/#w9 dveari]. " He is
risen indeed," is in every mouth. During the afternoon
of Faster Sunday there is another service for those who
have not been able to attend the previous evening, at
which the Gospel is read in every known tongue, in
evidence presumably of the catholicity of the only
Orthodox faith.
In illustration of the adaptive capacities of the
Christian religion at a time when the earl)- Church was
with difficulty establishing its supremacy, it has been
pointed out how close is the analogy between this
festival of the Church and the prevailing ideas which
inspired that most solemn celebration of the ancient
world, the greater mysteries of Eleusis. The very time
of year was probably coincident with the average
recurrence of Easter, for it was towards the close of
March, that they celebrated the return of Persephone,
typifying the resurrection of the life of nature. Of old,
there was the same mournful nightly ritual — the torch-
light procession, the lamentation for the descent of
Demeter to the world below. The long fast had also
been observed in commemoration of the fast of
Demeter during the nine days through which she
sought her child. There followed the solemn celebra-
154 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
tion on the twelfth night, when the search and probation
was concluded, and with it the sudden change from
mourning to joy for the return of Persephone, the release
from the long fast, and the abandonment to the same
feasting and rejoicings.
Similar in character to that in the capital, though less
pretentious in surroundings, is the observance of Easter
among all the Greek populations. In the Ionian islands
when the lamb is slain, it is usual to make a cross with
the blood over the door of the house, in accordance, no
doubt, with the instructions in the Book of Exodus, for
the observation of the Passover : " And they shall take
of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts, and on
the upper door-post of the houses." Here also at the
moment of the gloria, the proclamation of the fact of the
resurrection by the priest, the people run to the nearest
water and wash their faces ; tubs and troughs are even
put out in readiness in the street for this purpose. It
symbolizes, no doubt, the purification which the long
atonement of Lent has brought about. At this moment
also a very curious custom may still be occasionally
observed in Corfu, though it is said to be fast dying out,
namely, the throwing of broken pottery from the windows
by the women, accompanied by the utterance of sundry
curses and invectives against the Jews. The clatter of the
broken earthenware upon the stones has been held by-
some to have the same figurative meaning as the wooden
rattles sprung in other places at this season by the
children, the noise of which represents the breaking of
the bones of Judas. But it is more probable that the
origin of this custom will be found to be a material
expression given to the words which are sung in the
Beliefs and Ceremonies. I 5 5
ritual on the night of Holy Thursday : " They stripped
me of my garments, and put upon me a scarlet cloak,
they set upon my head a crown of thorns, and in my
right hand they placed a reed, that I may break them in
pieces like a potter's vessel?
156
CHAPTER VI.
LUCK, DIVINATION, AND HEALING.
Whilst fate still assumes a personified form in the
popular mind, fortune or luck, which plays a very-
important part in the superstitions of daily life, remains
rather an abstract than a concretely personified idea.
There is probably no other country in which the every-
day conduct of men is governed by a greater horde of
little maxims and superstitions : the manner of sitting
down to, and rising from meals, the way in which salt
should be pounded, the days on which it is permissible
to cut the nails, 1 and a host of other similar details, are
laid down with the utmost strictness ; and among the
simpler folk no one would think of borrowing soap in the
the evening, of speaking profanely with bread in the
ihand, nor of letting salt, fire, leaven, or an egg go out of
jthe house after sunset — the poultry would inevitably
sicken, and the wine most certainly turn sour. These
■precepts were no doubt many of them based in their origin
ion some ethical rule of conduct, but it is not always
easy to recognize the principle involved in such a custom,
1 A similar superstition existed in ancient Italy. Pliny recommends the
cutting of the nails of the Nones, of the hair on the 7th and 29th
day of the moon.— "Nat. Hist." xxviii. 2. Indeed, most of these rules of
conduct are probably of extreme antiquity. The custom of saluting those
who sneeze, which is commonly referred to the Great Plague, is also spoken
of by Pliny, who mentions that the Emperor Tiberius never omitted this
formula.
Luck, Divination, a)id Heali 157
for instance, as that which prescribes that the first sack
I brought from the mill must be opened by one who has
jalready christened a child.
Two superstitions still very prevalent in the country
villages seem to point to a dread of offending the forces of
nature by subjecting their gifts to unnatural treatment ;
according to one, it is held to be very unlucky for harvest
prospects to toast bread between the sowing time and
the reaping ; while the other forbids the cleaning of the
,' oil-jar or the frying-pan with water, they must only be
wiped out with a cloth, or the olive crop will assuredly
I suffer.
It would occupy far too much space to enumerate even
a part of the various maxims and precepts dealing with
what is lucky or unlucky, and it must suffice to mention
a few of the most typical. And in the first place it is
held to be peculiarly inauspicious to meet a priest
immediately after leaving the house, for, as some would
tell you, all priests have the "evil eye." Should such an
untoward encounter occur at the outset on a journey,
many people would not hesitate to defer the expedition,
or, at any rate, would go back to the house and start
afresh. This superstitious dread of a man whose sup-
posed relations with a higher power surround him with
an uncanny atmosphere, is well known among primi-
tive people, and universal among sailors. At the same
time, it may occasionally admit of a perfectly rational
explanation, for in Russia, where it is unlucky to meet a
priest on Monday, the desire to avoid him was originally
quite a natural one, inasmuch as he was formerly
empowered to inflict a fine for non-attendance at church
on Sunday, and so, generally speaking, the guilty con-
158 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
science would shrink from an interview with its spiritual
guardian. 2
A number of indications of good or evil fortune are
drawn from animals, and many of these, like the crossing
of the path by a hare, are by no means confined to
Greece. Besides the more elaborate manner of augury
still practised by those who have the special aptitude for
such a science, there exists a sort of rhyming popular
zoology, dealing with luck-lore or weather-lore, of which
the following translations will serve as specimens : —
" A dog that howls smells death
Approaching the house of his master."
The Albanians have a similar saying, " When a dog
howls with head averted from the house, it signifies a death
there.
" When you hear a hen crowing
Like a cock in the poultry-yard,
Having her head towards the east,
Know that this signifies good luck ;
And when towards the west, the contrary,
Unless you kill her there and then
And eat your victim."
The Albanian version runs, " When a hen crows like
a cock, it forbodes death or misfortune ; but if at the
time her head is turned to the east, it has no signification."
Albanians also consider that the death of a relation is
foreshadowed by meeting a snake before sunrise or at
sunset. 3
At the time of the latest troubles in Crete in 1889, a
2 Usus valde singularis praevalet apud Graecos, qui a domo proficiscentes,
si protinus sacerdoti per strata viarum occursent, quo averteretur omen,
manum in genitalia adhibent. Eadem consuetudo viget apud Italos.
Confer subter de fascinatione.
3 Hahn, " Albanesische Studien."
Luck, Divination^ ami Healing. 159
rumour was abroad among the refugees from that island
in Greece that a mule had foaled in the spring, an event
which was supposed to prognosticate the approach of
some portent or calamity, recalling the story which
Herodotus thought worthy to mention respecting the
mule of Zopyrus, whose foaling was supposed to portend
the imminent capture of Babylon. 4
A graphic touch of superstitious awe represents a
rainbow arched over a cemetery as signifying theapproach
of an epidemic ; and not less picturesque is the popular
story of the ilex-tree, though I do not know that it i^
solely confined to Greek legend-lore. It accounts for
the evil reputation of the ilex, or winter oak, as a tree of
^ bad omen, because it was from its wood that the cross
was made. A miraculous foreknowledge of the
Crucifixion had spread among the forest trees, which
unanimously agreed not to allow their wood to serve
for the purpose of forming the cross, and when the
workmen came, they either turned the edge of the axe
or bent away from the stroke. Only the ilex consented
and passively submitted to be cut down ; therefore the
wood-cutters of the mountains will not soil their axes
with its bark, nor desecrate their hearths by burning it.
The unlucky day, corresponding to Friday with us, is
pretty generally throughout Greece the Tuesday, as it is
also in Spain, and as it was with the ancient Athenians.
But it appears that in Thessaly and Macedonia, Saturday
is considered inauspicious for beginning any under-
taking, which may perhaps be a reminiscence of the
Jewish Sabbath.
No belief is more universal throughout the country
4 Herodotus, iii. 153.
160 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
than that of the malign power of the " evi^yo" It is
found in every grade of society, and even - acknowledged
by the Church, which has prayers against its potency.
Like the fta<TKavia of the ancient Greeks, corrupted into
fascinum or fascinatio in Latin, the mysterious influence
which the expression implies is not merely confined to
certain individuals, who consciously and even uncon-
ciously perpetually cast the baleful shadow by a look,
by the voice, or by the touch ; but it may also accident-
ally proceed from the innocent, who often unwittingly
convey by praise or flattery misfortune to what they too
indiscriminately admire. This deleterious influence of
approval which is supposed to surround its object with a
fatal " fascination " is closely connected in some sort with
the old idea, of Nemesis, a retribution for pride in what
excites the envy of others ; and, indeed, it appears that
in ancient Rome a statue of Nemesis on the Capitol was
invoked to ward off the evil eye from her votaries. 5 A
stain is thus frequently made on the white linen of a
new dress, lest the wearer by too great pride in the
bravery of her embroideries should incur the danger
of retribution, or lest an envious eye should cast a
withering glance upon it ; or, again, queer little signs and
symbols having the same exorcising power are worked
into the border. Children are especially susceptible to
the pernicious effect of the " evil eye," and no allusion
must on any account be made to the beauty or vigour
of a very young child. Even animals are not exempt, and
more especially the young, much as it was in Virgil's Day ;
" Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos." 6
5 Pliny, "Nat. Hist.," xxxviii. 2.
6 Virg., Eel., iii. 103.
Luck, Divination, and Healing. 161
The most universal antidote against " fascination " is
garik, and a mother or nurse walking out with her
children will frequently take a clove in her pocket.
So to undo the evil omen of some inauspicious observa-
tion, the exclamation aicophov (garlic) is used with much
the same force as the German Unberufen t and in the island
of Rhodes appeal is made to the " garlic of Kalavarda,"
which has a special efficacy in deprecation. With
children, again, a black s mud ge from the cauldron or
frying-pan applied behind the ear is considered as a
safeguard, and nurses are frequently found using this
preventive even after being sternly forbidden to do so.
The ancients seem to have held that a power which
brew out of envy was best thwarted by anything which
provoked laughter. Amulets of an indelicate character
were therefore very much worn as charms against the
"evil eye," 7 and spitting was a universal remedy ; either as
Tibullus 8 represents the process, by spitting into one's
own breast, or by repeating this process three times,
which Theocritus 9 sings, was the spell taught " by the
ancient crone Kotytaris," or by touching with the
middle finger fresh from the mouth the lips and fore-
head of the child that had been " overlooked," as
Persius 1 records. Again, Pliny writes, "There is power
in the human saliva against poisonings and fascinations ;"
and such instances might be multiplied. This antidote
has survived in Greece to-day, and the traveller Dodwell*
7 A pueris turpicula res in collo quaedam suspenditur. — Varro, "De Ling
Lat.," L. vi. ; cp. also Hor., " Epod." viii. iS. See note on p. 158.
8 Tibullus, "El.," I.ii. 56.
9 Theocritus, "Idyll," vi. 39.
'Persius, ii. 31.
2 Dod\voll, "Tour through Greece," vol. ii. 36.
M
1 62 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
records a striking experience of its application, in Corfu,
where he had unwittingly praised the looks of his host's
two fine children, and was forthwith entreated, nay,
almost compelled by the family to spit in the faces of
the children he had praised.
F Every variety of amulet for the same purpose may also
be found in use ; corals and cornelians, bits of blue glass,
and Byzantine sequins are among the most common, and
may frequently be seen bound to the heads of mules or
horses, and more especially round the necks of colts.
Little charms representing rudely the hand with out-
stretched fore and little finger, and bracelets of blue
glass are universally worn ; and in certain districts of
Rhodes, the women in full-dress wear upon the forehead
a small triangular piece of silver inscribed with the
initials of the Pendalpha. 3
A third manner of guaranteeing the household against
this pernicious influence is by fumigation with burning
branches of dry olive, which have been blessed during
holy week, and it is supposed that the extent of danger
averted may be estimated by the number of times that
the burning leaves are heard to crackle.
Charms and amulets are also used to guard their
wearers against other dangers besides the " evil eye."
I remember a Cretan warrior who pretended to be
invulnerable in virtue of a medal of St. Constantine
which he wore suspended round his neek. Twice he
was hit without being wounded in the Cretan war, but
a third time he received a serious wound in the neck.
This, however, did not shake his confidence, and he
attributed his mischance to the fact that, in pursuance of
3 See p. 126.
Luck, Divination, and Healing.
a vendetta, he had determined in his mind to take the
life of a fellow-Christian, whereupon the saint had with-
drawn his protection.
In illustration of the old-world notion alluded to
above, that too great pride in material success incur- the
the envy of a mysterious power, which must therefore
be propitiated in moments of prosperity, the popular
Athenian tradition of the Nyphitsa {NvfyLrcra) may be
appropriately mentioned here. The word is a diminutive
formed from vixfiy], i.e. i>vfi(p)}, a bride, and signifies a
weasel. The legend is that the weasel is envious of
brides, having been a bride herself, though the reas< -n or
manner of her metamorphosis into an animal is not
assigned. She exhibits her envy by making havoc
among the wedding gifts and provisions. Therefore, in
4 the house where these are collected, sweetmeats and
honey are put out to appease her, known as " the
necessary spoonfuls," and a song is sung with much
ceremony in which the weasel is invited to partake and
spare the wedding array. 4
The ancient belief in sorcery, magic, and witchcraft
has by no means passed away, and is said to be
especially prevalent in Thessaly, where the wise woman
,»'may still be found at work with all the old-world
paraphernalia of her trade. The preparation of love-
philtres or antidotes for spells and incantations, the
reading of the stars, the interpretation of dream-, the
telling of fortunes, and the indication of hidden treasure,
are still the business of the witch.
But the power of second sight and of foretelling the
future docs not necessarily involve the uncanny reputa-
1 Kamporoglou, Hist. Alb.
M 2
164 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
tion attaching to the wise woman. It is generally an
art handed down from father to son, and may not
impossibly be in some cases directly inherited from
the augurs and omen-readers of antiquity. There are
still found those who interpret the significance of the
flight of birds, and draw conclusions from the spleen, the
liver, or the entrails of animals. The Klephts and
Armatoli never failed to examine the shoulder-blade of
sheep or lambs which they slaughtered, in order to read
in the lines and markings a prediction of the success or
failure of their operations, and here and there you will
find a shepherd still who knows how to interpret the
ciphers on old bones.
The superstitious reverence attached to ikons or holy
pictures, has been already alluded to, with the gifts
suspended round them as propitiatory offerings or
tokens of gratitude ; but they are occasionally also
called upon to reveal the future, and indicate to the
votary whether his heart's desire will be accomplished.
The manner in which this is tested is by applying a coin
to the picture. If the coin adheres, it signifies the
affirmation, if it falls, the disappointment of the wish
which the applicant has in his mind. This ceremony may
be witnessed in several places, but nowhere better than in
the church of St. Paraskevi, at Chalcis in Eubcea, during
the celebration of the annual Paneguris on July 25th
(o.s.). It is largely frequented by those whose soberer
reason is temporarily deranged by the passion of love.
In such a country we shall, of course, find no lack of
those simples and herbal decoctions for the cure of all
the ills that flesh is heir to, of which old women in the
country h^ve the monopoly. Many of these are pro-
Luck, Divination, and Healing. U 5
bably local. In the island of Crete a plant, which is
common by the roadside, with whose botanical name 1
am not familiar, but which is known in the island as
Ka\oKoin7]0eia (the giver of good sheep), was pointed out
as largely used by the good wives of the villages as a
household remedy for indigestion and sleeplessiu^, and
many were the stories told of its wonderful efficacy on
patients whose maladies had defied the usual medical
remedies. Elsewhere a potato suspended in a bag to
the person was recommended as a prophylactic against
rheumatism. Pounded onions are common as a dressing
for wounds, and garlic is not less frequently taken
internally as a medicine than used externally to ward off
evil from without. Such remedies are common enough
among the simple folk in every country ; more interesting
are those which connote a moral influence only, and
imply a belief in some supernatural agency.
Many illnesses, especially those of a nervous character,
are still attributed to demoniac influence, so that recourse
is rather had by those afflicted to the priest than to the
doctor, in order that the evil spirits by which they are
possessed may be authoritatively exorcised. Among
such influences are included nightmares, ascribed to
direct diabolic intervention, like the Ephialtcs of old.
To keep the evil spirit away, a black-handled knife is
frequently put under the pillow.
There is at Athens, under the observatory hill, a little
church dedicated to Sta. Marina, founded no doubt upon
the site of some ancient shrine, since all the rocks an mnd
are levelled for foundations, or cut for the insertion of
inscriptions and votive tablets. To this church mothers
bring sick children, and undress them, leaving the-
1 66 The Customs and Lore of ITodern Greece.
old clothes behind, in confidence that the sickness
will be cast off with the abandoned garments. The
practice of suspending clothes and locks of hair in
churches is common also in southern Italy, and certainly
the usage was not unknown in antiquity. Rescued
mariners we know hung up the clothes in which they
were saved as a thank-offering to the god of the sea,
and Pausanius mentions a statue of Hygeia at Sicyon
which was so covered with locks of hair as to be
almost invisible. These offerings, however, seem rather
to have been made in gratitude for cures completed, than
to imply anticipation of the departure of disease by the
act of severance, which is the notion underlying the
curious custom in the church of Sta. Marina. Near this
same church is an inclined surface of rock, which has
received a high polish through being used as a slide by
the women of many generations, who, slipping down"
it in a sitting posture, have faith in this gymnastic
performance as a cure for barrenness.
In Athens, again, there is in the neighbourhood of
the old theatre, a little chapel dedicated to St. John the
Baptist, built round an antique column, and reaching to
about half its present height, for the level of the ground
has risen considerably. This column is looked upon as
exerting a magical or miraculous power over fevers and
other diseases. In August and September, when fever
is rife, patients throng to it, and fastening a silken
thread to the column with a piece of wax, have the firm
conviction that the fever will be drawn out along the
thread and into the column. The following is the
popular superstition of the Athenians with regard to the
column and the chapel : —
Luck, Divination, and Healing. \6j
" St. J dim was a physician, and especially skilled in the cure of
fevers. He lived the life of an ascetic, and did many good works.
When he was aware that his death was approaching, he set up a
column, and bound to its foundations all manner of diseases with
silken threads of various colours : fevers with a yellow thread,
measles with a red one, and other diseases with other colours.
That they might go deep, he set the column on top of them, and
said, ' When I die, let whosoever is sick come and tie to this
column a silken thread with three knots of the colour that his
sickness takes, and say, ' Dear St. John, I bind my sickness to the
column, and do by thy favour loose it from me,' and then he will
be healed.'" 5
But stranger than any of these wild fancies is a case
reported in the Athenian press as having recently-
occurred in the deme of Arta, in the island of Andros,
where a sufferer from hereditary heart disease was said
to have instructed his family to disinter the body of a
kinsman who had recently died of the same malady, and
extract the heart, which was to be burned and given him
as ashes in a potion to drink.
It now remains to describe the popular conception of
the supernatural in various forms of personification, the
prototypes of which arc nearly all to be found in antiquity.
They have, however, been strangely confused in the
tradition of the illiterate, and sensibly modified by the
ban of religion, which has included them all among the
ministers of, or emanations from, the evil one, in the
efforts to mitigate what it was impossible wholly to
extirpate.
5 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath.
6 This singular story was reported in the journal, the Ephcnuris, of
January 16th, 1890. I was unable to obtain either a definite confirmation
or contradiction of the facts, though I took some pains to do so. But the fact
of a foreigner investigating such a matter would naturally produce
reticence. — R. R.
i68
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUPERNATURAL.
GENII, NEREIDS, VAMPIRES, GOBLINS, AND DEMONS.
THE custom of sacrificing a fowl or a lamb on the site
of a new house, and of sprinkling the foundations with
its blood, has been alluded to in a previous chapter.
The word employed for this proceeding is aroLx^vw,
a verb used transitively, which seems to imply that it is
an offering or sacrifice to the aToi^eLov, which signifies
literally element, and may here be interpreted genius of
the spot. This interpretation throws light on a passage
in the Epistle to the Galatians where the word crroi^eia
is rendered by " elements " in our version : — " the weak
and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire to be again
in bondage " — which means in reality the " wretched
genii of your superstition." The sacrifice is, however, it
would appear, not always carried out in its material form
with a fowl or lamb, and a suggestion may be found in
the popular beliefs that such ceremonies were at one
time attended with the grim rites of human sacrifice.
JDr. Schmidt observed in Zante and Cephalonia that
^etiquette prescribed that the future owner of the house
[should first be led away by the master-builder, so as not
to be present at this part of the proceedings. The belief
still prevails that the attempt is -often made to lure
unwary persons to the spot, and without their know-
ledge to lay the stone across the shadow cast by them
The Supernatural.
or over a thread surreptitiously attached to their persons,
and superstition maintains that those whose shadows
have thus been buried will die within the year. So real
is this superstition that children are warned by their
parents to keep away from building sites, lest their
shadows should thus be tampered with; and Dr. Schmidt
quotes the testimony of a monk in Zante, as to his con-
viction that only the fear of the law kept the people of
that island from actually burying a human bung under
works of peculiar importance, such as bridges, where
permanence was a primary consideration, a Jew or a
Mussulman being especially marked out by tradition as
suitable. The idea recurs not unfrequently in the
popular poetry. In a song, of which there arc several
versions, of the building of the bridge of Arta, it is
told how the bridge fell down as fast as it was built,
until at last the master-builder dreamed a dream that it
would only stand if his own wife were buried alive in the
foundations. He therefore sends for her, bidding her
dress in festival attire, and then finds an excuse to
make her descend into the central pile, whereupon they
heap the earth in over her, and thus the bridge stands
fast. 1 In another song the same story is told of the
bridge of Tricha, with the difference only that it is a
little bird that whispers in the architect's car how the
pile may be made to stand. 2 A similar superstition
connected with the building of the monaster}- Curtea dc
Argeslvin Wallachia, forms the subject of a fine poem
by the Roumanian poet Alexandri.
Of these local genii, the popular mind pictures on
1 A translation of the " Bridge of Arta" will be found on p. 278.
2 Lelekos, " Demotike Anthologia/'
170 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
attached to every house. Their existence is often made
known by a thin voice, as of a little child crying.
Occasionally they are revealed in visible form, as a dog,
or cat, or even a little pig ; but most frequently they
assume the shape of a snake, and such a reptile appear-
ing in the house or on the threshing-floor is treated
with the utmost respect ; care is taken not to frighten it
away, and milk or food is sometimes set apart for it,
especially among the Albanians, as for the Kobold in
the north ; while many stories are told of the evil chance
which has followed on the ill-treatment of these tutelary
spirits — the falling in of the house, or the death of the
householder. 3
These tutelary genii are also represented as occupying
mountain summits and grottoes, and more especially
fountains and wells, where they are frequently supposed
to take the shape of a Moor CAparrdSes), and are pro-
pitiated before water is drawn. These Arapades may
also be compared to the Kobolds of German lore ; they
bring luck to those on whom they look with favourable
eye, and reveal treasure in dreams ; but should the
secret be revealed, the treasure will turn to ashes.
Those that they are displeased with they torment, and
they are even said to have taken life when seriously
offended. In Crete these "Arabs" reappear as
" Saracens," and they play the part of bogie in threats
to frighten children. The traveller Villoison found the
genius of the fountain appealed to in the island of
3 The ubiquity of the genius loci in the superstition of the ancients is well
illustrated by the following lines of the devout Prudentius (b. 348 a.d.) :—
" Quanquam cur genium Roma; mihi fingitis unum?
Cum portis, domibus, thermis, stabulis soleatis
Assignare suosgenios." — P. Contra Symmachum.
The Supernatural. \j\
Mykonos under the name of Teloni ; 4 but this appella-
tion is more frequently applied to the phenomenon
known to sailors as St. Elmo's fire, representee!, in
fact, as a genius of the air.
J In solitary places, in marshes, and especially in caves,
I the popular mind conceives the haunting spirit as
IJ assuming the form of a dragon (8pd/co<; or Spd/covras).
Sometimes it is a gigantic snake with a human head,
. always a creature monstrous to look upon, of super-
natural strength, and malignant in disposition, who is
supposed to guard a hidden treasure, as did the dragon
of Colchis, or the watcher in the garden of the Hesperides.
Such a dragon is said in Athenian folk tradition to have
inhabited the ancient Hellenic fortress of Phylae, and such
| names as Drakia or Drakontospela are not uncommon.
