Читать книгу Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals - J. C. Lawson - Страница 6

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

But comparative folklore is outside my present purpose. I assume only, without much fear of contradiction, that many of the popular superstitions and customs and magical practices still prevalent in the world date from a period far more remote than any age on which Greek history or archaeology can throw even a glimmering of light. If then I can show that among the Greek folk of to-day there still survive in full vigour such examples of primaeval superstition as the belief in ‘the evil eye’ and the practice of magic, I shall have established at least an antecedent probability that there may exist also vestiges of the religious beliefs and practices of the historical era.

The fear of ‘the evil eye’ (τὸ κακὸ μάτι, or simply τὸ μάτι[3],) is universal among the Greek peasantry, and fairly common though not so frankly avowed among the more educated classes. The old words βασκαίνω and βασκανία are still in use, but ματιάζω and μάτι̯αγμα[4], direct formations from the word μάτι, are more frequently heard. It would be difficult to say on what grounds this power of ‘overlooking,’ if I may use a popular English equivalent, is usually imputed to anyone. Old women are most generally credited with it, but not so much owing to any menacing appearance as because they are the chief exponents of witchcraft and it is only fitting that the wise woman of a village should possess the power of exercising the evil eye at will. These form therefore quite a distinct class from those persons whose eyes are suspected of exerting naturally and involuntarily a baneful influence. In the neighbourhood of Mount Hymettus it appears that blue eyes fall most commonly under suspicion: and this is the more curious because in Attica, with its large proportion of Albanian inhabitants, blue eyes are by no means rare. Possibly, however, it was the native Greeks’ suspicion of the strangers who settled among them, which first caused this particular development of the belief in this district. Myself possessing eyes of the objectionable colour, I have more than once been somewhat taken aback at having my ordinary salutation (’γει̯ά σου, ‘health to you,’) to some passing peasant answered only by the sign of the Cross. Fortunately in other localities I never to my knowledge inspired the same dread; had it been general, I should have been forced to abandon my project of enquiring into Greek folklore; for the risk of being ‘overlooked’ holds the Greek peasant, save for a few phrases of aversion, in awe-stricken silence. My impression is that any eyes which are peculiar in any way are apt to incur suspicion, and that in different localities different qualities, colouring or brilliance or prominence, excite special notice and, with notice, disfavour. The evil eye, it would seem, is a regular attribute both of the Gorgon and of the wolf; for both, by merely looking upon a man, are still believed to inflict some grievous suffering,—dumbness, madness, or death; and yet there is little in common between the narrow, crafty eye of the wolf and either the prominent, glaring eyes in an ancient Medusa’s head or the passionate, seductive eyes of the modern Gorgon, unless it be that any fixed unflinching gaze is sufficient reason for alarm.

Some such explanation will best account for the strange vagary of superstition which brings under the category of the evil eye two classes of things which seemingly would have no connexion either with it or with each other, looking-glasses and the stars.

To look at oneself in a mirror is, in some districts, regarded as a dangerous operation, especially if it be prolonged. A bride, being specially liable to all sinister influences, is wise to forego the pleasure of seeing her own reflection in the glass; and a woman in child-bed, who is no less liable, is deprived of all chance of seeing herself by the removal of all mirrors from the room. The risk in all cases is usually greatest at night, and in the town of Sinasos in Cappadocia no prudent person would at that time incur it[5]. The reflection, it would seem, of a man’s own image may put the evil eye upon him by its steady gaze: and it was in fear of such an issue that Damoetas, in the Idylls of Theocritus, after criticizing his own features reflected in some glassy pool, spat thrice into his bosom that he might not suffer from the evil eye[6].