Trees of great age and size are also supposed to be
inhabited by a guardian genius, a reminiscence perhaps
of the Dryad. The woodsmen avoid lying under them ;
and if they are obliged to cut down such a haunted tree,
they will watch carefully for the moment when it is about
to fall, and lie down flat on the ground keeping religioin
silence, in order to avoid the wrath of the stoicheiou,
which will issue from the trunk at the moment of
severance.
The relics of antiquity have also frequently become
objects of such stoicheiolatry, and travellers have
recorded the difficulty with which pieces of ancient
sculpture have been removed from their place, owing to
the opposition of the country folk, who believed that the
welfare of the district was essentially connected with
these Palladia.
"Villoison, " Annates des Voyages," ii. p. 1S0.
1/2 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Sometimes these local deities are at strife, as in a
curious legend quoted by Passow, where the spirit of the
plane tree waged war on the genius of the sea, and death
was abroad in the land ; again, in the phenomena of
nature, in storm and snow and thunder, the popular
mind conceives the elemental strife as a war between
these elemental genii.
Even so it was in the ancient world ; each spot had its
peculiar tutelary deity, its nymph or naiad, its
Hermes, Priapus, or Pan— the fountain, the copse, the
thicket, the garden, the mountain gorge, or the stretch
of sand by the sea. Simple among the Greeks, multi-
form and elaborate among the Romans, that familiar
Polytheism of nature undoubtedly survives to this day.
Here may also be mentioned the attitude of the modern
populations towards the Hellenes of old. Now that a
regenerate Greece has adopted once more the appella-
tion of Hellas, and that the name which all who border
on the ^Egean and all the dwellers of the islands
claim with pride is that of Hellene, it may be presumed
that a little historical knowledge will soon dispel the
ancient tradition ; but certainly at the beginning of the
century, and still to-day perhaps in remoter mountain
districts, the Hellenes were considered by the rude
inhabitants to have been a race of giants,having no connec-
tion with the present occupiers of the land. They only
knew that they were heathen — mythical beings of trans-
cendent strength, who lifted huge stones, and built the
mighty fortresses they still contemplate with supersti-
tious awe. The Greeks of the last century called themselves
Greeks, or, more commonly, Romans ; the name Hellene
belonged to that dim heathen race, " iron-men," " lion-like
The Supernatural. i ;
men," " tall as trees," whose graves are still to be seen—
for so they described the huge piles of ruin scatten
through the land — speaking of the remote past as " in the
days of the Hellenes." Thus it happens that a kind of
magician-like reputation is attached to the memory of
Alexander the Great, whose sisters the Nereids are in one
Athenian child-tale said to be. Dr. Schmidt relates how
an old woman in Andros maintained that there had been
four ages in the world ; the first was that of the dragons,
the second that of the heathen Hellenes, the third that of
the Venetians, and the fourth was that of the Turks ;''
a summary of her island's story which was, after all, not
wholly unjustifiable.
But it is not in the spirit alone that the old nature
deities survive in the superstition of the modern
populations ; the very names and attributes are often
but little modified. Of such survivals, the most
familar are the Nereids, who, though still connected in
the popular conception with the idea of water — the name
being etymologically identifiable with vepb, the
universal word for water in the modern language
— now include all that tradition has retained of those
mystical, half-human beings, who as Nymphs or
Naiads, Oreads or Hamadryads, haunted the forest,
the fountain, and the hill. Sometimes, indeed, they
ippcar in the popular poetry as genuine water-fays,
jivith pearls and corals in their sea-green hair. Generally
speaking, they are looked upon as light-hearted, irrational,
5 Schmidt, " Volksleben," p. 193.
6 The modern name has many variations — Xfpdi'Ses, 'ApepdiSes, Xtppoes,
~Sepa~yioe$, 'Avepayda, &c. Sometimes they are merely alluded to as "the
maidens" ira Kovpirffia 1 , or again as the "good mistresses" [Ka\ah
apx&vTKraais I, like our "good people."
174 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
capricious beings, of more than human grace and beauty;
their dress is white, they are decked with crowns and
garlands of flowers, and wear a veil, which flutters behind
them in the wind. Their nature is not always benignant ;
but although there is a feeling of awe, not unmixed with
fear, in the popular attitude towards these creatures of
their superstition, recalling the " nymphs that never
sleep, goddesses of dread to the country folk" 7 of
Theocritus, a general consent admits that they are
harmless to those who do not cross them. Their
supernatural gifts are the power of becoming suddenly
invisible, of attenuation, which enables them to slip
through chinks and key-holes, of riding through the air,
' land passing from one place to another with the swiftness
of the wind. They are known to be accomplished in all
womanly arts, to spin and weave, and sing as no mortal
woman can. In fact, to be compared to a Nereid is the
greatest of compliments ; to be said to have a Nereid's
eyes or a Nereid's hair is the praise that is bestowed on
beauty ; to be said to sing, to weave, or to sweep like a
Nereid, is the praise that the housewife desires. They
are not immortal, but their lives exceed by ten times
those of men, and their beauty does not fade till death.
Dancing and music are their passion, and many have
seen their merry revels of a moonlit night on the level
space of the threshing floor, and often the shepherds in
the mountains have perceived that they were not piping
in solitude, but that mystic dancers were keeping time
to the notes of the reed-pipe, flitting among the shadows
of the pines.
It is probable that in many cases the actual spots
7 Theocritus, "Idyll," 13.
The Supernatural. 175
which superstition represents as haunted by such
Nereids to-day were dedicated to the worship of Nymph
or Naiad of old. I remember a village in the highlands
of Arcadia, in the neighbourhood of which was a spring
and a grotto which bore evidences of the worship of the
nymph to whom tradition maintained that it had been
sacred, where the expression is still in use among the
men when they wish to describe the beauty of one of
the village maids, " She looks like the nymph under the
tree." And how deeply rooted is the belief is illustrated
by an experience, recorded by the historian Soutzo,
who was told by a peasant of Argos of a Nereid who
used by day to lay out her clothes upon the rocks to dry.
Upon his expressing his scepticism, the peasant repeat-
edly crossed himself, and said, "What, do you not
believe in apparitions ? "
In a story mentioned by Fauriel in the introduction
to his Collection of Popular Songs, there is a curious
blending of the Oread myth with a reminiscence of Pan
or of the Satyrs. He quotes from the notes of an
English traveller, who had heard it among the Mainotcs
of the range of Taygetus. " Three maids," the legend
runs, " of exquisite beauty, but with the legs and the feet
of a goat, are ever dancing round the summit of
Scardamyla. No man may approach them with
impunity, and should any one unwittingly venture
within the charmed precinct, he is fondled and embraced
and made much of ; but, none the less, it is his doom to
be thrown headlong from the precipice, and dashed to
pieces on the rocks below." These mountain fays
would undoubtedly be described as Nereids in the
district from which the legend hails ; but their
176 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
malignant nature rather partakes of the character
ascribed to the Sirens, of whom also there is an echo of
suggestion in a popular song which another English
traveller heard sung in the neighbourhood of Cape
Malea. He was unable to give me the text, but the
substance of it ran : A fair maid sat on a rock and sang
to the ships that passed under. There came a ship from
Prevesa that way, and on board they heard her sing.
The captain bade them shorten sail, and they stopped
to listen. The burden of her song, however, with the
inconsequence of the popular muse, was only that her
husband had sent her to the mountain to get hare's
cheese, 8 that she was very long away, and that when
she came back he had married another wife.
Mineral springs and healing-waters are especially
under the protection of the Nereids, and those
who drink of them do so in silence and with a
certain awe. So Pausanias, in describing the river
Anigrus, mentions a cavern by the river sacred to the
Anigridan nymphs, and states that whoever bathes in
this stream, the waters of which have a very foul smell,
will be cured of all skin diseases, if he first makes due
prayer to the nymphs, and pays the proper sacrifice. 9
There exists, moreover, in the Anthology a little
dedicatory poem by the poetess Moero, written for
Cleonymus to the " Nymphs of Anigrus, maidens of the
river." The dripping water of a spring in a grotto
near Kotzanes, in Macedonia, is said to issue from
the Nereids' breasts, and to cure all human ills. Those
8 A mysterious product, not unfrequently alluded to in popular song and
story.
9 Pausanias, book v. (Eliacs), chap. v.
The Supernatural. 177
who would drink of it must enter the cave with a
torch or lamp in one hand, and a pitcher in the other,
which they must fill with the water, and leaving some scrap
of their clothing behind them, must turn round without
being scared by the noises they may hear within, and
quit the cave without ever looking back. If any of these
conditions are unfulfilled, the water will lose its power. 1
It is believed that Nereids, though possessing certain
supernatural gifts, can be brought under human control
by those w r ho succeed in snatching some portion of
their garments and keeping it closely hidden. It is
generally the veil which is thus seized, and she who has
lost it must forego her power of invisibility, and follow
the ravisher as his slave. Thus many stories are told
of the loves of Nereids and mortals, and here and there
among the villagers certain families are pointed out as
of Nereid descent. Such a family is said to exist in the
little village of Menidhi, near Athens. 2 However, the
Nereid bride soon tires of human companionship, and
longs for the freedom of the mountains ; so she is for
ever looking for the stolen veil with which the secret of
her servitude is linked, and if she finds it, or succeeds in
persuading her husband to restore it, she will disappear
and leave him, although, if she has become a mother,
she can never be admitted again to the choir of her
sisters. This belief seems tolerably universal, and Dr.
Schmidt found further that the conviction prevails in
the island of Cephalonia, that she would yet have to
return to her husband after seven years, if during all
this while he never left the house.
1 Politis, " Mythologfa" (1S71), pt. i. p. 87.
1 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath.
N
178 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Sometimes it is the Nereid herself who falls in love
with the mortal, and those who are thus favoured are
sure of all good fortune and success as long as their
love remains faithful ; but should her lover prove untrue,
the Nereid's vengeance is unerring, and his life may
prove the forfeit. 3
One curious story of the union of a Nereid with a
mortal, told in the Cretica of Chourmouzi, may well be
quoted here, because it has a special interest, containing,
as it does, traces of connection with the oldest Hellenic
myths. 4 The tale was told to the author some sixty years
ago by an aged peasant, who described it as handed down
to him by his grandfather, in connection with a grotto in
the province of Pediada, in the island of Crete, which con-
tains a spring of excellent water, and is known to all
the dwellers round as the Nereids' cave. It runs as
follows : A youth of the village of Sgourokephali, who
had great skill upon the lyre, used to accompany the
Nereids to their cave and play to them. One of them
more especially excited his admiration, and he appealed
to a wise old woman of his village to reveal to him how
he might gain her for his bride. The old woman bade
him seize her by the hair when the time approached at
which the cock crows, and never let go, whatever forms
she might assume in order to terrify him or to elude his
grasp, until the cock had crowed. Accordingly, the
next time the Nereids took him to their cave, he played,
as was his wont, for them to dance to ; but when the hour
of cock-crow drew near, he flung the lyre aside and
3 For specimens of such tales of the loves of Nereids, see Hahn's
" Griechische und Albanesische Marchen."
4 The tale of Peleus and Thetis. Cp. Ovid, " Met." ix. 249, &c.
The Supernatural. 179
clutched his beloved by the hair. At once she changed
her aspect, and turned under his hand, like Proteus, into
a dog - , then into a snake, a camel, and at last into the
semblance of fire. Just then the cock crew, the other
Nereids disappeared, and his prisoner, reassuming her
natural form, followed him quietly to the village, where
within the space of a year she bore him a son. But all
this while she was never heard to utter a word. Again
he had recourse to the wise woman to aid him in break-
ing this spell of silence. She instructed him to heat the
oven, which stands outside every Greek cottage, and then
taking their boy, to say to the Nereid wife, " As thou wilt
not speak to me, I mean to burn the child," and to feign
the action of doing so. He again took her advice, and
the Nereid found her voice, but only to cry, " You hound,
let go my child ! " as she tore the infant from his hands
and fled. The story goes on to say, that, being a mother,
she could not return to her sisters, and took up her
abode in a neighbouring fountain, where now and then
she might be seen holding the child in her arms.''
In some stories a masculine form of the word occurs,
NepdiSos, the husband of the Nereid. Such a bein-
plays a part in an account given me by the well-known
Cretan chieftain, Captain Christodoulaki, of a fellow
Sphakiote, whom he had known well, who was or
pretended to be a very mysterious person, and had
uncanny relations with powers mystical. As a child, he
had disappeared for a long while, and was sought for all
5 This story was repeated in 1S66 to Mr. W. J. Stillman, at that time
U. S. Consul in Crete, by a shepherd, apparently respecting the same rave.
His story was precisely similar in all details, except that in his version the
child was actually thrown into the oven, and that only then the Nereid
found her voice.
X 2
1 80 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
over the mountains. It was only after long seeking
that his brother, who was calling his name, heard his
voice answered, and going to the spot, found him in a
strangely dazed condition. At length, he related that he
had been carried off by a man and a woman to the
high point where he was found ; he had heard the voices
of the seekers calling, but was prevented from answering
by the woman, for they were Nereids. At last, the man
and the woman fell out, and he took the opportunity of
their coming to blows to answer the cry, but when his
brother drew near, the Nereids disappeared.
From Crete also comes another story in which such
male Nereids occur, taken down by the traveller Pashley
in the early part of this century, as he heard it from the
lips of a Sphakiote. Two men, his informant told him,
went one fine moonlight night into the mountains to
hunt the Cretan wild goat. They heard a great tumult,
and at first supposed it to be a company of people
coming to fetch snow, to take to the city ; but as they
drew nearer, they heard the sound of musical instruments.
Soon they discovered these were not mortals, but an
assemblage of goblin beings, all clothed in varied
garments, " Both men and women, on foot and on
horseback, a multitude of people ; and the men were
white as doves, and the women beautiful as the
sunbeams." Also it was evident that they were
carrying something which resembled a bier. The
mountaineers determined to shoot at the aerial host as
they passed along singing —
" We go, we go to fetch the lady bride
From the steep rock, a solitary nymph."
As the shot was fired, those who were last in the procession
The Supernatural. 181
exclaimed, "They've murdered our bridegroom — they've
murdered our bridegroom ! " and as they thus exclaimed
they wept, and shrieked, and fled/'
There must have existed among the ancient Greeks,
as there undoubtedly exists among the modern popula-
tions of this land, some subtle instinct suggesting a
divinity inherent in certain spots of earth of exceptional
beauty, of striking grandeur, or of solitude ; some close
sympathy with nature, due rather to feeling than to a
rational process, such as that which has evoked the
nature-lore of Northern poets. It is possible that this
very susceptibility makes it difficult for them to analyse
the feeling, and reason upon it, and we may be quite
wrong in attributing to the Southern character a want of
appreciation of what in reality they keenly feel, as
indeed they show when placed in other surroundings.
This same instinct perhaps it was that suggested the
anxious sense of the weirdness of midday, in the pause
and rest of nature in a summer land through the hottest
hours of noon, which, indeed, all who are sensitive to the
impressions of nature will acknowledge has some
intangible influence on man and beast, in its stillness, its
intensity, its brilliance, and which can only be compared
to the influence of the full moon on a summer night in
the South. It was this feeling which found expression
in the representation of the sleep of Pan, set in the
mouth of the swain of Theocritus —
" O shepherd, not at noon, we may not pipe at noon,
For Pan we dread, who then comes from the chase
Weary, and takes his rest.*' r
6 Pashley, "Travels in Crete," vol. ii. p. 217.
7 Theoc, "Idyll" i.
1 82 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
This feeling which is implied in the distich of Ovid —
" Grant we meet not the Dryads nor Dian face to face,
Nor Faunus, when at noon he walks abroad " — 8
Mediaeval writers not unfrequently allude to the mid-
day demon, 9 and a somewhat analogous dread of the noon
hours I remember to have found among the Wends of
Lusatia, where the shores of a little lake in the middle
of the Spree marshlands are avoided between the hours
of eleven and noon, for fear of the Pschespomtza, the
midday witch, who lames or injures all that come in her
way.
We need, therefore, not be surprised to find that the
popular mind is filled with little awes respecting the
danger of approaching certain spots at noon : cross-ways
and mills are under the ban, and especially the neigh-
bourhood of streams and springs is to be shunned, for
the haunting Nereids grow harmful at this hour, and
children are warned not to stray out of sight, for the
Nereids have been known to strike their victim dumb,
especially if he replies to their enticing questions when
they speak him fair. In the island of Melos they are
actually called by the name of Mea7]/xep'yidTai<;, the
"midday maidens." There is on the summit of Mount
Hymettus a small round space known as the " level,"
which is carefully avoided at the hour of noon by any
shepherds who may be pasturing their flocks on the
mountain, and they tell the story of one who had in
ignorance ventured within the charmed circle, and who
was at once overpowered by a whirling wind which
8 Ovid, "Fasti." iv. 761.
9 Dr. Schmidt points out that in the Septuagint version of the 91st Psalm,
" Thou shalt not be afraid .... for the destruction that wasteth at noon-
day," is rendered by airo av/J.TrTilj/j.aTos /cat dai/jioviov fieari/m^pivov.
The Supernatural. 1 3 ■
knocked him prostrate, and kept him a prisoner there
till late in the afternoon.
An uncanny side to these personified materializations
of the spirit of nature was conceived by the ancients,
who gave the name of " Nympholepsy " to a disturbance
of the rational mental state. It is curious to find a
reference to the current superstition put into the mouth
of Socrates in the " Phaedrus." 1 Those whom the nymphs
had influenced became afflicted with depression, with
a desire for solitude, and strange fits of frenzy, and
occasionally the death of children is referred to in
monumental inscriptions as the work of the nymphs.
Similarly, to-day, a tendency to melancholy, a preference
for solitude is also ascribed to the pernicious influence
of the Nereids — those who have been struck by them fly
from their kind —
" Es treibt ein wildes Sehnen
Hinauf zur Waldeshohe ; "
they wander out by lonely paths, returning late at night,
and death overtakes them young. People born on a
Saturday are said to be especially susceptible to the
Nereids' spell.
In another characteristic of the Nereids there may,
perhaps, be detected a reminiscence of the Harpies.
The whirlwind, which is not uncommon in Greece, even
in summer, is symptomatic of their presence, and in this
wind they lift the wayfarer off his feet and bear him
way through the air. Therefore, those who see the
dead leaves circling and the dust, and feel the whirlwind
near, bow down the head and whisper, " Milk and honey
be in thy path," the due offering to propitiate these
1 Plato, " Phaedrus," 23S.
184 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
deities of the storm. 2 Such a story is told in Athens of
the Nereids who haunt the stream known as the
Kakoremma, and who are said to fling stones at those
who approach the spot. A young man, who had been
hunting, sat down there to rest under a tree, when he
heard the sound of fairy music, and rose to see whence
it proceeded. Suddenly he was aware of a rushing
wind that snatched him up and whirled him round and
round, and bore him at last stunned and confused
to the top of a high tree, where he was flung upon a
golden bed. There he was kept eight days and nights
bound and unable to move. The ninth day he was
liberated, and climbing down, escaped. But he
remained for as many days in a half-dazed condition,
till at last he went to church, and so the spell was
broken. 3
It has been mentioned in an earlier chapter that Nereids
are supposed to steal newly-born children, and some-
times to substitute their own, like fairies in other
lands. Therefore, the house-door is kept shut for many
days after a child is born ; and Greek mothers never
leave their babies to the care of older brothers and
sisters, but take them out when they go to the fields,
and sling them in their little leather hammocks to a
tree, or to three sticks crossed in a shady place, where
they may be continually kept in view.
Finally, the Nereids in their capacity as water-fays,
preside over and control a ceremony known as the
" Kledona," which takes place on St. John's Day (June
2 Cp. Theoc, "Idyll" v. "And I will dedicate a great bowl of white milk
to the nymphs."
3 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath.
The Supernatural. 185
24, o.s.). The previous evening a new earthen jar is
filled with water by a boy ; a girl may fill it, but a boy
is better, that all the conditions may be complete.
Whoever fills it must not speak while doing so, and if
spoken to must not answer. Then a company of girls
who have associated themselves together to test their
fortune by the " Kledona," drop into the water, each for
herself, some token which will be easily recognizable — a
button, a ring, a key, and so on. The jar is next
covered with a cloth, securely fastened, and left out all
night that the Nereids may place it under a spell. In
the morning all the girls meet, and the jar is then
opened by the same individual who closed it. The girls
then each in turn sing a rhyming distich in the nature
of a love motto, while the person holding the jar dives
in the hand and brings out the first object touched.
The distich which accompanies the extraction is held
to apply to the girl to whom the object in question
belongs.
One other form of divination by water was told me
by a girl from the island of Andros, where she said it
was the custom for girls to hold a mirror over a well,
and to look in it for the face of their future husband
reflected from the well below. My informant added
that she knew that the process was infallible, for a
servant girl there had lately tried her fate, and saw
reflected in the mirror the face of her master, a wealthy
man who was already married. In spite of the apparent
improbability of such a prospect being realized, the wife
soon after died, and the master married his maid.
The Lamia or Lamna (Aafxla, Ad/xva, or Adfiviaaa),
who sometimes figure singly in popular tradition and
1 86 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
I sometimes in companies, are akin to the Nereids, but
j always malign in influence. In classical lore, the
Lamia is of frequent occurrence, but her characteristics
are not always identical. In the older myth, she may
perhaps be counted among the deities of the sea.
Aristophanes and Philostratus represent her along with
Ithe Mormo and Empusa, as a monstrous and malignant
being; 4 but she is also able to assume an attractive form,
the better to ensnare her victim. So in the modern
folk-poetry the Lamia occasionally appears as a nymph
who dances to the shepherd and lures him to his doom, 5
and as such is generally spoken of as a spirit of the sea
or the seashore, while in Elis she is even, described as the
queen of the Nereids. More frequently, however, she
is portrayed as a monstrosity, hideous and deformed,
hungry for human flesh to eat, partaking rather of the
nature of the Harpy, the Gorgon, or the Empusa, which
• last apparition of dread is said still to find believers in
the valley of the Spercheius.
Athenian folk-lore has a story of a Lamia who hid in
a well, and lived on the blood of living beasts. At length
she was shot by a peasant, whose two oxen had thus
been destroyed ; none had ventured to fire at her before,
for fear the bullets would return and strike their owner,
but this peasant shot with the left hand. The body of
the Lamia was three fathoms long, and where her blood
had dripped, no green thing would ever grow. Another
4 Horace alludes to the current superstition : —
" Nee, quod cumque volet, poscat sibi fabula credi "
Neu pransa; Lamias vivum puerum alvo. — (Ars. Poet 340) ;
and Lucian in the " Fhilopseudes " represents the Mormo and Lamia as
bugbears to children.
5 See p. 279.
The Supernatural. 187
Lamia is the Mora, and she has great possessions. She
is abroad by night only, and if she espies a sleeper by
the road, she sits upon his chest and grows so heavy
that he " bellows like a bull." But if by chance her
destined victim were not quite fast asleep, and seeing
her approach could stealthily snatch her cap, she would
fall into his power, and would grant him all he wished
for to get her cap back again.
Another mysterious evil spirit of antiquity, the Gillo,
whose origin may be traced to the island of Lesbos, is
frequently alluded to by mediaeval writers. More
universal to-day is the dread of the Strigla ( oTpyr/kaisi) ,
the St rix of the Rom ans. 7 In modern Italy the Strega,
like the Greek Strigla, is looked upon as a witch-woman,
who has the power of changing her form, and flying by
night in the shape of a crow, sucking human blood, with
breath of deadly poison ; distinct, however, from the
vampire, which is generally held to be a material resusci-
tation of a dead person, while the Strigla is a living
being who has assumed a birdlike form. This view of
the Strix is curiously illustrated by a law of Charle-
magne's for the province of Saxony, which decrees the
penalty of capital punishment on any " who led away
by the devil to believe, after the manner of pagans, that
a certain man or women be a Strix, and feed upon human
beings, should therefore burn such, or distribute their
6 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath., Hapadoaeis.
7 Cp. Ovid—
" Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostro
Et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent :
Est illis strigibus nomen."
A fragment of an ancient popular song exorcising the Strix is fount?
in Festus.
1 88 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
flesh to be eaten, or eat thereof himself." s Such it
appears was the barbarous antidote, as it formerly was
in Russia and Poland against the vampire, where blood
of the body from which it was supposed to emanate was
eaten in a paste of meal.
The modern Strix appears more rarely in a masculine
/form (arpLyXos), and the name is applied as an epithet
I of hatred or contempt to old men as well as to aged
' crones who have an uncanny reputation. In this appli-
> cation it is about equivalent to our witch.
The genuine vampire is the Vourkolakas, of whom a
number of stories are still current, though Colonel Leake
more than fifty years ago expressed the opinion that it
would be difficult in Greece to find any one who still
believed in such a barbarous superstition. The
Albanians call it Wurwolakas, and the name has a
number of slightly varying forms in different parts of
Greece. 9 The word itself is undoubtedly of Sclavonic
origin, being found in Bohemia, Dalmatia, Montenegro,
Servia, and Bulgaria ; while it reappears as Vilkolak
among the Poles, with the signification rather of weir-
wolf than vampire. The superstition itself is, however,
of extreme antiquity, and the name only was introduced
by the Sclavonic immigrants, for we find the vampire
in Crete and Rhodes, where the Sclaves never pene-
trated, under the name of Katakhanas (icaTaxavas) ,
the " destroyer," in Tenos as the Anakathoumenos
(Ava/caOov/j,evos), the " snatcher," and again in Cyprus
as the Sarkomenos (XapKOjAevos), a name implying
either that the dead body from which the vampire issues
8 " Capitularia pro partibus Saxonioe," i. 6.
9 BovptcoXcLKas, BpvK&\aKas, BovpodXaKas, &C, &c.
The Supernatural. 189
has retained its flesh, or that it must be gorged with
flesh.
It is not necessary here to point out what traces of
vampirism are to be found in the oldest literatures ; it
will be sufficient for the present purpose to indicate that
there is suggestion of such a belief in classical authors.
The idea most generally prevailing with regard to
vampires, is that they are dead folk who cannot rest in
their graves, and who prey upon the living, in order to
obtain the draught of blood which is essential to them
for the renewal of their vitality. The analogy
immediately suggests itself of the desire of the dead
souls, evoked by Odysseus, to drink the blood of the
sacrifice, and the instructions of Circe, that he should
suffer none to taste it until Teiresias had drunk and
prophesied. x It would seem that the drinking of blood
was considered a necessary condition of temporary
vitality, and doubtless it was some such popular
superstition which was embodied in the epic. The
same idea may perhaps underlie the human sacrifice to
the mighty dead as practised among primitive people.
At the grave of Patroclus, twelve Trojan prisoners were
slain, 2 and the " Hecuba " of Euripides records the
immolation of Polyxena, to appease the shade of
Achilles, who is invited by Neoptolemus to drink the
maiden's blood.
Pausanias also describes the destruction of infants at
Corinth through the agency of Medea's murdered sons, 3
and tells a similar story of one of the companions of
1 Odyssey ix. 48, &c.
2 Iliad xxiii. 181, &c.
3 Paus. ii. 3.
190 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Odysseus, who was stoned to death by the inhabitants of
Temessa, where he had ravished a virgin. He became
a "demon," and preyed upon the inhabitants of Temessa
in revenge, until the Pythian deity, called into
consultation, found a way for them out of their troubles. 4
Again, this indefatigable collector of myths and miracles
tells us how the land of Orchomenus was afflicted by a
spectre, which sat upon a stone, and that when the
oracle was consulted, its answer was that the men
of Orchomenos should search for and bury the remains
of Actaeon ; make a brazen image of the spectre, and
fasten it to the stone. In the " Phaedo " of Plato there is
allusion to the soul which, being impure at its release,
haunts graves and tombs, and still clings to the visible ;
and many suggestive passages might be cited from later
writers. Finally, the Mormo, the Empusa, and the
Lamia possessed the blood-sucking reputation of the
vampire in the popular superstitions of antiquity.
And here it may be mentioned that the Vourkolakas
is not invariably the blood-sucking vampire in recent
tradition, but that the name is sometimes extended to
include mere spectres of the departed who return to
earth, and that in this sense, at any rate, the superstition
is by no means so extinct as Colonel Leake appears to
have believed. 5 In the memoirs of M. Nicholas
Dragoumis there is an interesting account of its effect
on the population of Naxos, where early in the thirties
a cholera epidemic had carried off a great number of
victims. The rumour was circulated that the Naxian
dead in the other world were so numerous that they
4 Paus. vi. 6.
5 Leake, " Northern Greece," vol. iv. chap. 38.
The Supernatural. 191
had overpowered Charos, and were coming back again
to earth to take possession of their own. The fear of
these Vourkolakes, as they called them, was so great
that the inhabitants rushed to their houses at sunset,
barred doors and windows, and piled the furniture
against them ; but often in vain, for the spectres entered
through the keyholes and scared the living for many an
anxious day. 6
The Vourkolakas is, however, generally ravenous.
In the Naxian story, those who saw them referred to
their horrible appearance and their urgent demands for
food. Sometimes, again, they arc represented as robbing
eggs and cattle. When the}- are bent upon human prey
it is with their nearest relatives that they begin ; but if
the husband be abroad at the time of their visit, and
only the wife at home, as Pashley suggestively remarks
in his account of the Cretan Katakhanas, she generally
survives the interview.
Colonei Leake, in the passage above referred to, states
that the tradition connected with these vampires in
Epirus was as follows : " The devil is supposed to enter
the Vourkolaka, who, rising from his grave, torments first
his nearest relations and then others, causing their death
or loss of health. The remedy is to dig up the body,
and if, after it has been exorcised by the priest, the
demon still persists in annoying the living, to cut the
body into small pieces, and, if that be not sufficient, to
burn it." He goes on to describe the difficulties which
the Metropolitan of Grevena had met with in quieting
the vampires of his province. To their credit be it
said, the Orthodox bishops have always struggled hard
6 N. SpayovfJLT]s. 'IffTdpLKCu'Avani'ricTeis, vol. i. p. 117-
192 TJie Customs mid Lore of Modern Greece.
to put down such superstitions, though not always with
success.
Leo Allatius, in his essay on the superstitions of the
Greeks, also inclines to the theory that it is a demon
which enters the body of the dead man, which in con-
sequence of his sins has not disintegrated. He further
records that in the Chios the opinion prevailed that
when the Vourkolakas called, knocking at the door, he
who should reply was doomed to be his victim. But as
the spectre does not call twice, the inhabitants never
answer a first summons, but if it be repeated they know
there is nothing to fear. 7
In Albania it is maintained that only on Fridays and
Saturdays can the vampire be found in his grave; and
in Greece he is said only to rest quietly on the latter.
It was on these days, therefore, that the corpse would be
exhumed, and tradition records that it was invariably
found undecomposed. 8 The burning of a body which
had once been anointed with holy oil would, of course,
only be attempted as a last resource ; but not long ago
a rumour was circulated in the Athenian press that such
a proceeding had taken place quite recently in a deme
of the island of Andros.
The Benedictine Abbot, Augustine Calmet, in his
book on magic, witchcraft, and superstition, quotes, not
without a certain scepticism, the account of a singular
experiment made at Constantinople in the 15 th century,
at the instance of the Sultan, to test the superstition
prevalent among the Christian Greeks, that the bodies
of those who died under excommunication would not
7 "De quorundam Graecorum Superstitionibus," p. 142, &c.
8 Comp. p. 127.
The Supernatural. 193
decay in the grave. The Patriarch, therefore, caused the
grave of a woman to be opened who had been placed
under the ban for participation in a scandal in which an
archbishop had been concerned, and the body was
found intact, but black and swollen. It was accordingly
enclosed in a chest, which was locked and sealed with
the Sultan's own seal. The Patriarch, meantime, offered
prayer, and revoked the sentence of excommunication.
Three days later the chest was opened, whereupon it
was found that the body had fallen to dust
A somewhat analogous tale is told by Sir Paul
Ricaut, who was for many years British Ambassador at
Constantinople, and previously consul at Smyrna, dur-
ing the latter half of the 17th century. His authority
was a monk named Sophronius, of high standing in
Smyrna, who had himself been an eye-witness of what
he related in the island of Milos, where the inhabitants
had been for a long time disturbed by a ghastly noc-
turnal apparition, which was supposed to proceed from
the grave of a man who had died excommunicated.
The grave was accordingly opened, and the body was
found intact, with the veins full of blood. The monks
of St. Basil then took counsel together, and their collec-
tive wisdom decided that the proper course to take was
to cut the body up and boil it in wine, for so tradition
prescribed. The relatives of the deceased, however,
succeeded in having the execution of this verdict post-
poned, and sent to Constantinople to implore the
Patriarch to revoke the excommunication. Meanwhile,
the body was placed in the Church, where masses were
continually said for the repose of the soul. Now, it
happened one day that Sophronius himself was directing
194 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
the ceremonies, when a sudden crack was heard in the
coffin. It was opened, and then it was seen that the
body was all consumed away, like that of a man who
had been " dead for seven years." The hour of this
occurrence was duly noted, and when the deputation
returned frorn Constantinople, it was discovered that it
coincided precisely with the time when the Patriarch
had rescinded the dead man's sentence.
The islanders appear to have been especially addicted
to the belief in this superstition. Hydra is said to
have been formerly infected by vampires, but a zealous
bishop succeeded in transferring them all to the un-
occupied island of Therasia, in the Santorin group, where
they still walk at night, but being unable to cross salt
water find no one to torment ; and Tournefort in 1701
was eye-witness of the laying of such a Vourkolakas,
who haunted the island of Myconos, and whose body
was not only transferred to the neighbouring islet of St.
George, but was there consumed with fire.
In examining the causes to which the popular mind
ascribes vampirism, it becomes evident that at some-
time or another the Church must have turned a prevailing
superstition to account, in order to exercise a terrorizing
influence against the violation cf its canons. We have
seen that as late as the 18th century the opinion still
prevailed that those who die under the ban of excom-
munication are liable to become vampires, a notion not
wholly extinct to-day, though sentences of excommuni-
cation are rarer. A Cretan told me that the same fate
befell those at whose baptism some portion of the
ceremony had been left incomplete ; and in Cephalonia
marriage with a Koumbaros is said to have the same
The Supernatural. 195
effect. Children conceived upon a great religious festival
are also under the ban, as well as those who have
received a parent's curse. But there are other causes
which prevent the dead from resting. Those over whose
corpse a cat has jumped, and those who die a violent
death, are liable to wander from their graves ; and the
Mainotes maintain that only when a murder is avenged
will its victim cease to haunt the earth.
In conclusion, the following story, taken down word
for word by Mr. Pashley during his travels in Crete,
furnishes a curious instance of the extravagance of a
superstition which, though rapidly disappearing, is still
not wholly extinct. 9
" Once on a time, the village of Kalikrati, in the district of
Sfakia, was haunted by a Katakhanas, and people did not know
what man he was or from what part. This Katakhanas destroyed
both children and many full-grown men ; and desolated both that
village and many others. They had buried him at the Church of
St. George at Kalikrati, and in those times he was a man of note,
and they had built an arch over his grave. Now, a certain shep-
herd, his mutual Synteknos, 1 was tending his sheep and goats
near the church, and on being caught by a shower, he went to the
sepulchre that he might be shaded from the rain. Afterwards, he
determined to sleep, and to pass the night there, and after taking
off his arms, he placed them by the stone which served him as his
pillow, cross wise. And people might say that it was on this
account that the Katakhands was not permitted to leave his tomb.
During the night, then, as he wished to go out again, that
he might destroy men, he said to the shepherd, 'Gossip, get up
hence, for I have some business that requires me to come out.'
The shepherd answered him not, either the first time, or the
second, or the third : for thus he knew that the man had become a
9 Pashley, "Travels in Crete," ii. chap. 36. London, 1837.
1 A word used to describe the relation of a person to his godchild's
father. The spiritual father and the natural father being brothers, as it were.
O 2
196 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Katakhanas, and that it was he who had done all those evil deeds.
On this account he said to him, on the fourth time of his speaking,
' I shall not get up hence, gossip, for I fear that you are no better
than you should be, and may do me some mischief; but if I must
get up, swear to me by your winding-sheet, 3 that you will not hurt
me, and on this I will get up. And he did not pronounce the pro-
posed words, but said other things.' Nevertheless, when the shep-
herd did not suffer him to get up, he swore to him as he wished.
On this he got up, and, taking his arms, removed them away from
the monument, and the Katakhanas came forth, and, after greeting
the shepherd, said to him, ' Gossip, you must not go away, but sit
down here, for I have some business which I must go after ; but
I shall return within the hour, for I have something to say to you.'
So the shepherd waited for him.
" And the Katakhanas went a distance of about ten miles, where
there was a couple recently married, and he destroyed them. On
his return his gossip saw that he was carrying some liver, his
hands being moistened with blood ; and, as he carried it, he blew
into it, just as the butcher does, to increase the size of the liver.
And he showed his gossip that it was cooked, as if it had been
done on the fire. After this he said, ' Let us sit down, gossip, that
we may eat.' And the shepherd pretended to eat it, but only
swallowed dry bread, and kept dropping the liver into his bosom.
Therefore, when the hour for their separation arrived, the Katak-
hanas said to the shepherd, ' Gossip, this which you have seen you
must not mention, for if you do, my twenty nails will be fixed in
your children and yourself.' Yet the shepherd lost no time, but
gave information to priests and others, and they went to the tomb,
and there they found the Katakhanas just as he had been buried.
And all people became satisfied that it was he who had done
all the evil deeds. On this account they collected a great deal of
wood, and they cast him on it, and burnt him. His gossip was not
present, but when the Katakhanas was already half consumed, he
too came forward in order that he might enjoy the ceremony. And
the Katakhanas cast, as it were, a single spot of blood, and it fell
upon his foot, which wasted away as if it had been roasted on a
2 The only oath binding on a vampire.
The Supernatural. 197
fire. On this account they sifted even the ashes, and found the
little finger-nail of the Katakhanas unburnt, and burnt it too."
Pashley's experience, of course, dates back a good
many years, but I was myself told a story in Crete of a
man well known to my informant, who had the power
of foretelling when people were going to die. From
time to time this man would fall ill in a mysterious
manner, and his invariable explanation was that the
dead whose doom he had foretold were returning as
Katakhanades to torment him in various manners,
though it would seem rather as ghosts of the common
sort than as vampires, and in this explanation he
appeared to be perfectly sincere.
It would be strange if, with such ample survival of
the ancient polytheism in modern lore, there were no
reminiscence of the Fauns, the Satyrs, and the Pans of
the olden world. And so we shall find that in one of
the most universal and widespread superstitions, that
dual half-human nature of these dwellers in the forest, is
blended with, and at the same time obscured by, the
non-Hellenic conceptions of elf and gnome. 3
The Kalikantsari, to adopt their most general appella-
tion, are diminutive beings, with the legs of an ass or
goat, hirsute of body, and swarthy of skin ; benign for
the most part in character, though mischievous and
tricksy ; addicted to dancing, and very amatory in
disposition, who, if they get the opportunity, will carry
fair women away to the caves they haunt, during the
twelve days for which they are suffered to emerge into
the upper air, between Christmas and the Epiphany. It
3 Sir Charles Newton, in his "Travels and Discoveries," mentions that
Rhodian peasants described their woods as haunted by a dancer with the
legs and tail of a goat.
198 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
is only at night that they issue from caves and dens,
where they spend the day feasting on toads and lizards.
When the twelve days of their sojourn are past they
return to the bowels of the earth, where once more they
set to work, trying to saw through the trunk of the
great tree by which it is supported.
Several etymologies of the name have been suggested.
It is written as KaXrjKdvTcrapos, Ko\7]tcdvTcrapo<;, or
KaXKciraapo^ ; or, again, Avtco/cdvT&pos, while in
Albanian the root reappears in Kap/cavr^oXoi.
Some have pretended that KaXrj or KoXr) is a mere
metathesis of Xvko ; 4 while Kavraapos is a vulgar form
of icdvOapos, and that the word signifies, therefore,
wolf-beetle, the former referring to the supposed hirsute
appearance of these creatures, the latter to the dark
skin with which they are credited. Others, again,
have interpreted the first part of the word as a simple
euphemism. 5 Dr. Schmidt, however, has suggested
with more probability that the Greek word is derived
through the Albanian Karkandsoli, from the Turkish
Kara-kond-jolos ( = loup - garou). In Athens the
Kalikantsari are known by the name of Kolovelones
(KwXofieXoviyi), which may also be a corruption of the
name of a mischievous Albanian sprite, but which etymo-
logically has a meaning not incongruous with the popular
conception of the creatures, namely "needle-back." 6
These satyr-goblins are said to become visible a
little before midnight. Sometimes they are represented
* The value of the vowels t, rj, and v is identical, and they are pro-
miscuously used by the illiterate in spelling.
'Ecprjfxepis tQv QiXufxaduv, 1862, No. 437.
6 If spelt with an instead of an w, it might be traced to koXo/36s, deformed.
The Supernatural. 199
with one leg only like that of a goat or ass, but more
commonly both the legs arc those of animals. During
the twelve days of their presence people keep all shut
at night for fear they should get into the house ; but
those who keep a b^ckcock 7 arc safe, for the little
beings have a mortal aversion to that animal, as they also
have to fire. Their mischievous nature leads them into
tricks, the commonest of which is the defiling of wells
and fountains. Hot coals are, therefore, dropped into
the water on these twelve nights, and burnt sticks laid
across the wells to keep the Kalikantsari away. They
have wives, presumbly those whom they have carried off,
for the name has no feminine form, and children, and
they are said to be devotedly attached to their male
offspring.
A story was told me in Spetsa, which my informant
had from his grandfather, of the adventures of a woman
of that island with these singular beings. She had gone
with two others to collect wood on the far side of the
island, some distance from the town, and in the neigh-
bourhood of a cave by the sea, with which a number of
other superstitions are connected, when suddenly she dis-
appeared, and all efforts of her companions to find her
proved unavailing. Some days latter a cai'que was
rounding the point of the island, when the sailors saw
the missing woman standing on the rocks. They went
ashore and brought her back to the town, but she had
been struck dumb and could give no account of herself.
It was only after she had been taken to church, and that
the rites had been duly performed by which evil spirits
are exorcised, that she regained the power of speech,
" llav8u>pa, vol. xvi. No. 454.
200 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
and then related that she had been carried off by the
Kalikantsari, who had taken away her voice that she
might not be able to tell.
Side by side with this elfin view of the Kalikantsari,
there is another aspect, in which they approach more
nearly to the conception of the weir-wolf, and the
original significance of the Turkish derivative. In Crete,
infants born at Christmas are said to become
Kalikantsari, the punishment for the sin of the parents
being thus visited on the children, who are impiously
ifonceived, and sacrilegiously brought into the world on
a day which should admit of no rivalry. 8 Leo Allatius,
whose experiences are chiefly concerned with the island
of Chios, asserts that all children born between Christmas
and New Year's day are involved in a similar doom,
and in Zante the superstition prevailed as regards
Christmas eve. Such weir-wolves are eminently
malignant in character during the twelve days of their
reign ; the devil enters into the human being, and
drives him abroad at night hither and thither. The
fiend - possessed creature rends those he meets with
claws like a tiger, flings them down, and sitting on their
chests, leaves them half suffocated and nearly dead with
fright.
Generally speaking, however, the Kalikantsari are
easily deceived, and there are plenty of antidotes which
disarm their power of mischief. When such a one asks,
as he will do, if you meet him, " Will you have tow of
me or lead ? " you have only to answer, " Tow," and his
influence is gone. Or a sieve may be handed to him,
whereupon he will set to work to count the holes, and as
8 Politis, " Neoell. Myth.," pt. i. p. 70.
The Supernatural. 201
he cannot count beyond two, this will take him till the
morning. 9 In Athenian folk-lore, there is a story of the
trick played upon them by a woman whom the
Kolovelonides had taken by night, and whose bread
they wanted to steal. She consented to go with them,
but proposed first to tell them a story. The story was
a long one, and during the telling the first cock crew.
" Black ! " said the goblins, " we are not afraid of you : "
meaning that it was still night. As she proceeded with
her story, a second cock crew, " Red ! " they cried, " we
are not afraid of you : " for it was only nearing dawn.
But before the story was ended, the third cock crew,
" White ! " they exclaimed, meaning it was day, and so
ran off, singing the song with which they always
disappear at the Epiphany, the season when the priest
goes round to bless the houses, the wells, and the fountains
and to sprinkle them with consecrated water 1 : —
Qeuyare, va (pevyw/xev Fly, let us fly away !
Tiar epxer 6 TovpXdirawas For here comes the fat Pappas,
Mi tt]v ayiacTripd tov With his holy water
Kcu fit T7] TrXacrTrjpd tov' And his sprinkling brush ;
Kal 6e\e yu£s pavricei And he will sprinkle us,
Kcu wXtd p.as /xayaplaeu " And so contaminate us.
It has been pointed out in a former chapter how
under the influence of Christianity many benignant
qualities of the old deities have passed down to the
saints of the new order, who have taken over in some
;i A somewhat analogous form of self-protection is to be found in Italy,
where, on the eve of St. John's day, the night when witches are abroad,
the holiday-makers carry about an onion-flower or a red carnation, the idea
being that if this be handed to the witch there will be time to escape while
she is counting the leaves.
1 Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath., vol. i. p. 231.
2 There are several variations of the song of the Kalikantsari. The
version quoted here is from an article by M. Politis in the "Pandora,"
vol. xvi. p. 454.
202 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
cases the attributes, in others the shrines, and even the
festivals of their predecessors. Similarly, the malignant
forces of the ancient nature-worship live on, and if they
are ever reasoned upon by those among whom they
survive, it is only to set them down as the manifesta-
tions or the ministers of the evil one whose name is
Legion. The devil is thus to them both one and many,
and is here a very real and awe-inspiring fact, not to be
named save indirectly, or under some euphemistic title,
such as 6 iT\avr]T7)^, " the wanderer " ; 6 afie\irr)TO'i, " the
unmentionable " ; 6 /xavpos, " the black one " ; 6 /caXbs
avOpwrros, " the good man " ; or even, as in Rhodes and
elsewhere, 6 e£ airo 'Sw, which may be interpreted, " the
get thee behind me ! " :1
Sometimes he is manifested to the eye of sense in the
form of an animal, a black horse or a black ass. The
Mainotes, in whose land is the famous cave of Taenaron,
the " Tacnarii fauces," preserve the tradition of a black
dog, that issues from its recesses, and runs about the
earth — an unconscious reminiscence perhaps of Cerberus.
More commonly it is the form of goat which the
demoniac power assumes ; and in Maina, again, there is
a folk-song which tells how one who was on his way to
avenge an insult by shooting his enemy evoked the
devil's aid, addressing a goat which he hears bleating by
the name of Satan : —
2rd 8p6uo irov eirriyave Upon the way he went
"Evas fttrovXas e(3i\a%e A goat bleated ;
"E\a Kovrd fiov, Sarava, " Come to my side, Satan," said he,
Tlo. va TeXeiQcroj tt] dovkeid. 4 "That I may do what I have to do."
3 Literally " out from here," from this a single word is formed,
6 o^airoSos.
4 There are several versions of this passage in this well-known murder-
song. The above is, however, as I took it down from my guide in Maina,
who knew it by heart.
The Supernatural. 205
The shepherds of Parnassus, who live all their lives in
the open air on the mountain side, keenly sensitive to
those impressions which affect all simple people who live
face to face with nature at her wildest and ruggedest,
bear testimony to the apparition of a monstrous he-goat
among their flocks in the rutting season. Again, in \
many parts of Greece there is great fear of the half-
human, half-animal Kovrao8aifiovo<i, or " limping demon, '*
a creature of hideous exterior, with the legs of a goat, with
a hairy face, a long bearded chin, and a horned head
that butts with terrible effect. He generally appears in
company with the Kalikantsari, but from his lameness
lags behind, and he is the most dreaded, the most relent-
less and terrible of all the emanations of the evil spirit
with which Greek superstition is familiar, combining the
grosser characteristics of Hephaestus and Pan with the
typical representations of the devil in early ecclesiastical
art. The dragons already alluded to are to the popular
mind another form of this manifestation of the diabolic
nature.
Other attributes of the devil, the manner and
motives of his appearance, and the methods by which
he may be exorcised, are less individual in character and
more or less analogous to the traditions of the illiterate
in other lands.
Enough has perhaps now been said to present a
general idea of the prevailing tendency of the popular
mind in Greece. With increased facilities of communi-
cation and the extension of primary education these
ideas will doubtless gradually lose the strong hold they
still maintain in remoter districts, and disappear as the
popular muse is gradually disappearing. But it is to be
204 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
hoped that before it is too late the work of collection and
classification may be carried out more thoroughly than
it has been, and a valuable chapter added to the history
of natural development. There is probably no accessible
portion of the world where a greater wealth of popular
lore and fancy is scattered abroad, and though much is
being done to record these valuable traditions, there
still remains much to do.
In conclusion, we may turn back to the question which
was suggested at the outset, and fairly ask whether
enough has not been adduced to prove that, in spite of
all the vicissitudes through which this land has passed,
the olden spirit is still the same, the spirit manifested
not so much in the classic masterpieces produced under
exceptional circumstances and at a particular time, but
rather in glimpses of the more intimate life revealed to
us in the simpler epic or the homelier lyrics of the
anthology, and that a people which has retained through
inevitable transformations so much that is directly trace-
able to the Hellenic fountainhead, must therefore be
looked up to as the genuine representatives of those
whose language they still speak and whose name they
still assume.
20 =
CHAPTER VIII.
THE POPULAR POETRY.