The belief in a certain magical property of the stars akin to that of the evil eye is far more widely held. They are, as it were, the eyes of night, and in the darkness ‘overlook’ men and their belongings as disastrously as does the human eye in the day-time. Just as a woman after confinement is peculiarly liable to the evil eye and must have amulets hung about her and mirrors removed from her room, so must particular care be taken to avoid exposure to stellar influence. Sonnini de Magnoncourt, who had some medical experience in Greece, speaks authoritatively on this subject. According to the popular view, he says, she must not let herself be ‘seen by a star’; and if she goes out before the prescribed time,—according to this authority, only eight days, but now preferably forty days, from the birth of the child,—she is careful to return home and to shut herself up in her room by sunset, and after that hour to open neither door nor window, for fear that a star may surprise her and cause the death of both mother and child[7]. So too in the island of Chios, if there is occasion to carry leaven from one house to another, it must be covered up,—in the day-time ‘to prevent it from being seen by any strange eye,’ at night ‘to prevent it from being seen by the stars’: for if it were ‘overlooked’ by either, the bread made with it would not rise[8]. Such customs show clearly that the stars are held to exercise exactly the same malign influence as the human eye: the same simple phrases denote in Greek the operation of either, and the ‘overlooking’ of either has the same blighting effect.

The range of this mischievous influence—for I now take it that the evil eye and the stars are indistinguishable in their ill effects—is very large. Human beings are perhaps most susceptible to it. In some districts[9] indeed new-born infants up to the time of their baptism are held to be immune; till then they are the children of darkness, and the powers of darkness do not move against them. But in general no one at any moment of his life is wholly secure. Amulets however afford a reasonable safety at ordinary times; it is chiefly in the critical hours of life, at marriage and at the birth of children, that the fear of the evil eye is lively and the precautions against it more elaborate. Animals also may be affected. Horses and mules are very commonly protected by amulets hung round their necks, and this is the original purpose of the strings of blue beads with which the cab-horses of Athens are often decorated. The shepherd too has cause for anxiety on behalf of his flock, and, when a bad season or disease diminishes the number of his lambs, is apt to re-echo the pastoral complaint,

Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos[10].

‘Some jealous eye “o’erlooks” my tender lambs.’

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

Of inanimate things, those most easily damaged in a similar way are leaven, salt, and vinegar,—as being possessed of quickening or preservative properties to which the blighting, destructive power of the evil eye or of the stars is naturally opposed. The precautions to be observed in carrying leaven from house to house have already been noticed. Equal care is required in the making of the bread. It often happens, so I have been told, that when a woman is kneading, some malicious neighbour will come in, ostensibly for a chat, and put the evil eye upon the leaven; and unless the woman perceives what is going on and averts disaster by a special gesture which turns the evil influence against the intruder, nothing to call bread will be baked that day. Similarly it is unwise to borrow or to give away either salt or vinegar at night[11]; but if it is necessary, it is prudent to take precautions to prevent its exposure to the stars, which may even be cheated of their prey by some such device as calling the vinegar (ξεῖδι) ‘syrup’ (γλυκάδι) in asking for it[12]. Further, an object which has been exposed to the stars may even carry the infection, as it were, to those who afterwards use it. For this reason the linen and clothes of a mother and her new-born infant must never be left out of doors at night[13].

The precaution, as I have said, most commonly adopted is the wearing of amulets. The articles which have the greatest intrinsic virtue for this purpose are garlic, bits of blue stone or glass often in the form of beads, old coins, salt, and charcoal: but many other things, by their associations, may be rendered efficacious. The stump of a candle burnt on some high religious festival, or a shred of the Holy Shroud used on Good Friday, is by no means to be despised; and the bones of a bat or a snake’s skin over which a witch has muttered her incantations acquire thereby an equal merit. But such charms as these are objets de luxe; the ordinary man contents himself with the commoner articles whose virtue is in themselves. No midwife, I understand, would go about her business without a plentiful supply of garlic. It is well that the room should be redolent of it, and a few cloves must be fastened about the baby’s neck either at birth or immediately after the baptism. Blue beads are in general use for women, children, and animals. If men wear them, they are usually concealed from view. But mothers value them above all, because in virtue of their colour—γαλάζιος is modern Greek for ‘blue’—they ensure an abundant supply of milk (γάλα) unaffected by the evil eye or any other sinister potency. Salt and charcoal are most conveniently carried in little bags with a string to go round the neck. An effective charm consists of three grains of each material with an old coin. But many other things are also used; when I have been permitted to inspect the contents of such a bag, I have found strange assortments of things, pebbles, pomegranate-seeds, bits of soap, leaves of basil and other plants, often hard to recognize through age and dirt and grease. One scientifically-minded man recommended me sulphate of copper.