The mother of the arts still lives, like Niobe, only
with the memory of her dead children. When the
West re-awoke from the darkness of the middle ages,
when the lowering cloud of barbarian invasion had
ceased to menace there, and the Italian townships in
their reviving prosperity began to rival one another in
the sumptuousness and decoration of their palaces and
shrines, Greece enjoyed no such respite. The few
individuals who, in the comparative security of the
Eastern Court, or in the mountain hermitages of
monasticism, still preserved the dying light of culture
and of learning, gradually found their way to Italy and
to the rising universities of the North, while perpetual
invasions of successive nationalities confounded the
speech and disturbed the traditions of this ill-fated
land. Art and even industry disappeared, and if now,
after half a century of security, the first symptoms of
a revival are anxiously awaited, it must yet be very
long before it can arrive at any maturity, for the taste
and the demand have first to be created ; and until
material development has duly paved the way, it would
be unreasonable to look for spiritual or moral advance-
ment. And yet, as we have seen, there is abundant
evidence that the temperament which produced the
highest poetic and artistic ideal which the world has
known did not entirely die, and that the vital qualities
206 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
of this extraordinary people have survived and even
imposed themselves upon the new populations in
sufficient measure to give hopes for the future. It
has often been pointed out by the historians of the
war of independence that the Greek peasantry are the
salt of the nation ; that in spite of the endless intrigues
and self-seeking which characterized the conduct of so
many of the leaders, it was the consistent patriotism
and devotion of the peasantry which enabled the
struggle to be prolonged, and which finally brought
about the reconstitution of the Greeks as a nation.
And once more, it is the peasantry, the people in a
limited sense, which, unconsciously no doubt, has never
let the ideal go. When the groves of Academy lay
desolate, when the slopes of Parnassus were abandoned
to the Wallach nomad, when the hill of the Museion
was covered with batteries which played upon the
masterpieces of their votaries, the banished muses took
refuge in the cottage and the mountain fastness, and
the voice of the people became instinct with a form of
poetic expression, which produced a wealth of un-
written song such as the popular poetry of few other
lands can boast.
These sonsrs, some of which have become almost
universal throughout Greece, while others, especially
those of the islands, have remained strictly local, are
now in great measure guaranteed against the gradual
oblivion to which the opening-up of the country, the
new interests of political life, the spread of education,
and the reading of the newspapers would inevitably
have soon consigned them by the patient efforts during
the present century of four foreigners — the French
The Popular Poetry. 207
collectors, Fauriel, Marcellus, and Legrand ; the German,
Passow ; and among Greek authors by Zampeiios,
Razelos, Sakcllarios, and Michael Lelckos, who is still
engaged in the arduous work of transcribing from the
mouths of the people their songs, their folk-lore, their
proverbs, and their stories. There must yet be much to
do in this respect ; the Hellenic populations scattered
over the Turkish empire doubtless possess a similar
wealth of poetic expression which still remains to be
collected, but there is now, at any rate, no fear that
these songs, which apart from their intrinsic beauty are
invaluable to the student of custom and myth, will ever
be wholly lost in the day — one is tempted to hope
somewhat remote — when the Greeks have gone the way
of the Western nations.
The poems may be divided into two main divisions,
according to their subject matter ; those of which the
spirit is epical, if the expression maybe used in a rather
loose sense, and those of which the spirit is purely
lyrical. The first division will include all those poems
which celebrate the heroes of the war of independence,
the so-called Klephtic songs of somewhat older origin,
the stories of Suli and the wars of Ali Pacha, the
Cretan battle-songs, and generally all the records of
famous Armatoli and chieftains. These, though not
necessarily differing in form from the other division,
may be fairly described as epic in spirit, and they were
during the last century and the early part of this sung
or recited, and for the most part composed or even
improvised by the blind beggars, who went from village
to village at the season of the annual P;ineguris,
accompanying themselves on the lyra or rustic viol,
2o8 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
and who constituted a class that would seem to have
been the lineal descendants of the bards and rhapsodists
of ancient days. In Spain to this day a similar custom
prevails, where the blind men, who formerly were the
chief exponents of the romances of the Cid, now find
occupation in putting a rough narrative form on the
latest crime or catastrophe which excites the public
mind, and singing it about the streets to eager audiences.
In the new Greece, alas ! there will be few or none such
found to-day, the resources of modern life have destroyed
their occupation, and the free Greeks no longer need the
ideals of an Androutzos, a Katzantonis, or a Boukovalas.
In Crete alone, in the mountains of Sphakia, may be
found men who sing the old heroic sagas, and still in the
remoter mountain valleys of Greece, a few old wives
recite the Klephtic songs they heard in their youth ; but
these belonged especially to the time of struggle ; the
days of the Klephts, of the irregular mountain fighting,
are over now, and in future these poems will only live
recorded in the national literature. They have furnished
the chief source of inspiration to the most characteristic
and most national poet of modern Greece, Aristoteles
Valaoritis, of Santa Maura, who adopting their language
as well as their matter and form, and infusing it with
the fire of true poetic genius, has sung the exploits of
the mountaineers in a series of poems, which, were they
not necessarily restricted to a small circle of readers,
would have won for him the high place among European
writers which he occupies in his own country.
The second division, which has been described as
rather lyrical in character, will include those songs
which record an incident of popular fable or super-
The Popular Poetry. 209
tition — the love-songs of the people, the songs which
accompany various rites and solemnities, especially
marriages, cradle and nursery songs, dancing songs,
and finally the myrologies or elegies for the dead,
improvised or sung for the most part by the women
over the graves of the departed. Their various uses
and occasions will be more fully described hereafter,
as they occur ; it is necessary, by way of introduction,
to say a few words about the form and character which
is common to Greek popular poetry generally.
In the first place, there is seldom any long sustained
interest or effort ; the poems arc for the most part
short, seldom exceeding thirty lines, dealing with one
episode, and characterized by directness and sponta-
neity. They are without any particular structural
grace, but certain definite frameworks are of constant
recurrence, which are filled up according to the subject
in hand, or perhaps the incident to be described is
improvised within the limits of the given mould. In
the Klephtic poems especially certain preludes consist-
ing of two or three introductory lines occur frequently,
such as, for instance —
" The fields are athirst for water, the mountains long for snow,
The falcons for their prey, and the Turks for Christian heads";
or,
" Three birds have alit on the heights of Monastir,
One looks toward Jannina, another to Bitolia,
And the third, the bonniest one, makes comment thus, and says " —
this with variations on the names, according to the
subject, serves to introduce the episode — or, again,
" What noise is this, what mighty tumult ?
Are they slaughtering oxen, or are wild beasts at battle ?
They are not slaughtering oxen, nor are wild beasts at battle ;
It is Boukovalas fighting," &c.
V
210 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
The terminations are often abrupt, and there is
frequently an unaccountable inconsequence and generally
an absence of art in these compositions, which does not
detract from the natural poetry, however wanting they
may be in dignity and reserve. Effect is obtained by
well-balanced repetition, answer following question in
almost identical words. They draw largely upon nature
for their inspiration ; mountains and animals, especially
birds, are made to speak with a human voice, and they
strike one as essentially products of the open air, and of
the simple life. The vis maligna and the weird of
natural forces, the separation from the sun and light
involved in death, and the dread that all cannot be well
away from the human companionship, the passionate
love inspired by the mountains, the glory of youth and
strength — all these are ever present.
The language is often very difficult, for' popular songs
are naturally affected by the dialects of the districts in
which they "are sung. Thus we frequently find the same
song with many variations of the text to suit the speech
of various provinces. Turkish words and even Italian
occasionally occur, and the popular corruptions of the
purer Greek are not easy to identify at first sight ; the
language, moreover, is very elliptical, and there is an
entire absence of syntax, and yet this very simplicity
the directness of expression inherent in such unliterary
compositions constitutes one of the especial charms of
the people's poetry.
The large majority of these songs, and nearly all the
Klephtic poems, are written in a swinging metre of
fifteen syllables to the line, which is divided by a strict
caesura in two hemistiches, the first of eight, and the
The Popular Poetry. 21 1
second of seven syllables. The prosody is purely
accentual. ' Sometimes the couplets rhyme and some-
times they do not, while occasionally a poem in which
blank verse has prevailed throughout, concludes with
a rhyming couplet. The metre is practically the same
as that of our own ballad poetry, where the two
hemistiches are written as two lines, the second having
sometimes six and sometimes seven syllables. Such
was already the metre of the political verses written at
Constantinople in the nth century, and such, with the
addition of rhyme, continued to be the form of heroic
verse ever after. In this metre also, and without rhyme,
is the Chronicle of the Wars of the Franks in the Morea,
along and tedious composition, devoid of poetical merit,
composed early in the 14th century. Rhyme was
probably introduced by the Italians, the Genoese at
Constantinople, and the Venetians in Crete and
elsewhere, and there is a class of Romaic poetry which
shows deliberate imitation of the Italian romance,
Such a poem is the "Erotocritus" of Vincenzo Cornaro, a
Cretan of Venetian extraction, which was written about
300 years ago. The following couplets from this poem
will serve as a specimen of the rhyming fifteen-syllable
metre : —
Ma r aa-Ti-jp, /J.a tov ovpavov, fx dvaToXr) kcu Svctl,
Kcu fxd Trjv yrjv, ttov to. Kopjxid 61 vd fxds KaTaAucra,
Kcu fxd tov ?)Aiov tov £eo-Tov, fid c/>€yyos, fxd creAi)v?/,
IIoTe vd fir] <5oAojcroj/xev €touto ottov eylvrj. 1
1 It must be remembered in reading the above, that the pronunciation
is according to accent, and not according to quantity, as laid down by-
prosody.
P 2
212 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Of the unrhymed verse, the following little Klephtic
song will give an adequate idea : —
X.opevovv Ta KAec^ToVovAa, yAevTave to. /cavpei'a,
k' eva fjiiKpb KXecfrroTTOvko Sev iraifei, 8e ^opei'ei,
pov Tap/xara crvyvpaye /cat to o-iradl rpo^dei.
TOv<jieKL fjiov 7repq<f>avo, <j—adl p.ov 7raivepevo,
7roAAes <£opes p eyAurcoo-es ktj a/copa tovtijv wpa •
ToYe da 7raco 's to o-paArta, #a 7ra va o~as o-paATcocrto.
Besides this form, there are a number of graceful
lyric metres, the language is plastic, and lends itself to
metrical variety. Not to multiply examples indefinitely
the following extracts, which, like the preceding poem, are
quoted from the " Epidorpion " : of Lelekos, will serve to
give some idea of the lyrical capacity of the language : —
'Eracrov, Kop?/, pi) cr7rot'Sa£>/s
tov Kaipo p?) Aoyapta^s,
Krj 6 Kcupos 6eXa <tov c/>epet
a^TvAtot peer s to X € P l i
8a)(TvXtSi KTj dppejiutva
KCLl S Tipv K€CJ)aXl] Kopiova.
* $ *
0eAco v'ap^tv-^cra),
c/>ws pov, va Opyvijcnn
Kal SirjyrjOQ
T7) davpLacrTr) dvSpa'a,
'EAA^vwv eKcrrparda.
* * *
K' ?^vpa 7re<9ep<x
crav ttjv TparTa<pvAA?;a,
k' ?pjpa Tredepb
rrav to /JacriAiKo,
/07 avTpaSepc/na Suo
crav tov dp.apa.6o.
Ma to piKpoTepo,
to Sia/3oA6Yepo,
Keivo pou 'Aeye, /ceivo u'aou^veue.
The Popular Poetry. 213
A special feature in the popular poetry are the distiches
or rhyming couplets with fifteen syllables to the line, of
which a large number have been collected. These
frequently combine a very poetic thought with particular
felicity of expression, and may be compared to the
stornelli of modern Italy. The following couplet will
serve as an example : —
"Orav <T€ fiXkiro} k ep^ecrat jx\ TdAAa —aW^Kapta,
'ecr' et'crat to yapv<jja\o Kal TaAAa rh KXojvapia.
The date of many of these poems cannot be fixed
with any approximation to truth. The evidence of
Anna Comnena in the nth century proves the existence
of a folk-poetry in which current events were celebrated,
and quotations in her biography of the Emperor Alexis
show the vulgar language of that time to have been
somewhat analogous to the modern idiom. But to go
back further still, the song of Hybrias the Cretan, the
song of Harmodius and Aristogiton, and the swallow-
song of the Rhodian boys are testimony of the existence
of a form of folk-poetry among the ancient Greeks ; while
the pastorals of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus are only
idealizations of the ruder measures which the unlettered
herdsmen improvised to beguile a summer day.
The Klephtic songs, which record the exploits of some
well-known warrior, and the poems which deal with the
incidents of the war of independence are, of course,
easily relegated to a given period, and the majority of
the former fall within the latter half of the last century.
Others, again, must be a great deal older, and where we
find a poem like that of " Charos and the Youth,"
translated on p. 281, existing in northern Greece, and
214 The Customs and Lore of Modem Greece.
a textually different but materially similar composition
in Crete, the assumption of considerable antiquity is
warranted. Such a poem, again, as the " Bridge of
Arta " (p. 278), which occurs in several variations, deals
with an episode which is the outcome of a very ancient
superstition, probably closely connected with the
stoicheiolatry described in an earlier chapter. 2 Emile
Legrand has published in his collection a number of
Greek songs which are, at any rate, not later in date
than the 15th century, for they are preserved in a
certain theological manuscript codex, sent to Vienna in
the middle of the 16th century by Augier Busbecq,
Austrian ambassador to the Porte, who occupied him-
self in collecting for the Vienna Library such manuscripts
as had escaped destruction at the fall of Constantinople.
There are no heroics, no martial songs among them, no
trace of idealism ; they are nearly all erotic, or, at any
rate, sensuous in character. Some of these have served
again in modified forms, or rather, portions of them are
found in other love songs more recently recorded, and
the language does not differ sufficiently from that of the
great mass of popular poetry to indicate a much later
date for the rest. On the other hand, the extreme
naivete and simplicity of idea expressed in the religious
poems does not necessarily prove their antiquity, for
the ignorance of the people in religious matters is still
phenomenal, and was, if anything, probably rather less
profound in the days when their religion was not
practised without fear of persecution. The wedding
songs and dancing songs are doubtless of great antiquity,
and, generally speaking, the oldest of these popular
2 Chap, vii., p. 169.
The Popular Poetry. 215
poems are probably those which accompany a
ceremonial or celebrate an anniversary, and those which
partake of the nature of our nursery rhymes. We must,
however, be content to renounce any attempt to fix
their date, except in the cases where it is clearly
indicated by the subject.
As regards the Klephtic songs, Fauriel considers that
a few may be traceable to the real actors in the scenes
described, just as the beautiful myrology for his own
death has been authentically traced to the lips of Thanase
Diakos, the young and self-devoted soldier-monk, who
was taken alive and put to death after the latest battle
of Thermopylae.
Tib. I8es Kuipd ttov ISidXe^ev 6 Xapos va jA irapy
Twpa ttov dvdl^ovv to. K/Vapta, ttov fiydv i] yrj ^oprapi.
" Behold and see what time has Charos chosen to call me hence,
Now when the branches are in bloom and the earth grows green again."
But he attributes the composition of the majority to the
blind rhapsodists above alluded to. The authorship of
the love-songs is lost for ever, the wealth of such creation
was too great for it to attract any particular attention,
and many an Anacreon of the islands sleeps, inglorious
though not mute. Fauriel also remarks that during his
sojourn at Jannina in the beginning of the century it
was especially the tanners who appeared to have the
song-making faculty, while in the country it was the
shepherds who most often heard them, that loved to
sing how the partridges were calling on the mountain.
As has been already pointed out, the myrologies or
dirges for the dead are often improvised by the
women, and thus forgotten as soon as sung. It is,
216 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
therefore, difficult to obtain genuine specimens of such
compositions.
Where there is a musical accompaniment to the voice,
it is furnished either by a small pear-shaped fiddle with
three strings, held upright upon the knee and played
with a bow, or by the lyra, a kind of rustic mandoline
with five wire strings. The airs are minor and melan-
choly, and to our ears often unmusical, as also is the dron-
ing nasal singing in which the people seem to take so
much pleasure. The character of the music generally is
Oriental, and appears to be a legacy from the Turkish
domination ; at any rate, there is little in common
between the singing with which travellers in Greece are
familiar, and the merry tunes which I have heard shep-
herd boys piping in ^tolia on the reed-pipe cut from
the fen, and which, in that isolated mountain-land, are
perhaps as ancient as the form of the instrument itself.
The popular songs of Greece have an exceptional
value as illustrating contemporary manners, and from
the fact that they have preserved reminiscences of
ancient customs and superstitions, while the Klephtic
poems stand for the evidence of the ideal, behind and
above all the brutality and bloodshed which characterized
an era of resistance and revolution. For the Klephts
and the corsairs were the protest of liberty against the
tyranny of a foreign domination, and the poems in
which they are glorified, in which their exploits are
recorded with a fierce pride of approval, while all the
darker side is passed over with sympathetic indulgence,
are the voice of the humbler people, who were loyal to
their country's cause through a long period of struggle,
and who have painted their heroes not wholly as they
The Popular Poetry. 217
were, but as they wanted them to be. The nobilities
which we might question were intensely real to them,
and the pathos of their sympathy is no less genuine for
the partiality of their judgment. A passion of national
hatred had blunted the natural feelings and established
a standard of virtues which were crimes, but side by side
with these, an ardent love of personal liberty, a loyalty
of comradeship, a stoic indifference to hardship, pain,
and death, still made appeal to the highest instincts of
mankind ; and now that the long lapse of time has
severed us from the actual horrors of a century of blood
and rapine, it is this aspect which these poems have
preserved to us, the witness of an ideal that never was
abandoned, the roses on the tomb.
In attempting to give some idea of these productions
of the popular muse, I have refrained, as a rule, from
any attempt at metrical translation, giving merely as
literal a rendering as is consistent with the different
idiom of the two languages, for the transformation into
English verse would inevitably entail the loss of that
spontaneity and simplicity which is their especial charm,
and would convey a false impression of their unlettered
art. The student of modern Greek can read them in
the various collections referred to, and as it is chiefly
the matter with which we are here concerned, I have not
thought it necessary to place the text beside the transla-
tion.
218
CHAPTER IX.
THE KLEPHTS AND KLEPHTIC SONGS.
THE word KlepJit, of course, signifies robber, but the
famous Klephts of the 18th century in Greece had
nothing in common with the ordinary bandit, and they
have become as firmly established as popular heroes as
our own Robin Hood and William of Cloudesley, and
all the other outlaws of ballad poetry. A number of
commonplace brigands were subsequently included in
the category of Klephts ; and many, no doubt, of those
that have become popular heroes had a questionable
right to this distinction ; while the latter-day kings of
the mountain brought the name into deep discredit ; the
looseness, therefore, with which this name has been
applied, must excuse the length of the following investi-
gation. Moreover, considerable obscurity shrouds the
first institution of those armed bands of outlaws who at
the end of the last century made the name of Klepht
famous. Their history, like that of the Armatoli, is yet
to be written. Apart from such scanty records as are
available, and the popular songs in which they are
celebrated, there is, perhaps, something still to be
gleaned from oral tradition, and it is not impossible that
the monasteries of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus may
furnish interesting details to the patient investigator.
The first historical glimpse obtainable of such armed
bands takes us back to the period immediately succeed-
ing the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, and the
The KlepJits and Klephtic Songs. 219
final extinction of the Byzantine Empire. Among the
most distinguished of the Greek exiles who were
endeavouring to secure the sympathies of Rome and
Europe for a new crusade against the Ottoman advance,
were Theodore, Bishop of Ephesus, and Nicephorus,
Bishop of Heraclea, one of the most eminent of
those Orthodox ecclesiastics who had accepted the
proposed union with the Roman Church at the Council
of Florence in 1438, a step which he, however, soon after-
wards retracted. When at the death of Pius II. (/Eneas
Sylvius) all prospects of the new crusade were at an
end, Nicephorus returned to the East to expiate what
he considered to be his crime, and spent many years
preaching an unsectarian gospel to Christians of either
communion in the pestilential prisons and galleys of
Constantinople, to die at last as a martyr, having his
limbs broken one by one with an iron mallet. His
former antagonist and subsequent coadjutor in the
cause of the Greeks, Theodore, Bishop of Ephesus, a
man of high spirit and unbroken resolution, disdaining
tamely to submit to the force of circumstances, left Italy
for Epirus, where he landed with no earthly goods
beyond his crozier and his Bible. It is recorded that he
found among her least accessible mountains a wild
shepherd race who had preserved the national traditions
free from all barbarian influence, and had never even
submitted to the Byzantine emperors. Now surrounded
by the hated Turks, who were gradually establishing
their dominion over the whole Balkan peninsula, their
days were passed in continual guerilla warfare with the
invaders. Their villages had all been burned, and they
made their moving camp in caverns or rude shelters
220 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
built from day to day, and there on the mountain tops,
under the roof of heaven, they preserved the tradition of
liberty, and defended it with heroic fortitude. These
men, Christians in the midst of the advancing tide of
Islamism, received the Bishop with joy, and he found a
mission and a work to do through the remaining years
of his life among these early Klephts, of whom we have
through him some scanty knowledge.
It is said that he succeeded in softening the rugged
manners of these mountaineers ; that under his influence,
their treatment of the weak became more generous,
their attitude towards women more reverent ; and
while he never ceased to prophesy the ultimate
regeneration of Greece, the recovery of Constantinople,
and spread through the mountain fastnesses of Epirus
and Thessaly that ideal which never wholly died, he
taught them first the watchward, Xplo-ros dveaTTj,
" Christ has risen," the Easter greeting, which was ever
on the lips of those who fought for liberty, down to the
days of the last and final uprising. A letter of
Theodore to Lascaris, the saviour of learning, is
preserved, in which he writes, " Endeavour to rouse
your polished nations (to the cause), I am firing the
hearts of our barbarians." When at last he died, they
hollowed his grave among the rocks which had
sheltered him, and there was great sorrow as the
mournful tidings spread from summit to summit, along
the range of Pindus, and eastward to old Olympus, and
men came from far to beg for a scrap of his garments,
or a leaf from his well-worn Gospel, which were treasured
and revered like the relics of a saint. 1
' Villemain, '•'Lascaris."
The KlcpJits and Klephtie Songs. 221
Thus we see that already in the 15th century the
mountains of Pindus were occupied by bands of outlaws,
who lived by plunder, and who resisted with success the
advance of a foreign domination. But whether these
men were merely a race of shepherds, who clung with
desperate tenacity to independence, or were composed, at
any rate in part, of the old local militia, which in the
latter days of the Byzantine Empire had to some
extent protected the native population against Franks
and Servians, and now, from fear of being disbanded, had
taken to the mountains, it would be hard to say.
Armed bands of Greeks or Christian Albanians re-
appear in recorded history at the close of the 17th
century, fighting a gallant fight in northern Greece,
while Venice was driving the Turks from the Morea
under the victorious Morosini, when for a while it seemed
as though the dominion of the Crescent was on the
wane. The Bishop Philotheus in the Parnassus range,
the chieftains Kourmas in Doris, Soumilas, Vlakhos and
Christos Valaoritis in western Greece were the heroes of
a desperate struggle, which was prolonged for a space of
thirty years (1 684-171 5).
But it is to the beginning of the 18th century that the
few authentic traditions which exist about the Klephts
must be ascribed, This was the age of the oldest heroes
of popular song, Boukovalas and Christos Milionis, whose
name has survived in the familiar long gun of the
mountaineer (Milioni).
It was the policy of the Ottoman invaders to endcavour
to secure by special privileges the allegiance of the
armed bands which held out in the mountains, long after
the Turkish domination had been established in the
222 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
plain, and to enrol those of them whose adherence they
could secure in the local militia ; and many writers have
ascribed the institution of the so-called Armatolik militia
to the Turkish conquerors, but it appears to be more
probable that the invaders found the institution already
developed by the Byzantine emperors, and adopted it,
being themselves few in number, and unable to keep
head against the mountain bands which remained defiant
without the assistance of the Armatoli. Byzantine
historians mention a soldier cast, known by the name of
u7re\dT7)<i, or " outlawed," with a distinction of outlaws of
the mountain and outlaws of the coast, which may perhaps
have corresponded to the distinction of " wild Klephts "
and "subject Klephts" found in Thessaly under the
Turkish domination.
The greater part of the Greek and semi-Greek popula-
tions submitted without a struggle to the Ottoman
occupation, but the mountaineers of Olympus and
Pelion, of Pindus and Agrapha maintained an armed
resistance to the victors. From their mountain strong-
holds they made constant descents to the plain to
pillage the invaders there established, and sometimes
also those of the natives who had tamely submitted ; nor
did they spare those monasteries which had made terms
and secured privileges from the new masters. Accord-
ing to the popular tradition, these men first received the
appellation of Klephts.
As time went on, the conquering Turks wearied of the
perpetual desultory war resulting from this state of
things, and offered easy terms to such of the mountain
clans as would accept them. In return for a small
tribute, they suffered them togovern themselves according
The Klephts and Klephtic Songs. 223
to their own laws, and maintain a state of semi-independ-
ence in their mountains, carrying arms for their own
defence. A certain number of these clansmen, however,
refused all manner of terms, and continued to defy the
invaders throughout the Turkish occupation. The
others established a kind of militia, for the vindication
and defence of the rights accorded them ; and while on
the one hand they formed a barrier against the encroach-
ments of the Pachas, they were also made use of by the
latter for protection against the irreconcilable Klephts.
The Armatoli — for by this name the irregular militia was
known — and the Klephts were thus thrown into
antagonism, but their antagonism was more apparent
than real. The Armatole recognized the Klepht as his
kinsman, and was often upon the best of terms with
him ; while the Turk, to whom he owed allegiance, was
his natural enemy. If he quarrelled with his masters,
he fled at once to the mountains, and thus sometimes
whole companies would desert together, and resume the
title of Klepht, which soon grew to be an honourable
distinction. When once such a band had taken to the
mountains, there was no difficulty in finding recruits
among the vanquished but resentful population.
The history of the Armatoli is still to be written, and
of their constitution but little has been recorded as
yet. The Ottoman government is said originally to
have recognized fourteen Armatoliks ; at another time it
would appear as if only seven Capitanliks had existed in
northern Greece. The institution was never introduced
into the Peloponnese. The captain of each body was
known as the Protaton or Armatolik, and these posts
were generally hereditary in certain families. The
224 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
soldiers were known as Pallikars, and the lieutenant or
second in command as the Protopallikar. They wore
the Albanian dress, and were indeed very many of them
of the Albanian race. For the Christian Albanians
gradually identified themselves with the Greeks, and
under the Turkish occupation, as at the time of the
final uprising against it, race feeling was of less import-
ance than the association of creeds.
The Armatoli were at first entrusted with the care of
the highways, but as they became more formidable, a
new Ottoman functionary was appointed, under the title
of Dervenipacha, or " Warden of the Passes," having
under his orders a second militia composed of the rival
element and very largely of Mussulman Albanians,
commanded by captains known as Derveniagas. After
the peace of Belgrade in 1739, the Sultan initiated the
policy of curtailing the numbers, and diminishing the
powers of the Christian Armatoli, taking advantage of
the feuds between the captains to supplant them with
Mussulman Albanians. In 1787 the famous Ali of
Tepelen filled the office of Dervenipacha, and carried
cut this policy with remarkable success, reducing the
influence of the Armatoli to a mere shadow, and even
encouraging the Klephts, in order to provide an excuse
for introducing more Mussulman troops into the
Armatoliks without actually abrogating their charters.
With the decline of the Armatoli the importance of the
Klephts increased, and the policy of Ali drove a great
number of the former to the mountains, so that from
this time forth the names are readily confused, in fact, it
maybe said that Ali ended by making all the Armatoli into
Kelphts, and the old distinction virtually passed away.
The Klephts and Klephtic Songs. 225
In spite of the large preponderance in numbers, the better
arms and ample resources of his Albanians, they were not
more than a match for the Klephts, and the difficulty of
dealing with an enemy which never admitted itself to be
beaten, induced Ali to adopt those treacherous methods
which have made his name a byword. The battle was
henceforth not for privileges, but for existence.
The Klephtic bands varied in numbers from fifty to two
and three hundred. They had no fixed quarters, but
there was generally some rendezvous, some station high
up towards a mountain summit approached by an almost
inaccessible gorge, where they would from time to time
re-muster, where they concealed their plunder and their
ammunition. Such stations were known as Limcria.
Limeri is a contraction of o\t)v i)aepav (all the day), for
their forays and marches were generally made after
darkness had fallen. On moonless and stormy nights
they set out from the Limeri to pillage and destroy,
sparing theoretically the property of their own country-
men, though the principle was by no means always
adhered to in practice, and frequently carrying off the
Turkish Beys and Agas, whom they retained in captivity
till a ransom was forthcoming ; and while they did not
spare the monks and bishops who had made peace with
the invader, they showed the utmost veneration for
churches and relics, and were never known to have
abandoned their religion even to save their lives. 2
2 Their attitude towards the Church is illustrated by the saying of Lord
Byron's Greek guide quoted in one of his letters : " Our religion is good,
but our priests are all thieves." This was, however, overstated, for some
of the most disinterested leaders in the national movement were draw n
from the ranks of the Church.
With regard to distinctive treatment in favour of their own countrymen on
226 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
They knew every gorge and angle of the mountains,
over which they moved with extraordinary rapidity,
being thus enabled frequently to defeat bodies vastly
superior in numbers by drawing them on into a trap,
from which there was no exit, and then shooting them
down from posts of vantage. Their spare time in the
Limeri was spent in practising their aim, and in
gymnastic exercises, consequently they wasted but little
powder, firing from their concealment, behind boulders
of rock, or any available shelter, and fighting each man
for himself, without definite plan or tactics. They are
even said to have developed a skill and a rapidity of
eye, which enabled them at night to aim at the flash of
their enemy's gun with deadly success. At night they
lay on the ground by the torrent bed with their arms,
their ammunition, and the bread they eat, rolled up in
pitched canvas. They were indifferent to hunger,
thirst, and want of sleep, and their capacity for
physical endurance, through running fights which
lasted for two and three days together, was extra-
ordinary. The spirit of comradeship, and of personal
devotion to one another, was exemplary ; and not less
remarkable was their firmness in capture and courage
under the torture. To fall into the Pacha's hands was
their especial dread, or to be mutilated after death by
their enemies, and instances are quoted where in direst
the part of the Klephts, Colonel Leake, on the authority of the Bishop of
Jannina, tells a curious story of the men of Khormova, whose operations
were mostly in the Pass of Tepelen, near the site of the ancient oracle at
Dodona. They used to place a priest in a hollow oak, and bring their
prisoners to the tree for judgment. If he were a Mussulman, the voice
from the tree ordered him to be stripped and hung. If a Christian, his Hie
was spared, but he was generally stripped of all that he had.
The KlcpJits and KlcpJitic Songs. 227
need a comrade would decapitate the fallen Klepht,
that the head might not be carried off in evidence of
triumph. Death in the field was the best end they
could anticipate, and though towards women of all
denominations they showed a marked respect, with
Mussulmans they neither gave nor accepted quarter.
In the winter many of these bands were obliged to
disperse, when snow rendered the higher ranges unin-
habitable, and conceal themselves among the peaceful
populations, hiding their weapons away in caves. Many
of them passed over regularly to the Ionian Islands, where
under the rule of Venice they were secure from the
reach of their enemies.
Their affection for the mountains, where they lived in
perpetual communion with nature, became a passion,
and those who had once taken to the nomad life of the
marauder became unfitted for any other. It is not
strange that the sympathies of the down-trodden people
were with them, in spite of the personal losses entailed
by their raids, and that in a country with great traditions,
but hopeless of deliverance, these men who kept alive the
flame of liberty became the national heroes — the sub-
jects of a thousand songs. Among the Klephts of latter
days were doubtless plenty of Mussulman renegades,
and many were more powerfully inspired by the hope of
plunder than the sentiment of patriotism, but the
popular songs are evidence that the latter feeling was
keenly present, and that the better ideal behind the
actual was never quite forgotten. 3
3 Finlay, whose personal bitterness leads him into several contradictions,
and often blinds him to all save the faults of the Greeks, has contended in
his history that the folk-poetry of the Greeks was neither national nor
Q - 1
228 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
If the authorship of the Klephtic poems is for the
most part to be attributed to the blind beggars who in
times gone by frequented the village fairs, their naive
and artless spontaneity is accounted for by the fact that
they were composed by men who could neither read nor
write, and had no literary knowledge. There is, however,
one poet of the people, whose name is preserved,
together with a considerable number of rhymes. Panag-
hiotes Tsopanakos, the dwarf of Dimitzana in Arkadia,
was born at the close of the last century, and grew up
amidst the stirring scenes of the Greek revolution.
Being prevented by the infirmity of his body from tak-
ing an active part in the struggle, like Tyrtaeus of old
he inspired his countrymen with martial songs, and was
the protege of the well-known Captain Niketaras. He
died in 1825, at the age of thirty-six.
The eight poems, of which the renderings follow, are
all of general import, and explain themselves. The first
is among the most famous in Greece. The translation
is from the text of Fauriel, who considers it to be among
the oldest ; Passow has two slightly different versions.
MOUNT OLYMPUS.
Olympus and Kissavos, the two mountains, were at strife,
Thereon Olympus turned and cried to Kissavos :
" Revile me not, O Kissavos, trampled by Turkish feet ! 4
I am the old Olympus, in all the world renowed ;
influential. The mere fact of the existence of such poetry at all does not
strike him as remarkable. His opinion is, however, not supported by the
testimony of other and less biassed foreign historians of modern Greece.
4 The word here is nov<.a.poira.T7}ij.{ve : the Turks in Macedonia and
Thessaly were called by the Greek Kovi&pLdes, or Iconians, a name which
calls to mind the most ancient capital of the Turkish power in Asia
Minor. In Passow's version the word is TovpKoiraT7)p.ive.
The KlepJits and Klephtic Songs. 229
I have two and forty summits and two and sixty springs —
For each spring I have a banner, for every branch a Klephi ;
Upon my highest summit an eagle is alit,
And in her talons she holds a hero's head.
' O head, what hast thou done to be entreated so ?' —
1 Feed on, O bird, upon my youth, and feast upon my manhood,
Thy wing will grow a cubit long, and thy talon to a span.
I was a Armatole in Louros and Xerome'ros, 5
And twelve years through a Klepht on Khasia and Olympus :
I have killed sixty Agas, and I have burned their villages,
And for the rest, Turks and Albanians, that I have left laid low,
They are many in number, bird, and never have been counted ;
And then to me my turn came too to perish in the fight.' ' :
THE KLEPHTS PARTING. 6
The mother plied her weeding, her son was at her side,
And all the while she counselled him, and all the while she taught:
" My son, despise not wisdom, if thou wouldst make thy way."
And thus her son made answer, and thus her son replied :
" I have told thee, O my mother, I can serve no Turk as slave,
I cannot and I know not how, my heart here gathers moss.
I will shoulder my rifle, get hence and turn a Klepht,
Will dwell among the mountains, and on the lofty ridges ;
Grow familiar with the gorges, and have converse with wild beasts,
Will have the snows for cover, the rugged rocks for bed,
Will make my winter station the Limeri of the Klephts.
I go, my mother ; do not weep, but only bid me speed,
And pray, my little mother, that I may slay many a Turk ;
And do thou plant a rose-tree, and plant a dusky clove,
And water them with sugar, and water them with musk.
So long they blosom, mother, so long they put forth flowers,
This son of thine will not be dead, but meet the Turks in battle
But if the day of sorrow, the bitter day should come,
5 The ancient Acarnania.
,; Lelekos,
230 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
If the two trees fade together, and if their flowers fall,
Then I too shall be smitten, and thou shalt wear the black."
Twelve years went by, and fifteen months went after,
Through which the rose-tree flourished, and ever new buds bloomed,
Till on one morning of the spring, upon a first of May,
When all the birds are singing and heaven is full of smiles,
There came a sudden lightning flash, thunder and darkness
followed ;
The clove-tree groaned aloud, and the rose-tree shed tears ;
In a moment both were withered, and all the flowers dropped ;
And, with the flowers, lifeless his wretched mother fell.
THE SONG OF THE DREAM OF DIMOS. 7
Did I not tell thee, Dimos ? Did I not say it three times and five?
Humble the pride of thy turban, and cover thy martial trappings, 8
Lest the Albanians get sight of thee, mark thee down and slay
thee,
For all this silver's sake, and for thou art so proud.
The cuckoos call on the mountains, the partridges on the mountain
flanks,
And there's a little bird discoursing over the head of Dimos.
But her voice is not a bird's voice, nor the voice of any swallow,
It is a little human voice she speaks with :
"Why are you so pale, O Dimos, and why look you so forlorn?" 9
" Little bird, since thou inquirest, I will tell thee —
I had turned back to rest awhile, to take a spell of slumber,
And I saw in my slumber, the slumber I lay deep in,
I saw the heaven troubled, and all the stars blood-red,
And my Damascus sword blade was also dyed with blood."
7 Fauriel.
8 " Trappings " = Tcrairpagia, silver ornaments worn on the cloth
gaiters or greaves as protection to the knee.
9 " Forlorn " = a.paxviafffj.ivo$, a very picturesque word, and character-
istic of the popular muse, which means literally covered with spiders' webs,
hence neglected, forlorn. *
The Klephts and KUphtic Songs. 231
THE SICK KLEPHT. 1
We were forty Klephts together, forty brave Pallikars —
We had good bread for food, and tender goats' flesh,
We drank good wine . . . . -
And we made oath upon the cross, and by the Gospel,
If one fell sick amongst us, that we would not desert him ;
And the bravest of us all fell sick, the worthiest Pallikar : —
For forty days they carried him, forty days and nights together ;
But his shoulders withered, he could hold his arms no longer.
.... and one said to the other : 3
" Brothers, shall we deny him ; brothers, shall we forsake him ?"
But he perceived their thoughts, he knew what they were saying.
" Brothers, do not forsake me ; do not deny me, brothers ;
But bear me on the mountain, and right up to the summit,
Cut branches, lay me down there, cut myrtles, stretch me on them,
Then turn my face towards the ground, that I may not see you pass.
And do not tell my mother the manner of my death, _
But tell her, tell my mother, that I have taken service,
Against the Barbary folk, the Turkish fleet, enlisted,
And that I died in battle, sword in hand."
THE KLEPHT'S FAREWELL. «
" Go down to the shore beneath, down there to the seashore,
And let thy hands serve thee for oars, thy chest for a rudder,
And thy nimble body let it be thy boat !
If God and the Virgin aid thee to swim, to reach the other side,
To arrive at our Limeri, where we were used to take counsel,
Where one day we roasted the two goats, Floras and Tombras,
If there any of our comrades should question thee about me,
Then say not I have perished, am dead with my evil star,
Say only that I have married in a lonely foreign land ;
That I have taken the flat stone to be my mother-indaw,
The side-stones for my brothers-indaw, and the black earth for wife."
1 Legrand.
2 3 The rest of these two lines is wanting in the text.
4 Fauriel.
232 The Customs and Love of Modern Greece.
THE TOMB OF THE KLEPHT. 5
The sun was setting, and Dimos gave command :
" My sons, go and fetch water, water for your evening meal ;
And thou, my nephew Lamprakis, sit down there by my side ;
Take these my arms and put them on, be captain in my place ;
And you, my children, take my sword, my sword that has no
master,
Cut down green branches and make me a bed to lie on,
And bring me a holy monk that I may confess me,
That I may tell him all the sins I ever sinned.
I was thirty years an Armatole, and twenty years a Klepht,
And now the day of death has come, and I am about to die.
Make my grave broad and build it lofty,
That I may stand erect to fight and load my gun beside me ;
And leave a window open on my right,
That the swallow may come there and bring me back the spring,
That nightingales may sing me in the merry month of May."
THE GRAVE'S VOICE. 6
We had drunk all Saturday, and Sunday all day long,
And on the Monday morning our wine had all been drunk.
The captain sent me to go and fetch more wine.
A stranger in the country, I did not know my way;
So I went by devious paths, unfriendly narrow roads;
And these narrow roads led me to a high hillock,
And it was full of graves, and all of Pallikars :
But one of them was all alone, a way off from the rest ;
I saw it not, and stepped on it, and walked upon the head.
I heard a voice, a thunder, from the world where are the dead ;
" What ails thee, grave, to make complaint, to groan so loud and
long?
Does earth weigh heavy on thee, earth or the great black stone ?"
5 Fauriel.
6 The text is Fauriel 's. Passow has also a version of this song, containing
several additional lines dealing with the exploits of the buried Klepht, but
the effect is stronger and more suggestive, terminating as in Fauriel's text.
The Klephts and Klephtic Songs. 233
" It is not that earth weighs heavy, nor yet the great black stone,
But sorrow and affront it is, and grief to me and pain,
That thou has dealt contemptuously with me, and walked upon my
head.
Was not I once a young man too, was I not a Pallikar ?
Did I not walk at night of old by the light of the moon ?,"
THE KLEPHT'S LIFE. 7
Night is black upon the mountains,
Snow falls in the ravines,
Where ways are wild and gloomy,
Through rocks abrupt and gorges,
The Klepht unsheathes his sword.
And in his right hand naked
He bears the lightning flash,
The mountains are his palaces,
He has the sky for cover,
He has his gun for hope.
The pallid tyrants flee
Before his dreadful sword ;
His bread is steeped with sweat,
He knows how to live with honour,
He knows too how to die.
In the world fraud has her way,
And injustice, so wills fate,
The wicked are the wealthy ;
But here upon the mountains
Sequestered virtue dwells.
This fine poem is too long to quote in entirety.
There follows a dramatic picture of the young Klepht
bidding his mother farewell, and making his way to the
mountains. A shot is fired, the battle opens, and they
have killed the Klepht.
7 Marcellus,
234 The Customs and Lore of Modern Gi'eece.
His comrades with uncovered head
March back with him lamenting,
And thus they sing together :
"The Klepht he lives unfettered,
The Kelpht unfettered dies."
One of the oldest of the Klephtic heroes celebrated in
popular song was Janni Boukovalas, who was Proto-
pallikar in the band of Stathas, a chieftain of the Valtos
and Agrapha. In 1767, at the head of three hundred
Armatoli, he routed at Kerasovo the forces despatched
against him by Kourt Pacha, under Mourto Khouso, the
the grandfather of Ali of Tepelen. Later he fought
under the Russian flag, and being wounded in a combat
with the Turks at Eleusis, died at Salamis. His victory
over the Bey of Tepelen is recorded in the following
poem, of which several variants occur in the different
collections : —
BOUKOVALAS.
What noise is this, what mighty tumult ?
Are they slaughtering oxen, or are wild beast at battle ?
They are not slaughtering oxen, nor are wild beast at battle ;
Boukovalas is fighting with fifteen hundred Turks.
The guns rattle like rain, the bullets fall like hail,
A fair girl calls from the window :
" Let the combat cease ; O Janni, stay the firing !
The dust will drop, the mist will draw away,
And we will count thy band to see how many remain ! "
The Turks have called the muster over three times — there are five
hundred missing.
The sons of the Klephts call the muster — there are but three braves
missing :
There's one has gone for water, and ome has gone for bread,
The third, he was the bravest one, lies dead across his gun
The Klephts and Klephtic Songs. 235
Of sea-fights and corsair songs there are but few to
hand, but the following poem which records the victory
at Kassandra in 1772 of Janni Stathas, the son of
the Stathas above referred to, may be placed appro-
priately after the song of Boukovalas.
JANNI STATHAS. 9
A black ship was skirting the coast of Kassandra —
Black sails made shadow over her, and a flag blue as the sky :
A corvette comes to meet her with a red flag flying.
" Heave to !" she cries ; and " furl the sails," says she ;
" Heave to ! not I ; nor will I furl my sail ;
Do you take me for a newly-married bride to do you reverence? 1
My name is Janni Stathas, the son-in-law of Boukovalas !
Let go the anchor, my brave lads, and face her with the prow :
Let the blood of the Moslem flow, spare not the unbelievers ! "
The Turks tack round and come about ;
Janni leaps on board the first, his sabre in his hand,
The blood runs down upon the ballast, and all the sea grows red,
And the infidels surrender, crying " Allah ! Allah ! "
Another member of the same group was known by
the nickname of Ghiphtakis, or " little gipsy," he was
killed in battle, fighting against Jousouf the " blood-
drinker," a lieutenant of Ali Pacha of Tepelen.
GHIPHTAKIS. 2
The fields are athirst for water, the mountains long for snow,
The falcons for little birds, and the Turks for (slaughtered) heads.
" What has become of the mother of Ghiphtakis,
9 Fauriel.
1 Alluding to the demure and modest attitude hecoming a young bride.
See p. 93.
2 Fauriel.
236 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
She who aforetime lost her two sons, and her brother makes a
third,
And who now goes wandering witless and laments ?
She is seen no more in the lowlands, nor among the mountains."
" They say that she went by here, has gone to the shepherds'
villages,
And the rattle of musketry was heard there, the terrible thunder.
It was not for a wedding or a village feast it thundered,
But Ghiphtakis was wounded in the hand and in the knee.
He staggered like a tree, and fell like a cypress,
He gave a mighty cry, brave Pallikar that he was :
'Where art thou, my good brother, my well-beloved?
Come back and take me up, or (at least) bear off my head,
That Jousouf Arab and his soldiers may not get it,
And bear it off to Jannina to Ali Pasha, the dog.'"
But more famous than any of these, most renowned
of all Klephts, was Androutzos, father of the well-known
Odysseus, and adoptive son of another veteran warrior
Vlacho-thanasi, whose myrology he thus sung : —
" They have killed five braves of mine, and Vlacho-thanasi,
They have broken me five ribs and my right shoulder."
Androutzos, or Andn'kos, whose real name was Andreas
Verousis, was early named captain of the Armatoli in
the province of Livadia, and was driven by the attempt
to suppress this ancient institution to take to the
mountains and become a Klepht. When in 1769 the
Morea, relying on the co-operation of Russia, made an
abortive attempt to rise against the Turkish domination,
he threw himself into the movement. A Russian
squadron under Alexis Orloff had appeared on the coast
and disembarked six or seven hundred men, who
occupied Navarino, whereas the Mainotes, who were to
The Klephts and KlcpJitic Songs. 237
act in concert, expected the support of six or seven
thousand. The Russians were equally surprised to find
the Greeks totally unprepared, and many of them even
without arms. Androutzos with between two and three
hundred men set out to join the rising ; he crossed the
Isthmus without opposition, and hastened to effect a
union with the Greco-Russian force. But the latter had
already dispersed ; the Russians had re-embarked, the
compromised Greeks were hiding in the mountains, or
had sought a refuge on the Russian ships, while
thousands of Turkish and Albanian troops were on the
march to quell the rising. Androutzos had to retreat
through the very midst of this army. He obtained a
firman from the Pacha of Tripolitza, guaranteeing the
safe return of his little band ; but on reaching the
Isthmus he fell in with a considerable number of the
Turko-Albanian troops, who attacked him. He succeeded
in repulsing their attack, but was unable to cut his way
through the large body of the enemy which occupied
the direct road home, and was therefore compelled to
take a line due west along the southern shore of the
Gulf of Corinth. The smallness of his band compelled
them to remain perpetually on the alert, and their march
was one continual running fight through the mountains,
with little food and no sleep. The spirits of his
followers began to flag, but the indomitable energy of
Androutzos sustained them, and, arriving safely at
Vostitza, they were enabled to take up a very strong
position before the Turks attacked them in full force.
The battle lasted three days and nights without
intermission, and the extraordinary vigour and training
of the mountaineers enabled them to keep it up without
238 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
repose ; at last, early on the morning of the fourth day,
when the Turks thought their resources were quite
exhausted, Androutzos issued from his lair and fell
upon them. A desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued,
and, incredible as it may appear, the Turks are said, in
the panic, to have lost some 3,000 men ; while of the
little band of Klephts a fourth part were killed ; the
chief part of the enemy's stores and baggage fell into
their hands. They had tasted no food for three days,
and food was all that they took of the spoil ; then
entering Vostitza, they found some ships of Zante and
Cephalonia, on board of which they embarked for
Preveza, at that time under the protection of Venice. 3
With the amnesty which accompanied the peace of
Kainardji, he returned to Livadia and resumed the
habits of the Klepht, fighting with the Suliotes against
Ali Pacha ; but after the peace of Jassi, the Suliotes
retired into their mountains, whither the vengeance of
Ali was not slow to follow them, and Androutzos, pro-
scribed once more, took refuge again at Preveza. He
determined to make a voyage to Russia, the power on
which the patriots of Greece at this moment had con-
centrated all their hopes ; but upon his landing at
Cattaro, he was seized by the Venetian authorities, who
were now coquetting with Turkey, and despatched in
the first available Turkish ship to Constantinople. It is
asserted that he was offered his liberty if he would
become a Mussulman, but that he indignantly refused.
3 Finlay, in his account of the Russian expedition under the two Orloffs
and Admiral Elphinston, studiously avoids all mention of the gallant
retreat of Androutzos, to which, however, other historians have done
ample justice ; among others, Villemain in his " Essai sur l'etat des Grecs
depuis la conquete Musulmane."
The Klephts and Kkphtic Songs. 239
The mountain eagle's wings were clipped, but his spirit
remained unbroken ; and thus betrayed by Venice and
abandoned by Russia, he languished in a Turkish prison
until his death, which occurred about the beginning of
the century.
Among the songs which celebrate his exploits, there
is one most characteristic of the genius of Greek
popular poetry, in which the mountains arraign the
plains that have stolen their hero from them, when the
chieftain had descended from his lair on some one of his
expeditions. This song, however, will hardly bear
translation, the spirit and the expression are too closely
wedded ; at its close, the summit of Liakoura (Parnassus)
cries : —
. . . . " Plain of pestilence, plain of desolation,
Didst thou think to deck thyself in my bravery ?
Surrender this thy glory, and give me back my bravery,
Or I will melt my snows upon thee, and turn thee to a sea."
There is another fragment 4 : —
The mother of Andrikos is mourning, the mother of Andn'kos
weeps ;
And oft she turns to the mountains, and arraigns them one and all :
"Wild mountains of Agrapha, crests of the mountains of Agrapha,
What have you done with my dear son, with Andrikos the
captain ?
Where can he be that all this summer has not seen him?
Neither Aspropotamos nor Karpenisi have heard of him :
My curse on you, ye elders ; my curse on you, Black George !
It was you that sped my son away, the bravest of the brave.
O rivers, straighten in your beds, or let your streams run back,
And open the road for Andrikos to come again to Karpenisi."
4 l'auriel.
240 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Another favourite hero of the Klephtic songs, who
also with Vlachavas and Astrapojannis has been since
immortalized in the " Mnemosyna " of Valaoritis, was
the intrepid and audacious Vlachiote, Katzantonis. The
story of his death illustrates the capacity of endurance
and the indifference to physical suffering manifested by
these men of the mountains. Between 1805 and 1806
the principal Armatolik chieftains of the Pindus and
^Etolia had assembled together at the summons of Count
Jean Capodistria in Santa Maura, to concert a common
plan of action for the furtherance of the idea which was
then fermenting in the hearts of the Greeks and their
sympathizers. AH Pacha, who was at that time engaged
in the suppression of the Armatoli, under the instructions
of the Porte, assembled a numerous force in the Ambra-
cian Gulf, and himself lay in wait for the conspiring
chieftains at Preveza. An attack on the island was
anticipated, and Katzantonis was appointed to the com-
mand of the irregular forces which had accompanied
their chieftains to Santa Maura. He conceived the
audacious plan of carrying the war into the enemy's
quarters, and was on the point of crossing to the main-
land when he was struck down by small-pox. As soon
as he had partially recovered, he escaped from Santa
Maura, and with his brother George made his way to
Agrapha and the Thessalian border, intending there to
muster forces and create a diversion on the mainland.
After a few days spent in a monastery, fearing treachery,
with cause, as the event proved, they retired to a cave in
the mountains, where they were betrayed by the priest
who supplied them with food. Sixty Albanians, under
the redoutable Jousouf Arab, surrounded their refuge.
The Klephts and Klephtic Songs. 241
The Klephtic chieftain, who had had a relapse, was too
weak to fight himself, but his brother George, bearing
him on his shoulders, issued from the cavern after clear-
ing a road with his rifle, and literally cut his way-
through their assailants, but was eventually overpowered
in the open and made prisoner with his brother. All
efforts to extort the names of the promoters of the move-
ment were vain, and the two brothers were sentenced to
have their limbs broken with a mallet. It is recorded
that while the torture was being inflicted, Katzantonis
was overheard crying to the Mussulmans who stood
round him looking on, that they would not dare to
stand so near if his legs were still unbroken. One of the
best known Klephtic songs is the following short one
recording the capture of Katzantonis : —
" Farewell, ye lofty mountains, and you cool springs, farewell !
And you Tsoumeria and Agrapha, the shelters of the Klepht ;
If ye should see my wife, and should ye see my son,
Then tell them how they took me by treachery and fraud :
They found me lying sick, unarmed upon my bed,
Like an infant in its cradle, bound fast in swaddling clothes.
You two must be my witnesses, and you must bear record
What hosts of Turks I fought against, and ever was victorious,
My gun called Panic, and my sword called Fear ! " 5
There is no lack of song from the popular muse
celebrating the episodes and heroes of the final
outbreak, but the genuine inspiration rather belongs
to the older period, when the unself-conscious popular
lyre was the only lyre of Greece. The later poems miss
the spontaneous ring, the natural touch of the genuine
Klephtic song. In other moods, the poetic achievement
5 Lelckos.
R
242 The Customs and Lore of Alodem Greece.
of Greece since the beginning of the century has been
remarkable, since the latent force, revealed in a partial
degree in these untutored efforts, has had free vent and
play.
Meanwhile, in Greece itself the song of the Klepht is
heard no more, the old sources of inspiration have ceased
with the pulsations which kept them alive. Perhaps
still in Sphakia, in the mountains of Crete, where a spirit
akin to the old Klephtic protest still survives, such songs
may yet be heard. A number dating from former
periods of insurrection and ferment have been collected,
but the Cretan muse is more diffuse, and they are most
of them too long for quotation. There is, however, one
savage little quatrain which is still remembered in
Sphakia, and with it this chapter may fitly close : —
" When spring takes hold of earth again, and when the summer
comes,
Then I will take my rifle, my silver-mounted pistols,
I will go down to Omalos, the highway of Mousouri,
I will make the mothers childless, and motherless the sons."
243
CHAPTER X.
THE SAGA OF SULI.
The story of Suli occupies an important place in the
folk-poetry of the early part of the century. Its fortunes
became identified with those of Hellenism, and, when it
fell, the scattered remnant of its people devoted their
swords to the cause of Greece. The heroic struggle of
the little commonwealth over a number of years against
all the resources and ingenuity of Ali Pacha is very
stirring and full of episode ; and, since it is rapidly
passing away among things forgotten, the Iliad of Suli
may well be told again.
Soon after the failure of the Orloff expedition, referred
to in connection with the career of Androutzos, there
arose upon the scene an extraordinary man, who was
destined to exercise no little influence, both directly
and indirectly, upon the fortunes of the Greeks. The
methods are well known by which Ali, the son of a Bey
of Tepelen, a Tosk Albanian, whose utmost ambition
had been to preserve for himself a revenue of forty
purses paid him by the district of Zagora, took advan-
tage of the semi-feudal and wholly anarchical condition
of Epirus to centre in his own person the authority
which had been exercised by his victims, until he had
gradually acquired the sovereignty over a population of
nearly two million Albanians, Greeks, and Turks, in
Acarnania, Livadia, Arta, and Prevesa — as well as
Macedonia — with the titles of Vizir of Jannina and
R 2
244 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Tricala. When he was at the height of his power, there
remained, however, within the immediate vicinity of
Jannina, in the mountains of Chamouri, a military
population which still ventured to deny his authority,
and maintain their own time-honoured independence.
The policy of Turkey throughout the century had
been the gradual weakening of the powerful Armatoli
in Greece and Epirus ; the attempt to withdraw, little
by little, privileges which were becoming dangerous,
and to supplant the Christian bands with a new
Mussulman militia. No more zealous agent for this
object could be found than Ali of Tepelen, who, in
1787, was appointed Dervenipacha, or Warden of the
Passes, with a tolerably free hand. The Suliotes, who
apprehended the fate which was in store for them,
uniting with several bands of Klephts from Thessaly,
and notably with that of the famous Androutzos,
descended from their mountains, and, trusting in the
assistance which they fondly anticipated from the Phil-
hellenic sentiments of the Empress Catherine, took the
initiative by attacking the armies of Ali, who was able
to dispose of from ten to twelve thousand trained
Albanians, and gained considerable successes against
forces very superior numerically. The sovereigns of
Europe were, however, at this period, too much disturbed
by the outbreak of the French Revolution and subsequent
developments to take their eyes off their own immediate
interests ; and the Suliotes, finding themselves without
prospect of support, retired into their mountains to await
the vengeance of Ali. The fate of Androutzos has been
already recorded.
The origin of the Suliotes is lost in obscurity. A
The Saga of Suli. 245
work, written by a native of Parga, entitled " A Concise
History of Suli and of Parga," which is dated 1801,
professes to be able to trace their history back for 150
years. The chief families traced their origin to different
villages and districts ; and, though their language was
Greek, they appear to have consisted, for the most part,
of Christian Albanians, with a small admixture of
Greeks, who, flying from the oppression of the invaders,
had taken refuge in the well-nigh inaccessible mountains
of Chamouri (Chimari), and had there established a
curious patriarchal community. In former times, Suli
was a Spahilik ; the Haratch and the dues of the Spahi
were regularly paid by the various villages ; but the last
Spahi of Suli, Bekir Bey, was imprisoned and put to
death by Ali, who had failed by other means to obtain
the Spahilik for himself.
Colonel Leake thus describes the famous gorge of
Suli. 1 " At the end of the pass," he says, " formed by
the hollow between the mountain of Suli and the hill
of Trypa, stands the ruined village of Avariko, from
whence there is a descent into a deep ravine, formed
by the meeting of the two great mountains of Suli and
Tzikurates — one of the darkest and the deepest of the
glens of Greece. On either side rise perpendicular rocks,
in the midst of which are little intervals of scanty soil,
bearing holly-oaks, ilices, and other shrubs, and which
admit occasionally a view of the higher summits of the
two mountains, covered with oaks, and, at the summit
of all, with pines. Here the road is passable only on
foot, by a perilous ledge along the side of the mountain
of Suli, terminating at a narrow opening, where the
1 Leake, " Travels in Northern Greece," vol. i.
246 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
Acheron enters the defile from the vale of Tervitziana.
The river in the pass is deep and rapid, and is seen at
the bottom falling, in many places, in cascades over the
rocks, though at too great a distance to be heard, and in
most places inaccessible to any but the foot of a goat or
a Suliote." A fit setting for one of the grimmest fights
that was ever fought, that gloomy gorge, which rises
from the river of death, running silent from very distance
in the depths below.
At the time when they became conspicuous in history
the Suliotes were possessed of four villages in the great
ravine of Suli, namely, Kiapha, Avariko, Samoniva, and
Kako-Suli, composing a group known as the Tetra-
chorion ; and seven villages in the plains, whose inhabi-
tants, being considered genuine Suliotes, were allowed
to retire into the mountain in time of war. This Hepta-
chorion consisted of Tzikurates, Perikhates, Vela, Also-
chori, Kondates, Gkinola, and Tzefiiki. They also con-
trolled between fifty and sixty tributary villages, with a
mixed population of Greeks and Albanians ; but these
were abandoned to their fate in war. In the early part
of the last century the Suliotes are said not to have had
more than 200 fighting-men, although they were almost
always engaged in petty warfare and marauding expe-
ditions ; and at the period of their extraordinary suc-
cesses the numbers of the Suliotes proper never exceeded
5,000 souls, with a fighting strength of 1,500 men, who
were, however, reinforced at need by the women. Their
government was purely patriarchal ; they had neither
written laws nor law courts, and the family formed the
political unit of the State. The families were grouped
together in tribal alliances called Pharas, of which there
The Saga of Suit. 247
were twenty-nine in the Tetrachorion and eighteen in
the Heptachorion. All disputes were settled by arbitra-
tion by the heads of the Pharas ; and these forty-seven
elders formed a sort of general Council, the matter for
discussion being almost exclusively war. As they were
gradually driven from the plains which had supported
them to the mountains, which produced nothing but
pasture for their flocks, they were of necessity compelled
to support themselves by marauding expeditions, which
involved them in perpetual difficulties with the sur-
rounding Ottoman governors. The historian of Suli
enumerates no less than eight wars in which the
community was involved before their great struggle
with Ali, throughout which they maintained their
position with tolerable success, and secured considerable
material advantage by the ransom of prisoners. Arts
and commerce were unknown to them, and the training
to arms formed the sole occupation of their youth.
Each individual had his appointed place in war, men,
women and children, their distinctive duties, though
little or nothing has been recorded of their manner of
organization. On the approach of an enemy the Suliotes
of the Heptachorion abandoned their villages and
blocked the defiles, while their kinsmen from the
heights came down to their assistance, the women
and children retiring into the mountain, which was
looked upon as the citadel and sacrum of the whole
community. Their manner of warfare was regulated
by the scanty number of fighting-men of whom they
were able to dispose. When, therefore, a large body
of enemies was to be encountered, they would send but
few to meet them, opposing against some thousands
248 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
only from one to two hundred Suliotes, who looked on
themselves as a forlorn hope, and pursued the Klephtic
tactics, attacking from scattered posts of vantage on
the heights in cover of rocks and trees. Where a
small body was reported to be advancing, they sallied
forth in equal strength, hoping thus to inflict a summary
defeat and to secure spoil and prisoners to ransom.
Only after years of training were they permitted to
take part in more difficult enterprises, where it was
necessary that every unit should follow the movements
of his neighbour ; and this apparent individual initiative,
was really the result of intelligently concerted action.
To be wounded by unnecessary exposure was in itself
disgraceful. The women often accompanied their forays,
carrying arms and ammunition, and sometimes fighting
themselves. They were unsparing critics of the mettle
of their men, and kept the standard of military honour
high, having privileges amongst themselves of precedence
when filling their jars or watering their flocks at the
fountain, according to the merits and services of their
husbands ; and it was at these meetings in the daily life
of the village communities that the wives of men who
had failed to acquit themselves bravely were subjected
to all the indignities which the shrewish tongues of their
neighbours could heap on them. The vendetta existed
among them ; but family quarrels were generally stopped
by the intervention of the women, and a fine was not
unfrequently imposed in commutation for a life, since
the killing of a single individual was a serious loss to
the commonwealth at large. At the head of this little
republic at the period of their final crisis in the struggle
for existence was an ascetic monk named Samuel, who
The Saga of Suli. 249
combined in his person the double character of warrior
and priest. His influence with the Suliotcs was un-
bounded ; and he believed himself, and was certainly-
held by his followers, to be an inspired prophet. Such
were the famous inhabitants of the mountain fastnesses of
Chamouri, who had ventured to defy the rising star of Ali
of Tepelen.
His vengeance was not slow to follow. In 1792,
he collected a considerable force, and, announcing
an expedition against Argyrocastro, invited the
chiefs of the two principal families of Suli — those of
Tzavellas and Botzaris — to take part, offering double pay
to all who would accompany him. Botzaris declined,
but Tzavellas, with some seventy adherents, joined the
expedition. At the end of the first day's march, how-
ever, when the Suliotes had laid aside their arms to rest,
they were treacherously seized, and all made prisoners,
with the exception of three, who escaped. Of these two
were shot, but the third succeeded in eluding the aim of
his pursuers, and got away to Suli in time to warn his
countrymen. When Ali arrived before the ravine of
Suli, he found all the passes guarded ; he therefore
addressed himself to Tzavellas, and threatened him with
all the tortures which his dungeons at Jannina could
devise if he did not succeed in obtaining the submission
of Suli. Tzavellas undertook to negotiate terms, sending
for his young son Photos, a youth of eighteen, to take
his place as a hostage in the Pacha's hands. Ali re-
mained encamped at the foot of the mountains of Suli,
where he soon received the following letter : —
" Ali Pacha, I am proud to have succeeded in
cheating a scoundrel ; it is to defend my country against
250 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
a robber that I have come here. My son will die, but I
have good hope of avenging him, before I die also.
Certain Turks of your own sort will assert that I am an
unnatural father to sacrifice my son for my freedom. I,
in answer, say, if you had taken our mountain, you
would have killed my son, my whole family, and all my
countrymen, nor could I have avenged their death. If,
on the other hand, we conquer, I shall have other
children, for my wife is young. As to my son, young as
he is, he will be proud to be sacrificed for his country.
Were he not, he would be unworthy to live, or to be
my son. He will meet death with courage ; or he
would not deserve to be called a true son of Greece, our
country. Come quickly, infidel ; I burn for vengeance ! —
TZAVELLAS."
This letter has a special interest, as showing that
already so far north, and among a community at most
only very partially of Hellenic origin, the idea of Greece
as the common fatherland had been developed. The
rage of the Pacha at the trick which had been played on
him knew no bounds ; but he did not, strange to say,
wreak his vengeance on his young hostage, who was
reserved for a time, and who, indeed, survived to become
the hero of Suli's final struggle. The boy was, however,
brought before Veli, the son of Ali, who told him that in
consequence of his father's treachery, he would be roasted
alive, to which he simply replied, " My father will roast
your father, if he catches him."
Ali assembled some seven or eight thousand of
his best troops, and harangued them, promising a
gratuity of 500 piastres a man if they succeeded in
reaching and mastering Kako-Suli ; and on the 20th
The Saga of Suli. - 5 i
July, 1792, they entered the defile, which was defended by
1,300 men. The Suliotes, from various points of vantage,
inflicted terrible losses on his compact body of troops,
without suffering any proportionate injury, and, gradually
retreating before their overwhelming numbers, drew them
on further and further into the gorges. As they were
nearing Suli itself, and success seemed to be favouring
the Pacha's troops, they were suddenly attacked in front
by a band of Suliotc women, led by Moscho the wife of
Tzavellas, who poured a deadly fire on them from
close quarters, and then with naked swords rushed
shrieking on their hesitating assailants. The men of
Suli now poured down the mountain sides, attacking
them on either flank, responding to the orders of
Botzaris and Tzavellas to fling away their rifles and only
use their swords. Panic-struck, the disciplined Albanians
broke, and a wild rout ensued. They fled in every
direction, abandoning their arms and their baggage,
pursued down the gorge by the warriors and the amazons
of Suli. Ali himself, who had watched the combat from
a distance, killed two horses in his panic-stricken flight
to Jannina, where he shut himself up in his palace for a
fortnight, seeing and speaking to no one, and, in the
words of Valaoritis —
" All the after-days he lived on earth
He seemed to see that white kilt of Tzavellas.*'
In this defeat it is said that some 3,000 Albanians
perished ; of the Suliotes, 74 were killed and 100
wounded. Ali was compelled to offer terms of peace
through the intervention of an Orthodox bishop, making
concessions of territory ; releasing all his prisoners,
252 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
including Photos Tzavellas ; and paying a ransom of
100,000 piastres for the recovery of those who had fallen
into the hands of the Suliotes. That this defeat was
really a serious blow to him is proved by the fact that
in a long panegyric of Ali, composed by an Albanian of
Jannina, in which most of his reverses are passed over,
it is alluded to in the following terms : —
" To-day we have been ruined ; to-morrow I shall conquer,
And I will roast the monk at Suli."
The story of Moscho, the wife of Tzavellas, is a
favourite topic in the people's poetry ; here is a frag-
ment, transcribed by Fauriel : —
A bird is alit on the span of the bridge ;
It sings a song of sorrow, and says to Ali Pacha,
" Not here is Jannina, for you to deck with fountains ;
Not here is PreVeza, for you to 'stablish fortresses ;
This is the famous Suli, is Suli the renowned,
Where the little children march to war, the women and the
children ;
Where the wife of Tzavellas combats, her sabre in her
hand,
Her babe upon one arm, her gun upon the other,
And her apron filled with cartridges "
Similarly, another ends : —
" This is that Evil-Suli, in all the world renowned,
Where the wife of Tzavellas fights like the best of heroes ;
She carries cartridges in her apron, the sabre in her hand,
And with her rifle leads all the others on.'
The defeat of Ali's army, which has been described
above, is graphically told in the following song :—
The Saga of Suli. 253
TZAVELLAS. 2
The priest's wife called from Avarikos :
'• Where are you, children of Tzavellas ? where are you, children of
Botzaris ?
A great dark cloud comes up against you of footmep and of
horsemen.
They are not one, nor two, nor three, nor yet five thousand —
They are eighteen thousand, they are nineteen thousand in
numbers."
" Let them come, this wretched horde of Turks, 3 what can they do
to harm us ?
Let them come and see a battle and know the Klephtic muskets ;
Let them know the sword of Lambros, the musket of Botzaris,
The arms of Suli's women, of Moscho the well-renowned ! "
When the fight had begun, and in the midst of the firing,
Tzavellas cried to Zervas and Botzaris :
" Now let the firing cease ; the time has come for the sabre."
From his post Botzaris answered, answered stoutly.
" Not yet," he cried, " has come the moment for the sabre !
Keep close yet in the cover, behind your sheltering boulders ;
For the Turks are very many, and few the men of Suli."
Then cried Tzavellas to his pallikari :
" Will ye wait for these Albanian curs one moment longer ? "
Then they snatched the scabbards from their swords, and broke
them ;
And as it were a flock of sheep they drove the Turks before them.
Veli Pacha cried to his men to turn and face them ;
But with tears in their eyes his men made answer :
" Ah, this is not Delvino, and this is never Widin ;
This is Suli the famous, renowned the whole world over ;
Here is the sword of Lambros, with Turkish blood stained crimson,
Which has made all Albania wear the dress of mourning,
Made widows weep their husbands, and mothers weep their
children."
2 Fauriel.
3 The word Turk is loosely used for Mussulman. There was very
possibly not a single Turk in the army of Ali.
254 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
After this success, the Suliotes were left in peace for
seven vears. In the meantime Lambros Tzavellas died,
and George Botzaris, with his Phara, which included two
hundred fighting men. had abandoned Suli and its cause.
This defection encouraged the Pacha of Jannina, whose
prosperity had gone on increasing, and who could now
reckon upon an army of upwards of twenty thousand
men, to return to the attack. It was at the beginning of
his campaign in 1800, that Photos Tzavellas, the son of
Lambros, at the head of a small band, distinguished him-
self by several acts of surprising and successful audacity,
which led to his selection as chief commander of the
Suliote forces. These reverses, and the memory of his
former disaster, suggested to Ali the policy of blockad-
ing the Suliotes in their mountains, and reducing them
by famine, and having drawn a close cordon round all
the passes, he proceeded to construct small torts or
towers, with which to overawe them. This form of
blockade was continued during nine months without any
relief from without to Suli, save the scanty supplies
which they were able to secure by their daring raids on
the stores of their besiegers. Romantic stories are told
of the methods by which they obtained provisions. A
Suliote dressed in his grey cloak succeeded in eluding
notice, and creeping in among a herd of the enemy's
cattle, was enabled during the night to conduct
them into the ravine of Suli. A party of old men and
children marched successfully away to the Ionian
Islands; and a foraging expedition, consisting of some
six hundred men and women, managed to reach Taiga,
now a dependency of Corfu, in safety, whence they
returned laden with supplies to the relief of the well-
The Saga of Sit/i. 255
nigh exhausted garrison, who had been reduced to
munching acorns and bark, and boiling the rude herbage
of the rocks fcjr food.
Meanwhile, the troops of Ali, who were getting tired
of the blockade, began to desert, and no pains were spared
by the Pacha to procure the disaffection of the various
leaders of Pharas in Suli, by individual offers of a
tempting character, and by offers to the community in
general of money and lands, in return for submission.
Occasional suspensions of hostilities for the discussion of
terms enabled the Suliotes to renew their supplies ; but
they had no faith in Ali's professions, and his execution
of the Suliote hostages, whom the Pacha of Delvino had
retained as a guarantee of alliance, when they fell into
his hands, confirmed their mistrust. Then a new
incident occurred. Ali received orders from Con-
stantinople to march on Adrianople, which was in revolt,
and was compelled to partially raise the blockade. The
Suliotes replenished their granaries and storehouses, and
constructed, under the guidance of the monk Samuel,
who had discovered the Book of Revelation to be a
series of denunciations and predictions levelled against
their implacable enemy, the fortress of Kunghi, to serve
as a receptacle for their stores. The fortress, and the
custody of their material, was placed under the care of
this extraordinary man, who, sabre in one hand and
cross in the other, was ever in the front of battle, and
who was now honoured by them with the ancient title of
Polemarch.
At this crisis in their fortunes, there arrived a new-
parliamentary from Ali, in the person of Kitzo Botzaris,
the son of that George whose defection was looked on as a
256 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
national disgrace, and who had since died or been
poisoned by the master whose service he had entered.
Kitzo, however, had not fought against his country, and
his known personal valour secured him a favourable
hearing ; a little later he nobly vindicated the honour of
his family, and proved himself a true son of Suli. The
terms proposed by Ali were, that Kitzo should undertake
the government of Suli, with a guard of forty Albanian
soldiers, introduced to guarantee the vizir's lands and
villages against any raids ; and that Photos Tzavellas
should be exiled. Councils were divided ; many were
weary of the war, which had now lasted almost without
intermission for two years ; and during this suspension
of hostilities rivalries of headship had grown up, to the
detriment of the common cause. Tzavellas, perceiving
the spirit of the assembly, and unwilling to be an
obstacle to peace, with disinterested patriotism, set fire
to his house, and with tears in his eyes withdrew from
the mountains he had defended so well. He was induced
to go to Jannina, whence he undertook a mediatory
expedition to Suli, as the other condition of peace had
not been complied with. On his arrival, his repentant
countrymen endeavoured to retain him, but he had
pledged his word to return to Jannina, and would not
stay. He had only undertaken the mission in order to
see Suli once again ; but he assured them that Ali was
implacable, that no terms offered and accepted would be
observed, and, therefore, that they had no choice but
war. Then, faithful to his promise, he returned to
Jannina, and was immediately thrown into prison.
The popular muse has thus recorded the departure of
Photos and his message to the men of Suli : —
The Saga of Suit. 257
" ' My children, no submission, endure not to be rayahs ;
While Photos is alive, he will not bow to any Pacha ;
For Pacha Photos has his sword, his musket for Vizir.'
And they have banished him to Frankland, to stranger kingdoms.
A curse upon you Botzaris, and on you, Koutsonfka,
For the work that you have done this summer —
'Twas you showed Veli Pacha the way to Kako-Suli ! "
The material aid in the way of powder and lead which
Suli received from the French enabled the Pacha to
obtain from Constantinople an order for its reduction,
and the siege was pressed on with renewed vigour. The
Suliotes pursued their old tactics — drawing the enemy
on into the ravine by declining an engagement, and
then repulsing the first attack on the strongholds with
loss. But a traitor arose in the camp. The liberty of
his son-in-law and a beggarly sum of money were the
bribes for which Pylios Gousi undertook to secrete 200
Albanians by night in his own house. There were
only fifty-five defenders in Suli, when a night-assault
was made in force, and the 200 sallying out attacked
these in the rear simultaneously. Kako-Suli was lost
through the treachery of Pylios Gousi, as also was
Avariko ; only Kiapha and the fort of Kunghi remained.
At this juncture Tzavellas, who had now languished
in prison for nearly a year at Jannina, succeeded in
obtaining an audience of Ali, and in persuading him of
his ability, if permitted to go to Kiapha, to draw off all
the adherents of his Phara, which would leave the
remaining Suliotes at Ali's mercy. The Pacha, who
now looked upon the fall of Suli as a mere matter of
time, consented, having nothing to lose by such a
proposal, and hoping to precipitate the crisis ; but he
s
258 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
exacted that his wife and children should be detained
as hostages for his loyalty. Returning to Kiapha,
Photos persuaded his countrymen to use this oppor-
tunity to get rid of all the infirm and aged, obtaining
hostages for their security from the Pacha, as though
they were able-bodied,, and, having taken the necessary
precautions for their safe transmission to Parga, and
thence to the Ionian Islands, he returned to Kiapha,
where he found the forces of the Suliotes so much
weakened by disaffection and desertions that he deter-
mined to remain, abandoning his wife and children to
the Pacha's mercy if he chose to take his advantage,
while he entrenched himself with Samuel and all the
loyal Suliotes he could collect in the fortress of Kunghi.
Here they were besieged by Ali's son, Veli, with a very
large force of Albanians ; and when at last reduced by
want of water to make terms, they obtained a written
permission to depart, couched in the most reassuring
terms, and guaranteed by a grim oath, which was signed
by all the chief beys and agas. Relying on this docu-
ment they marched out, some two-thirds of them accom-
panying Photos Tzavellas, and marching towards Parga,
the remainder retiring with Kitzo Botzaris to the moun-
tain of Zalongos.
Only the monk Samuel, with five wounded Suliotes,
remained behind. It is recorded that he had collected
all the powder in his charge into the little church at
Kunghi, and there, with his five companions, he awaited
the summons of Veli to surrender his trust. He had
laid aside his sword, and now issued from behind
the painted screen holding the sacred cup in one hand
and a lighted fuse in the other ; he administered the
The Saga of Suli. 259
communion to his five comrades, drank of the cup
himself, and swore that neither on earth nor in heaven
1
would he surrender the keys of Kunghi. As the blows
fell upon the door and the Albanians broke in, he
plunged the fuse into the powder and perished with
many beside. The story was told by two of the
Suliotes, who miracuously escaped with their lives.
Veli's first act, on becoming master of Suli, was to
violate his most sacred promise by despatching a force
of 4,000 men to attack the band which was marching
upon Parga. Photos, however, had already reached
protected territory, and his followers were allowed to
take refuge in the Ionian Islands, then under Russian
protection. Veli next surrounded the mountain of
Zalangos, and proceeded to storm the position which
Kitzo Botzaris and his followers had occupied. Fighting
went on without intermission by day and by night. On
the second day of the battle occurred the famous incident
which showed the desperate determination and courage
of the women who suckled these Klephts of the moun-
tain. Some sixty of these, with their children, were
assembled on a ledge of rock overhanging a sheer
precipice, and, having witnessed the gradual extermina-
tion of their defenders, they resolved to die by their own
act rather than fall into the hands of the grisly tyrant
of Jannina. The position which they occupied suggested
an easy form of death, and the manner in which they
sought it was tragically weird and grim. First, each
mother took her child, embraced it, and, turning her
own head away from the pitiful scene, pushed it over
the edge of the abyss. Then these sixty women linked
their hands together, and, singing the familiar dancing
S 2
260 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
song of Suli above the rattle of the musketry, danced
the old syrtos measure round and round the ledge of
rock, having each her back to the void as the winding
chain approached the brink. And every time the chain
wound round, one dancer, the last in line, unlinked her
hand, took one step back, and fell down into annihilation.
One by one, without haste, without pause, singing the
dancing song, they followed each other down that leap
of death, until the last sprung over alone, consecrating
the mountain with their blood an altar of liberty, from
which, ere long, a flame arose that fired those ancient
ranges from historic sea to sea.
The surviving defenders of Zalongos, placing their
women in their midst, while many of the men carried a
child in one arm, and a sword in the other, cut their way
through the besieging lines. Some 150 succeeded thus
in escaping under the leadership of Kitzo Botzaris, and
joined a considerable band of their countrymen, who had
at various times seceded, and occupied the village of
Bougareli. They had learned, however, that whatever
had been their policy in the past, the name of Suliote
was sufficient to single them out for Ali's ultimate
vengeance. They therefore retired to a strong position
in the Agrapha mountains, where in 1804 they were
besieged by seven thousand Albanians, and after some
four months fighting, were eventually all slain or
captured, with the exception of 160 women, who threw
themselves into the Achelous, and were drowned, and of
fifty-five men and one woman, who, under Kitzo Botzaris,
escaped to Parga, and thence to the Ionian Islands.
One other famous incident marks the close of this
tragic tale. In the Suliote village of Reniassa, the
The Saga of Suit. 261
Albanians found only a few women and children, whom
they murdered or carried off. But from one fortified
tower, the Suliotc wife, Despo, with her seven daughters
and daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren, poured a
^ severe fusillade upon the invaders. Then, knowing
their inevitable doom, they gathered round an open
case of ammunition in the central room, while Despo
thrust a burning fuse into the midst of the powder, and
all perished together in the ruins of their tower.
Thus, after a war of nearly twenty years against all
the resources and the best troops of the Sultan's most
powerful satrap, the little commonwealth ceased to exist.
The survivors of this unequal struggle were dispersed, and
dwelt as refugees under the shelter of foreign flags. Hence-
forth they were identified with the cause of Greece, and in
her roll of honour is written many a Suliote name. Twenty
years later, another Tzavellas and another Botzaris 1 were
leading the forlorn hope from the walls of the heroic
Misolonghi.
The immolation of Samuel is recorded in many songs.
Here is one which rings like a wail from the mountains : —
A little bird has come the way from Suli —
The men of Parga questioned it, the men of Parga ask :
" Whence art thou, little bird, and whither, bird, art going ?"
" I come from Suli, and I go to the land of the Franks."
" Tell us some news, little bird, tell us good tidings."
" Ah ! what tidings shall I bring you ? what story shall I tell ?
They have taken Suli, have taken it, and Avarikos too ;
They have taken dread Kiapha, and taken Kunghi,
And there they burned the monk, and other four beside him." '
4 Kitzos Tzavellas and Noti Botzaris were at the head of two divisions in
the famous last sorties from Misolonghi, on the 22nd of April, 1S26.
5 Fauriel.
262 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
The story of Despo is thus sung by the popular
muse : —
DESPO. 6
A grim noise is heard — the sound of musketry in quick succes-
sion ;
Do they fire for a wedding-feast, or is it a day of rejoicing ?
It is for no wedding-feast they fire, for no day of rejoicing —
It is Despo fighting, her daughters and her sons' wives beside her ;
The Albanians have assailed her in the tower of Dimoulas.
" Wife of George, lay down your arms, for this is not your Suli ;
Here you are the Pacha's slave, the prisoner of the Albanians."
" And if Suli be yielded, and Kiapha now be Moslem,
Still Despo owns not, will not own, the Liapids her masters."
She took a fuse up in her hand, she called her daughters round
her —
" Slaves of the Turks we will not live ; so follow me, my children ! "
She thrust it in the powder pile, and in the flame they vanished!
The following song records the capture and release
of Photos Tzavellas : —
PHOTOS. 7
What was the evil-hap that fell this summer-tide,
That all the Klephts bewail and find no consolation
Their limeria have been ravaged, and the very mountain herbage,
Since their chief was taken prisoner, the Captain Tzavellas,
Whom they bore off to Jannina with thrice a thousand Turks —
A thousand marched before him, two thousand followed after ;
The Derveni-aga brought him to the gate of Ali Pacha.
And Ali, when he learned, was very glad at heart ;
He gave his guards the order to bring him up before him,
That he might see him face to face, and talk with him awhile.
He scarce had finished speaking, when they brought Photos in,
And Ali Pacha addressed him, and spoke him fair :
6 Fauriel. 7 Lelekos.
The Saga of Suli. 263
" Friend Photos, why so witless, refusing me thine homage ;
It ever was my will to number thee with mine,
To have thee for an armatole, and name thee my chief captain ? "
And Photos he made answer, and fearlessly he said,
" I will not be an armatole, I will not be a captain,
To bend the knee to Lidpids, to bend the knee to tyrants."
Ali Pacha, when he heard him, was very wrath indeed.
He called to Morebret, and said to him in anger,
" Lead forth this cuckold rascal, lead forth this robber,
And cast him into prison, in the dungeon underground."
And, there and then, they shut him up in the gloomy dungeon,
And Photos writes a letter, and sends it to Kakosuli :
" My mother, oft I greet thee, and much I kiss thy hand ;
To Hdida my greeting's, and kisses on her eyes.
Now, never let the fighting cease by day and night as well ;
They hold me fast in the island, and in the monastery
At Paneleemon, in the prison bound,
With two chains on my neck, and four upon my hands,
And irons on my feet, to a tree fast riveted ;
And there are eighteen pallikars for sentinels without.
My mother, send my children, and send me here my wife,
That I may yield them to the Pacha, as hostages to the Vizir,
That I may get out of prison, escape from these my chains,
That I may gird my sword on and come and rescue them.
And hearken, sons of Photos, and Pallikars of Drakos,
While Photos lives he bends the knee before no Pacha ;
He knows no Pacha, save the sword that is dyed in Turkish
blood ! "
264
CHAPTER XL
LYRICAL POETRY.
HITHERTO we have been considering such elements of
the folk-poetry as have been included under the general
classification of epical in sentiment. It remains to
glance briefly at the far more extensive and by no
means less interesting development of the popular muse,
which, for the convenience of arrangement, has been
described as lyrical in spirit. A few specimens will be
given of the natural lyric, as expressed in love songs, or
as responding to the inspiration of nature ; of domestic
poems and songs belonging to special occasions and
anniversaries ; of narrative poems, partaking rather of
the ballad character ; and, finally, of the songs of death
and lamentation.
To begin with those of whose antiquity there is
ample evidence, it has been mentioned that there exists
in the Vienna Library a certain Codex manuscriptus
theologicus Grcscus, which was among the documents
collected at Constantinople in the 16th century by Augier
Busbecq, Austrian Ambassador to the Porte, from the few
remnants which had escaped destruction at the fall of the
Byzantine Empire. This Codex contains a considerable
number of Greek popular songs of a date anterior to the
1 5th century. 1 The majority of them are erotic, or at any
rate sensuous, bright, and fierce, without any trace of the
Northern idealism.
1 Published in the collection of Emile Legrand, Paris, 1S74.
Lyrical Poetry. 265
The following translation is an extract from a long
poem called the " Seduction," and many of its lines are
found repeated and remoulded in songs of a more recent
date : —
" When the raven shall grow white as is the dove,
When you shall see the raven pursue the falcon,
When the sea shall be sown with wheat and barley,
And when you see the fishes wander in the mountains,
When the dog and the hare shall be as brothers,
When the cat and the mouse shall ply their trade together,
When the ass becomes an angel and grows wings to fly with,
When you see the sun alter his course in heaven,
And when you see the white thorn turn to myrtle,
When the apple-tree becomes the scrub that clothes the valleys,
When you shall see the ocean foam no longer,
Then you and I, my lady, are likely to be wed ! "
The maiden had a ready wit, and she perceived his meaning,
And thus to the young man she made answer :
"When the wide heaven drops down upon the earth,
When truth, young man, shall pass for falsehood,
When you find the sea beginning to turn sweet,
And when among the dead springs up the herb of resurrection.
When the moon drops from the sky to earth and is extinguished,
Then I will give you a sweet kiss, oh, my master ! "
Which elaborate defiance is, of course, only the prelude
to mutual surrender.
Another from the same collection has a very modern
ring :—
" I would I were a swallow to fly into thy bed,
To make my nest among thy pillows,
To wake thee with my twitter, that thou mightest not forget me ;
Have me in memory, loved one, through all the days thou livest.
Of this be well assured, and know that I have told thee,
My love for thee is rooted fast to last for evermore."
266 TJie Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
The same motives recur again and again. A little
snatch which Fauriel heard sung as a complete song in
the islands, and of which several variants may be found
in Passow's collection, is embodied in a longer poem
recorded by Legrand, and in either case reads almost
like a distant echo of Meleager's unsurpassable rhythm . —
Ni>£ iep?) koX Xv^ve, crvvlcTTopas oirriva? aAAovs
opKOLS, aAA.' i'/Aeas ciAo/ac^' a/x<£dre/)oi. 2
The island version runs : —
" When we kissed each other, dear, it was night — who could have
seen us ?
It was night and dawn that saw us, the stars saw and the moon ;
But a star dropped down and told it to the sea,
The sea has told the oar-blade, the oar has told the sailor,
And the sailor went and sang it at the window of his love."
The longer poem is as follows : —
I pass and say no word ; the maiden greets me :
" Whither away, filcher of kisses, deceiver in love ? '
" If I am a filcher of kisses, if I am a deceiver in love,
Why did you surrender me your lips to kiss tenderly ? "
" And if I surrendered you my lips to kiss tenderly,
It was night — who could have seen us ? it was day-dawn— who
was looking?"
" The night and the day -dawn saw us, the star saw and the
moon ;
The star leaned down and told it to the sea,
The sea told it to the oar, and the oar to the sailor,
And the sailor went and published it to all the wide world.
I kissed the red lips, and they stained my own lips,
2 " Holy night, and thou, O lamp, you, and you two only, did we take to be
witness of our vows."
Lyrical Poetry. 267
I dried them on the handkerchief, the handkerchief was stained,
I washed it in the river, and the river caught the staining.
The river waters a fair garden,
Waters the trees, the fruit trees and the coppice.
But for one tree— a sweet apple— there was not enough water —
There is one tree whose leaves are dying, turning yellow,
And another apple questions it, another makes inquiry,
' What ails thee, apple tree, to wither and turn yellow ?
Art thou in need of water, or have they cut thy branches?'
' I do not want for water, they have not cut my branches,
But they plighted a youth and maiden beneath my shelter ;
They swore by my branches that they would cling together,
And now, because I know they part, my leaves are turning
yellow.' "
Many of the islands have quite a little literature of
their own. Thus, the next in order is from a collection
of some fifty songs, peculiar to the island of Karpathos
(Scarpanto).
A little bird was singing high up on the rough hill-side,
And a king's daughter listened from her window,
" Ah, bird, that I had thy beauty, and would 1 had thy song,
And would I had such golden plumes for hair upon my head ! "
" Why dost thou crave my beauty ? why dost thou crave my song ?
Why dost thou crave my golden plumes for hair upon thy head ?
For thou hast cakes to feed on, as many as thou wilt,
I eat my scanty portion from herbage in the fields ;
Thou sleepest on a lofty couch, with sheets of thread of gold,
But I lie out in solitude among the dews and snows ;
And when thou drinkest water thou hast a gleaming cup,
But I must drink my water from the spring thou bathest in ;
Thou waitest for the priest to come thy way to bless thee.
But I await the huntsman, who comes to shoot me down." ■
While, from still further away from the other side of the
JEgean, Smyrna sends the following : —
268 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
" In a fair garden
Bejewelled with flowers
One morning I wandered
To solace my care,
To distract my heart
From all its brooding ;
For I am tortured
By a maiden that I love.
And there, as I wandered
About the garden,
I stayed to gaze on
The flowers that I love best.
In the branches of a citron
A little bird was sitting,
And the pretty bird
Was warbling sweetly ;
And, as it warbled,
It seemed to me to say :
" Consider, youth, the flowers,
How ephemeral are they !
Youth and maid, be glad of joy,
Never lose an hour ;
Time is ever marching on,
And nevermore comes back." 3
Here, again, is a pretty little song from Crete : —
Maiden, red as roses and white as marble is,
Did an angel from the sky come down to fashion thee?
I trust to find my rose perennial in new bloom,
And many a thorn for its dear sake I cherish and abide.
I water this my rose-tree, and prune its branches well,
And when the rose-thorns wound me, I find my joy therein. 4
A very distinctive feature of the popular muse is the
distich, or rhyming couplet, embodying a single thought
3 Marcellus.
4 Elpis Helena : K/^tiktj MAtatra. Athens, 1888.
Lyrical Poetry. 269
of a more or less epigrammatical character, or some
graceful simile, dedicated to the eyes, or the lips, or the
hair of the beloved. As with the Tuscan stormlli, every
peasant knows a number of such distiches by heart, and
many have a talent for improvising them. In the intro-
ductory chapter, in dealing with the rhythm of the folk-
songs, a specimen of the rhyming distich was duly
included. I propose, however, to quote a few more here
in the original text, which, read by the light of the
translation, may serve to convey, even to those who have
no knowledge of modern Greek, some idea of the delicate
charm of the language, the balance and contrast in the
lines which clothe an idea, often in itself so slight as to
be lost in the endeavour to convey its interpretation.
'Att' oXa T'ao-Tpa t' ovpavov eVa Vat ttov <tov 'p.oid(ei,
Uov '/3ycuvei to, [xecrdvvKTa, kou 6'A.a to. o-Koreti'ta^et.
Of all the stars in heaven, but one is like to thee —
The star that comes at midnight and makes all the others dim. 5
'larpiKuv kcu larpos eicrai orav deXi'jcnjs,
M'eva a-ov (3Xefip.a IXupov £an)v 6a p.ov x^-P^V^
6
Drug and physician both thou art, whene'er it is thy will ;
Renew the gladness of my lite with one look of thine eyes.
Bowa, p.r] Trpao-wto-eTe, Trovkta, flrjv KeAaeiS^-re,
M' a.pvr)6i]K 1) dydiri] p.ov, oAa va Xv7n]6qT€.'
Be green no more, ye mountains, and sing no more, ye birds ,
Because my love is faithless let all the world be sad.
s Elpis Helena. 'j3yaii>ei = i^aivet, the star Aphrodite called AvyfpLvds,
the star of dawn.
6 Ibidem.
7 AAe/cos. Epidorpion.
270 The Customs a) id Lore of Modern Greece.
"OAa Ta AeAouSa tt)s y^S, ravOr] tov TLapaSelcrov
Ma£e^ave ol ayyeA.01 ko.1 Kafiav to Kopjxi o~ov. s
All flowers that are found in earth, and the blooms of Paradise,
The angels brought together to fashion this thy form.
"" Two eyes of blue thou hast, of blue as the hue of heaven,
And like the Pleiads near to dawn, they sparkle each and other. 9
" Thou hast kissed me once and sick am I, kiss me again and
heal me,
And kiss me yet a third time that I may not sicken more. 1
" My fair one, bid thy mother bring forth another like thee,
That here on earth one other heart may be consumed as
Sometimes, without an effort, without losing the value
of a word, they fall into corresponding verse : —
" The sun when first it rises is cradled in thy breast,
And lingers on thy yellow hair what time he sinks to rest."
" I weep and tell of what befel the first time love drew near,
Like lightning in the mountains, it flashed to disappear."
Whene'er I meet thee moving among the other braves,
'Tis thou art the carnation, the others are the leaves."
" I would I were a plane-tree, and that thou, thou wert a vine,
That fruit of grapes might cluster where the branches intertwine." 4
Not infrequently we find a double distich, either in
the form of question and answer, or a continuation
through two further lines of an idea suggested by the
first couplet, though complete in itself : —
8 Ibid. 9 Fauriel. l Ibid. - Ibid.
3 Elpis Melena.
4 This and the three preceding are from AeXe'/cos.
Lyrical Poetry. 2~\
" I shal cross the plain, the mountains, and ask the wild things in
them,
Can they not find me a drug will teach me to forget you.
And the field will say to me, ' Get hence ! How have I wronged
thee,
That the shadow of thy presence takes all my beauty from me?"'
Of the swallow song, sung upon the first of March,
there are many varieties, beside the one alluded to in
chapter V, which resembles the song of the Rhodian
boys of old in its appeal to the householder for a little
gift. Two versions of the CJielidonisma follow, of which
the former is from Corfu.
Swallow mine, oh, swift one !
Swallow mine, the swift one,
Whence come you, from the wilderness?
What good gifts do you bring ?
You bring me health and gladness,
And eggs of rosy hue. 5
The swallow has come,
Has crossed the sea,
Has built her nest,
And sits and sings.
Oh, March ! oh, March, the snowy,
And rainy February !
The sweet month April
Draws nigh ; that stays not long,
The little birds are singing,
The trees are blossoming,
5 Passow. In the last line the words are k^kklvo. avya, lit., red eggs.
This epithet of eggs recurs occasionally in the popular poetry, and either it
must be taken, like the Latin purpuretts, to mean bright, or it may be inter-
preted as referring to Easter, when red-stained eggs are largely consumed,
following soon after the swallows' arrival.
272 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
The fowls begin
To brood and hatch ;
The flocks prepare
To seek the mountains,
The kids to skip,
And browze the herbage ;
Man, bird, and beast
Are merry from the heart.
The frozen time is over,
The north wind and the snow.
Oh, March ! oh, March, the snowy,
And rainy February !
Fair April is at hand,
March, February, get ye gone ! 6
The song of St. Basilios, which is sung upon the first
day of the year, has also been alluded to in the same
chapter. It is probably of great antiquity, and may be
taken as a specimen of the inconsequent type of Greek
folk-song.
St. Basil is come from Cassarea,
He carries a book and paper, paper and ink,
He writes in the book, and he reads from the paper :
"Basil, do you know your letters, and do you know any songs ?"
" I have learned my letters, but I don't know any songs."
And he leaned upon his staff to say his alpha, beta ;
The staff was of dry wood, but it put forth green shoots,
Till up in its branches there were partridges singing,
Not partridges only, but doves were up there too. 7
Every kind of song may be used as accompaniment to
the dance — plaintive airs or notes of defiance, according
to the measure of the step ; but more generally love-songs
or distiches, such as have been already quoted, are em-
ployed. Here is a little dancing-song from Thessaly : —
6 Passovv. 7 Ibid.
Lyrical Poetry. 273
" Come to the dance, lads ; maidens, come and sing,
And behold and learn of love, and the way he goes ;
By the eyes he enters in, and climbs down on to the lips,
And through the lips he slips away, to take root in the heart. " 8
Another version of the same song runs : —
" I met love once in a little narrow lane ;
I made him sit, and questioned him of the way love enters in —
Love enters through the eyes, drops down upon the lips,
Puts out his branches in the heart, takes root, and there
remains. " 9
Wedding songs are generally local, and, as each part
of the ceremony has its own particular verses or series
of verses, they are for the most part too long to quote.
The following little series belongs to the wedding day
only, but the preliminary ceremonies and the subsequent
banquets have all their proper musical accompaniment.
( While they are dressing the Bride's Hair.)
" Hair thou hast of fourfold fairness
Falling on thy shoulders,
And the angels comb it for thee
With their golden combs.
( While they are robing the Bride.)
" When thy mother bore thee
All the trees were blossoming ;
And the little birds in their nests,
They, too, were singing.
( While they put on her Ornaments.)
" When thy mother bore thee
The sun came from on high,
Bestowed on thee thy beauty,
And then went back again.
8 Fauriel. : ' A.eX6cos.
274 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
( When the Bride sets out.)
" To-day the sky is bright,
And bright to-day the morning ;
To-day he holds his wedding,
The eagle with the dove.
(When they give the Bride to the Bridegroom.)
" We have borne away the partridge
Of the many-coloured plumes,
And we have left the neighbourhood
Like a land made desolate.
(The Mother's Song.)
" The seven heavens are opened,
And the evangels twelve,
And they have borne my child away
From these two arms of mine." '
The cradle song, with its monotonous soothing cry of
u Nani, Nani," is found throughout Greece in infinite
variety. Of the two specimens here quoted the first is,
perhaps, not more inconsequent than nursery rhymes
are apt to be ; while the second reveals the untrained
imaginative instinct struggling with a poetic conception
almost too difficult for its inadequate power of expres-
sion.
" The rose is sleeping beside the marjoram,
My little child is sleeping by his sweet mother's side ;
My child is sleeping in his silver cradle,
In his cradle made of silver and of gold.
Sleep on, my child, and I will rock thee,
And I will rock thy cradle, that sweet thy slumber be ;
Sleep star, new moon and morning, sleep,
And lady ocean with thy silver fishes, sleep ! "
1 Marcellus. The last stanza is obscure. It is probably only a hyper-
bolical expression, signifying the happiness awaiting the bride.
Lyrical Poetry. 275
" Make no noise, no sudden shock,
My little child is sleeping ;
Ndni, Ndni, Ndni, Ndni,
Be all his ailir.gs healed !
The sun sleeps on the mountains, the partridge in the fields,
My little child is sleeping between the linen white ;
Sleep sleeps upon the mountain, the partridge in the wood,
My little child is sleeping to take his fill of sleep.
Sleep, my child, with fond caresses,
Sleep nourished with perfumes,
Joy be with thine awakening,
And cakes for thy wedding day ! " -
&c. &c. &c.
"Take him in charge, kind sleep ; three sentinels I'll give him,
Three sentinels, three guardians, and mighty ones all three —
The sun upon the mountains, the eagle in the fields,
And Sir Boreas, the cool wind, for guardian on the sea."
The sun went down, and the eagle fell asleep ;
Sir Boreas, the cool wind, went in to the mother's house.
" My son, where wert thou yesterday, the day and the night before?
Or wast thou warring with the stars, or was it with the moon,
Or was it with the morning-star— and we good friends together?"
" I was not warring with the stars, nor warring with the moon,
Not warring with the morning - star — and ye good friends
together ;
But I watched by the silver cradle that held a golden boy." :
A little song for children on their way to school is
included in Passow's collection among those which he
found in the island of Andros. It is, however, also
quoted, with a slight change in the last two lines, in the
Memoirs of Nicholas Dragoumis, who traces it to Asia
Minor, to a district where the Hellenic language was
proscribed in the schools, so that the young Greeks
- AeX^/cos. " Fauriel.
T 2
276 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
were obliged to go stealthily by night to the teachers
who gave lessons in their own tongue. It runs : —
" Moon, bright moon of mine,
Shine on me that I may go,
That I may go to school,
That I may learn my letters,
May learn the works of God ;
How to 'broider, how to sew,
And all the will of God to know." 4
The familiar nursery rhyme has also a place in popular
literature, and the following fragments — for a few lines
will suffice to show their kinship — are as difficult to
repeat and as inexhaustibly recurrent as the " House
that Jack Built," or the old woman with the refractory
pig, of our own infancy.
" I wish I had — what do I wish
I had?
I wish I had an old man,
To take care of my garden,
My garden with the roses.
I wish I had — what do I wish
I had ?
I wish I had a donkey,
For the old man to ride on,
Who takes care of my
garden,
My garden with the roses.
I wish I had — what do I wish
I had ?
I wish I had a horse-fly,
To sting the donkey,
Make him throw off the old
man,
4 Passow, No. 278. Dragoumis.
5 Passow (from Salonika).
That takes care of my garden,
&c.
I wish I had, &c,
I wish I had a bird,
To swallow the horse-fly,
That stung the donkey,
That threw off the old man,
&c.
I wish I had, &c,
I wish I had a fox,
To eat up the bird,
That swallowed the horse-fly,
&c.
I wish I had a dog,
To kill the fox,
That ate up the bird, &c.
I wish I had a stick,
To beat the dog," &c. 5
Ava/xv7}<Tei$, vol. i., p. 214.
Lyrical Poetry. 277
And so on without any limit, but that of patience.
There was an old man,
And he had a cock,
That crew and awoke
The lonely old man.
There came a fox,
And ate the cock,
That crew and awoke
The lonely old man.
There came a dog,
And killed the fox,
That ate the cock, &c.
A tree fell down,
And crushed the dog,
That killed the fox, &c.
Then came the fire,
And burned the tree
That crushed the dog, &c.
Then came the stream,
And quenched the fire
That burned the tree, &c.
Then came an ox,
Drunk up the stream, &c. 6
And so on — the wolf killed the ox, the shepherd
killed the wolf, and the plague killed the shepherd, and
there that story ends.
Thus far we have glanced at the domestic side of the
folk-poetry in its lyrical aspect. A few specimens will
now be given of the narrative verse which records a
legend or tells a tale, and which has something of the
spirit that inspired the ballad of Northern lands.
With such it is impossible not to class the Charos
poems, which, however, frequently serve as myrologies,
in the wider sense of the word, for, as has been already
laid down, the genuine myrology is topical and spon-
taneously improvised.
The well-known poem of the " Bridge of Arta " has
been alluded to in another place," and an explanation
has been offered of the superstition upon which it is
based ; no further introduction, therefore, is needed
here.
(; Passow,
7 See p. 169.
278 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE OF ARTA.
There were five-and-forty masons, and sixty workmen more,
Who toiled to build the tower-pile upon the bridge of Arta ;
The whole day through they built it up, and at night it tumbled down.
The builders groaned and fretted, and ever made lament ;
The workmen they were merry, to have earned a new day's wage.
It fell on one fine Sunday — it was a high feast-day —
The master-builder laid him down to take a little sleep,
And in his sleep he had a dream — a vision as he slumbered —
Unless a victim perished the pile would never hold.
And neither rich nor poor man, nor any one on earth,
Save his, the master-builder's, wife, would make the foundation stand.
He called out to a labourer to go and do his bidding :
" Now go and tell thy mistress, the mistress of the house,
To dress herself and deck herself, put on her golden gauds,
Put on her gauds of silver, put on her silken gown —
Now swiftly speed and swift return and swiftly tell her thus."
He went and found her where she sat at sewing and at song.
' ; Now greet thee well, my mistress, the mistress of the house,
The master-builder sends me, bids you put on the gold,
Put on the gauds of silver, put on your silken gown,
And come to feast with us "
She dressed herself, she decked herself, put on her gauds of gold,
Put on her gauds of silver, put on her silken gown ;
And there she went to find them, whereas they sat at meat.
" Now greet thee well, my mistress, the mistress of my house,
My wooing-ring has fallen down — the first I ever wore —
And therefore did I send for thee to come and pick it up."
Then, as they let her down into the midst of the tower-pile,
One heaped in earth upon her, another heaped in lime,
And he. the master-builder, he struck her with his mallet.
" Three sisters were we once, and all three of us were slain.
There was one killed in the church, and one in the monastery,
And the third, the fairest of the three, upon the bridge of Arta.
Now as my hands do tremble may its pillars tremble too,
And as my heart is throbbing, so may the bridge throb too ! " 8
8 Fauriel.
Lyrical Poetry. 279
There are several variant versions of this poem. It
reappears almost textually elsewhere as the " Bridge of
Tricha " ; but the mysterious commands are not con-
veyed by a dream, but in the voice of a little bird.
A little bird alit and sat on the middle of the arch,
It did not sing as sings a bird, nor as a swallow calls,
It only sang and said a word in human speech :
" If here be no life taken, the bridge will never stand,
No humble man, nor great one, no wayfarer may it be,
Only the master-builder's, the master's wife will do."
And when the master heard it his tears began to flow. '•'
The next poem is interesting, as illustrating the
popular view of the uncanny side of Nereid and Lamia
lore.
Nine times a thousand sheep, and nine times a thousand goats,
Nine brothers that kept watch on them, and nine that pastured
them.
Now five were gone for bread, and three where black eyes wooed
them ;
Janni was left alone, the guardian of the flocks.
His mother gave him counsel, his mother spake and said,
" My Janni, so your prayers be heard, and as you wish to prosper,
Lie never down beneath the fir, nor fold the flock by the bramble ;
Nor tune the pipe by the rocks that the Nereids haunt,
The Lamias of the shore can hear, can catch thy music."
But he, he never heeded the words his mother spake,
He went and sat beneath the fir, and folded the flock by the
bramble,
And by the Nereid-haunted rocks he played upon the pipe.
The Lamias of the shore o'erhear, they catch his music ;
One Lamia, a fair Lamia, stands by him, and thus says she :
" Pby on, play, Janni, three days and nights play on —
If you out-tire me in the dance, you shall have me for a wife,
9 AeX^/cot.
2 So The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
And if I tire your music out, I'll take you for my husband ;"
He played, poor wight, three days he played and three nights
long,
Until his lips had rotted off and fell down at his feet,
Until his hands dropped from him, as he played upon his pipe. 1
The characteristics of Charos as the personification
of an inexorable law of nature have been dwelt upon at
some length, and among them the vindictive retribu-
tion they are supposed to provoke who defy his power
in the pride of their youth and strength. This trait is
brought out in the following poem, which is also
remarkable for its dramatic force and pictorial concen-
tration.
There was a maid who used to boast she had no fear of Charos,
For she had brothers nine, and Constantine for lover,
The lord of many houses, whose palaces were four.
So Charos turned into a bird, turned into a black swallow,
Came flying, and let go a shaft at the maiden's heart :
And her mother wept over her, her mother weeps over her ; —
" O Charos, sorrow hast thou sent for this my only daughter,
My one, my only daughter, my fair daughter ! "
Then Constantine appeared, coming down the lofty gorge,
With four hundred following in his train, and sixty-two
musicians ; —
" Now let the wedding mirth be still, and stilled the sound of
music,
For there's a cross to see at the door of my bride's mother,
The mother of my bride is dead, or dead her father,
Or one of my brothers-in-law it is that has been wounded."
He strikes his black steed with his heel, and goes towards the
church,
And finds the master-mason busied about a grave.
" Live long, O master-mason, and say whose grave is this ?"
1 AeX^/coj.
Lyrical Poetry. 281
"A grave for the fair-haired maid, with the fair hair and dark
eyes.
She who had brothers nine, and Constantine for lover,
The lord of many houses, whose palaces were four.'
" I pray you, master-mason, make this grave a little longer,
Make it a little broader, and large enough for two ? "
He drew his gilded dagger, and plunged it in his heart,
They tombed them both together, together in one grave. 1
It is curious to compare the following two versions of
the song of Charos and the Youth who wrestled with him.
The first was found by Fauriel in Thessaly, the second
is still sung as a myrology in Crete ; the two opposite
extremes, that is, of the country mainly occupied by
the Hellenic-speaking race ; the former divided by
difficult mountain ranges from the rest of Greece almost
as effectually as is the latter by a treacherous sea.
And yet it is almost impossible not to postulate a
common origin for the two versions in spite of the
different issue of the contest. 3
A nimble youth went swiftly down the steep mountain way,
He wore his cap upon one side, and had the plaited hair ;
And as he went Charos espied him from a crest of hill,
Descended to the straight defile and waited for him there.
" Where do you come from, nimble youth, and whither do you go?"
2 Fauriel.
'• Many parallel cases, however, may be cited. The school song, already
quoted, as found in both Andros and Smyrna, is a case in point. Another
Cretan distich —
" The stream consumes the earth, the earth consumes the dead ;
And maidens fair consume the young men in their pride " —
is derived from the same inspiration as that which accompanies the
Eubivan dance :
" The sea consumes the mountain, the mountains the wild beasts ;
The black-eyed and the fair ones consume the pallikars."
282 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
" I come from my flock," he answered, " and I am going home,
1 am going to fetch bread, and then return again."
" But God has sent me," Charos said, " to fetch thy soul away."
" Let me live, Charos ; oh, let me live, I entreat thee !
For I have a young wife, and widowhood ill beseems her ;
If swift she walk, folks say she seeks a husband,
If slow she walk, folks chide her affectation ;
And I have little children, and these will be left orphans."
But Charos never hearkened, for Charos meant to take him.
" Then, Charos, if thou art resolved, and 'tis thy mind to take me,
Come now, and let us wrestle upon this marble floor ;
And Charos, if thou conquerest, then thou shalt take my soul ;
But if 'tis I that conquer, then go thy way in peace."
And so they went and wrestled from morning till midday,
But by the hour of the noonday meal Charos had got him under."
And thus the story is told in Crete : 4 —
Charos was pursuing a goodly youth along the shore ;
The youth turned up the mountain slope — that way went Charos
too,
And he whistled to him, crying out, " Wayfarer, wait for me ! "
"What dost thou bring me, Charos, that thou shouldst bid me wait ? "
" I bring a target and a sword, a bow and a lance I bring thee,
And to thy wife I bring a sable veil to wear."
So they went along their way to the iron-paved threshing-floor,
And there they fought and wrestled from morning till the eve,
From evening on till morning, and on to the middle day.
And nine times over in that space the youth threw Charos down,
But after the ninth encounter the wayfarer got a fall from Charos,
And with a bound he flung himself upon the young man's chest.
" Oh, Charos, only forty days yet let me joy in life,
Because my wedding crowns are hanging in the church,
Because my wedding cakes are still in the guest-folks' houses !" 5
4 Elpis Melena.
5 The crowns used in the wedding ceremony are afterwards suspended in
church, and the wedding cakes are distrihuted among the guests. The
passage indicates he was but newly married.
Lyrical Poetry. 283
" Thou askest me for forty days — then live for forty years ;
Thou art as brave in battle as gallant in thy prayer,
So take this 'kerchief from me, and bind it round the wreaths."
They gave the farewell greeting — good comrades each to other —
And Charos took the mountain way, the young man took the
path ;
So even Charos honours the love of married life. 6
The next myrology is one of the few in which Charos
figures as a boatman.
A bark has set sail laden with young folk,
At the stern the sick, the wounded in the bows,
Beneath the sail those that were drowned in the sea.
It seeks a port to enter, a haven to anchor in,
And in a fair harbour it made fast the cable.
Rumour went through the villages, it was noised among the people,
" Widows, they are selling your husbands ; mothers, they sell your
sons,
And you, unhappy sisters, your brothers are being sold ! "
The mothers run with silver, the sisters come with gifts,
And the widows, the hapless widows, with keys in their hands,
And they that have nought come with hands clasped together.
But suddenly Charos changed his mind, and cut the cables,
And the mothers recrossed the mountains, the sisters the hills,
And the widows, the hapless widows, went across the lonely
valleys.
This translation is from the text of Legrand. Another
version, differing considerably, but substantially the
same, is quoted by Politis from the collection of M.
Razelos, and said to come from Maina. In this case
the presentation of Charos as a boatman is rather due to
the character of the country to which the poem belongs >
than to any reminiscence of the traditional classical
6 Lit. : " the love of the Marriage crown."
284 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
conception, a country rarely, if ever, of old entered by
the land approaches, and keeping contact with the rest
of the continent only by sea. In the latter version, how-
ever, the name of Charos does not occur, and, from its
internal evidence, I should think it more probable
that the origin of this poem was to be sought in the
piratical descents with which of old these coasts were
familiar, when the populations were transferred to
Constantinople, and Barbary corsairs carried off
numbers of their inhabitants to supply the slave-markets
of the East. At a later date, when the recollection ot
these times had passed away, the name of Charos was,
perhaps, inserted as the captain of the ill-omened ship, and
the song, which had survived the memory of the circum-
stances it recorded, was adopted as a myrology.
If it is, unfortunately, impossible to reproduce here
any of those fugitive poetic outbursts of grief which are
improvised at the bedside of the dead and over the
graves on anniversaries and commemoration days, there
is, on the other hand, a great wealth of songs recorded
which also serve on such occasions. In Maina they are
generally grim in character — records of battle and
murder and sudden death, such as it will please the
dead to hear — messages of consolation, that the secret
shot which laid low some relative has been avenged.
Others, again, describe the garden of Charos in the
other world, or the efforts of the dead to get away
from his all-seeing vigilance. Some are mere outbursts
of inconsolable sorrow, and hopeless longings to see
those who have passed away once more. And some-
times, again, the mourner speaks with the dead man's
voice, regretting the world he has passed away from, or
Lyrical Poetry. 285
giving instructions what flowers shall be planted round
his grave. The distich, the commonest vehicle for the
expression of love and longing, is also used for the
passionate outcry of sorrow, but set to a different
cadence. Here are a few shorter specimens of these
songs of lamentation : —
Young men farewell, farewell old wives, and farewell maidens
sweet,
I have bound the iron fetters of Charos round my feet.
God made so many good things, but one thing failed to make,
A bridge athwart the sea, and a stair to the underworld,
That one might cross, one might descend and go to the world
beneath,
And see the young folk where they sit, the old folk where they lie,
And see the little children how they fare without their mothers.
Round all the world God planted pinks and pomegranate
flowers ;
But only in my dwelling-place myrologies and tears.
Charos, what have I done to thee, that thou shouldst take my child,
And leave me here to pass my days in solitude, alone ?
Like the sun he rose in splendour, and like the moon went down,
And like a branch of basil he withered where he fell.
God made so many good things, but one thing failed to make,
That as the trees take leaf, and the meadows put forth flowers,
That so the graves should open, if it were but thrice a year,
At Easter and at Christmas and Good Friday all day through.
The arms that once the brave have borne, the clothes of the
luckless dead,
They never should be worn again, they never should be sold ;
They only should be hung at the gate of the Virgin's shrine,
For the rust to eat the iron, and the moth to eat the cloth.
286 The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece.
There stood a tower at his gate, and a tree within his court,
But now the tree is rooted up, and fallen is the tower.
Charos go back to Hades, and stay there for a while,
That there be no more weeping, and love be free from pain !
There is an infinite number and variety of these little
poems, and I do not necessarily pretend to have selected
the best among them. But in concluding this brief sum-
mary of the themes and the forms of Greek folk-poetry, I
cannot refrain from quoting once more that most beautiful
of all the myrologies, which is perhaps already familiar
to many readers, through the rendering of the great
German poet, who was so deeply moved by its simple
and suggestive pathos.
Why are the mountains dark, and why so woe-begone ?
Is it the wind at war there, or does the rain storm scourge them ?
It is not the wind at war there, it is not the rain that scourges,
It is only Charos passing across them with the dead ;
He drives the youths before him, the old folk drags behind,
And he bears the tender little ones in a line at his saddle-bow.
The old men beg a grace, the young kneel to implore him,
" Good Charos, halt in the village, or halt by some cool fountain,
That the old men may drink water, the young men play at the
stone-throwing,
And that the little children may go and gather flowers."
" In never a village will I halt, nor yet by a cool fountain,
The mothers would come for water, and recognize their children,
The married folk would know each other, and I should never
part them." 7
7 Passow.
APPENDIX
DANCE MUSIC.
The music of the people in Greece is Oriental in cha-
racter, incomprehensible and generally unsympathetic to
a Western ear. The peasant at the plough, the idler in
the street, and the boatman steering his caique, sing the
whole livelong day ; but their song is a minor cadence of
semitones recurring with melancholy iteration, and end-
ing in a kind of nasal drone. The women, with their
shrill voices piping their semitones in concert as they
dance, produce a weird sort of bird-like twittering sound.
It is not possible for one without musical knowledge
to analyse or even adequately describe these unfamiliar
sounds. The only observations which I was able to
make myself upon the subject were, that the singing of
the people had nothing in common with the merry tunes
which I heard shepherd boys in /Etolia playing on the
six-stopped pipe cut from a hollow cane in the old tra-
ditional way, and which are possibly as old as the instru-
ment itself, and that it is no less widely removed in
character from the chants of the Orthodox Church. I
should therefore be inclined to conclude that this mode
of singing dates from the Turkish occupation.
288
Appendix.
The instruments with which the accompaniment of
the dance is played have been already alluded to ; the
three-stringed almond-shaped fiddle of the islands, the
rude mandolin played with a plectrum of quill or tortoise-
shell, the drum, and the screeching reed-pipes, like those
of the Italian pifferari. The general effect produced is
not unlike the music of the pipes and drums of an Arab
village band. A few of the popular dances have been
arranged for the piano, so that it is possible to give some
idea of the measure, though the character of the music
lies chiefly in the nature of the instruments. A few
bars will suffice to convey the lilt to which the livelier
Tziamikos is executed :
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GLOSSARY OF WORDS OF GREEK OR FOREIGN
ORIGIN OCCURRING IN THE TEXT.
Aga — a subordinate district governor under the Turkish domina-
tion.
Anathemata — votive offerings.
Armatoli — the local militia in northern Greece, perhaps already
existing under the Byzantine emperors, recognized and
developed by the Turkish invaders, p. 221, &c.
Clistos (= closed) — a Greek dance, p. 86.
Demarch — governor of a deme, corresponds to mayor, though the
authority of the demarch in the country extends over a wide
area, the deme being a subdivision of a province.
EpiJaphion — the religious procession in imitation of a funeral on
the night of Good Friday, p. 1 50.
Fez6 ( = fez)— the red cap worn by women in the Morea. p. 74.
Fustanella— the white linen skirt or kilt of the Albanian dress now
generally adopted as the Greek national costume, p. 73.
Iko7i (— image, likeness)— the sacred pictures in churches, portraits
of the Virgin and saints.
Kalikanisari — goblins which appear between Christmas and the
Epiphany. Probably from Turkish Kara-kono-jolos, loup-
garou. p. 198.
Katakhanas — Cretan name for the vampire, p. 188, &c.
292 Glossary of Words occurring in the Text.
Klepht (= robber)— the name given to the guerilla bands which
infested the mountains of Greece and Albania during the
Turkish domination. See chap. ix.
Kolliva — cakes prepared on special occasions, for funerals and
solemnities, pp. 126, 149.
Kolovelones — Athenian name for the Kalikantsari.
Kondogouni — a short white jacket worn by women in Greece and
Albania, p. 75.
Koullouria — cakes or biscuits made in the shape of a ring.
Koumbdros (= compere, //. compare) — the name is reciprocally
given by godchildren to godfathers, and godfathers to god-
children, and covers all members of a family between whom
such a tie exists. This artificial relationship acts as a bar
on intermarriage. At weddings also an influential friend or
relation is named Koumbaros to the bride, and among the
poorer people he provides a part at any rate of the wedding
entertainment, and is bound to care for the wife and children
should they be left destitute, pp. 91 and 109, note.
Lamia — a malignant fairy, p. 185.
Leventikos—a. dance executed by two dancers, p. 85.
Limeri (Limeria, pi.) — the place of rendezvous of the Klephts ;
said to be derived from oX-qv Tj^ipav = all day, because the
Klephts remained during the day in their mountain hiding-
places, and only issued upon their forays by night, p. 225.
Mora — the name of a Lamia in Athenian folk-lore. p. 187.
Myrology—a dirge sung by the women over the dead, or at the
side of the grave on anniversaries ; often improvised.
p. 128, and chap. xi.
Nereids — now about equivalent to our fairy. Chap, vii., passim.
Glossary of Words occurring in the Text. 293
Pallikar — the rank and file of the Amatoli were called pallikari,
and the lieutenant was known as the proto-pallikar. Thence
the name was given to the Kleptic warriors, and is now
used merely in the sense of a " young gallant."
Panag/iia—ihe Virgin ; etymologically, the all-holy one ; whence
the common Christian name Panaghiotes.
Paneguris — a fair or festival, generally celebrated on the day of
the patron saint of the church in the neighbourhood of
which it takes place. Sometimes the religious, sometimes
the secular character predominates, but the same name
is used in either case. p. 82.
Fappas— the Pope or Priest of the Greek Church.
Paramythia — fables or folk-stories.
Parajiyiuphos — the "best man " at a wedding.
Pendalpha—the. five letters I OXON, monogram of 'IrjjoOs xptoros
vikS., "Jesus Christ is victorious," symbolically engraved on
charms and amulets, p. 126.
Primate — Latinised form of Turkish Kodja-bashi.
" The primates in Greece formed a substitute for an
aristocracy A voivode or bey purchased the
taxes of a district as farmer-general. He then sublet the
different branches of revenue to Greek primates, who again
usually relet their portions in smaller shares to the local
magistrates." — Finiay, "Hist- of Greece? vol. vi., book /'.,
chap. i.
Stoicheion — lit., element. The elementary spirit or deity inherent
in natural objects, places, &c, genius of the spot. p. 168.
St rigla — witch or weir-wolf. p. 187.
Syrios — a dance executed by a number of dancers in a line. p. 86.
Tratta — the dance peculiar to Megara. p. 88.
294 Glossary of Words occurring in the Text.
Tsiamikos — a dance which takes its name from the Tzame or
Schumik Albanians.
Tsaroukia— leather shoes with upturning points worn by country-
folk in Greece.
Vlach (= Wallach) — a name given throughout Greece to the nomad
shepherds, owing to so many of them being of Wallach
origin.
Vlani — the bridegroom's friend or " best man " in the Albanian
marriage ceremony, p. 104.
Vonrkolakas — a word of Sclavonic origin ; generally = vampire,
but it is also used for ghost or phantom, p. 188.
Vraiimi — the conductors of the wedding ceremony in northern
Greece (Mount Pelion). p. 94.
Zipoitni — the long sleeveless coat worn by women in the Albanian
costume now generally adopted in Greece.
Henderson &> Spalding {Limited), Printers, 3 & 5, Marylebone Lane, London, W*
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