Special occasions also have special precautions proper to them. At a wedding, the time of all others when envious eyes are most likely to cause mischief, the bridegroom commonly carries a black-handled knife slipped inside his belt[14], and the bride has an open pair of scissors in her shoe or some convenient place, in order that any such evil influence may be ‘cut off.’ But some of these magical safeguards concern not only the evil eye, but ghostly perils in general, and will claim notice in other connexions.

If, however, through lack of precautions or in spite of them, a man suspects that he is being ‘overlooked,’ he must rely for protection on the resources with which nature has provided him. The simplest thing is to spit,—three times for choice, for that number has magical value,—but on oneself, not at the suspected foe. Theocritus was scrupulously correct, according to the modern view, in making his shepherd spit thrice on his own bosom. Another expedient, though no garlic be at hand to give effect to the words, is to ejaculate, σκόρδο ’στὰ μάτι̯α σου, ‘garlic in your eyes!’ Or use may be made of an imprecation considered effective in many circumstances of danger, νὰ φᾶς τὸ κεφάλι σου, ‘may you devour your own head!’ Lastly there is the φάσκελον, a gesture of the hand,—first raised with the fist closed and then suddenly advanced either with all the fingers open but bent, or with the thumb and little finger alone extended,—which returns the evil upon the offender’s own head with usury.

But, in spite of these manifold means of defence, the evil eye has its victims; some malady seizes upon a man, for which no other cause can be assigned; and the question of a cure arises. Here the Church comes to the rescue, with special forms of prayer, commonly known as βασκανισμοί, provided for the purpose. The person affected goes to the church, or, if the case be serious, the priest comes to his house, the prayers are recited, and the sufferer is fumigated with incense. Also if there happens to be a sacred spring or well, ἅγι̯ασμα as it is called, in the precincts of any church near,—and there are a fair number of churches in Greece which derive both fame and emolument from the possession of healing and miracle-working waters[15],—the victim of the evil eye is well-advised to drink of them. There are some, however, who rate the powers of a witch more highly than those of a priest, and prefer her incantations to the prayers of the Church. She knows, or is ready to improvise, forms of exorcism (ξόρκια, ξορκισμοί) for all kinds of affliction. A typical example[16] begins, as do many of the incantations of witchcraft, with an invocation of Christ and the Virgin and the Trinity and the twelve Apostles; then comes a complaint against the grievous illness which needs curing; next imprecations upon the man or woman responsible for causing it; and finally an adjuration of the evil eye to depart from the sufferer’s ‘head and heart and finger-nails and toe-nails and the cockles of the heart, and to begone to the hills and mountains[17]’ and so forth; after all which the Lord’s prayer or any religious formula may be repeated ad libitum. During the recitation of some such charm, the witch fumigates her patient either with incense, or,—what is more effectual where a guess can be made as to the identity of the envious enemy,—by burning something belonging to the latter, a piece of his clothing or even a handful of earth from his doorway[18]. Or again, if the patient is at a loss to conjecture who it is that has harmed him, recourse may be had to divination. A familiar method is to burn leaves or petals of certain plants,—basil and gillyflower being of special repute[19],—mentioning at the same time a number of names in succession. A loud pop or crackling denotes that the name of the offender has been reached, and the treatment can then proceed as described above.

No less widespread in Greece than the belief in the evil eye, and equally primitive in character, is the practice of magic. Few villages, I believe, even at the present day do not possess a wise woman (μάγισσα). Often indeed, owing to the spread of education and the desire to be thought ‘European’ and ‘civilised,’ the inhabitants will indignantly deny her existence, and affect to speak of witches as things of the past. But in times of illness or trouble they are apt to forget their pretensions of superiority, and do not hesitate to avail themselves of the lore inherited from their superstitious forefathers. For the most part women are the depositaries of these ancient secrets, and the knowledge of charms, incantations, and all the rites and formularies of witchcraft is handed down from mother to daughter. But men are not excluded from the profession. The functions of the priest, for example, are not clearly distinguished from those of the unconsecrated magician. At a baptism, which often takes place in the house where the child is born and not at the church, the priest opens the service by exorcising all evil spirits and influences from the four corners of the room by swinging his censer, but the midwife, who usually knows something of magic, or one of the god-parents, accompanies him and makes assurance doubly sure by spitting in each suspected nook. Moreover if a priest lead a notoriously evil life or chance to be actually unfrocked, the devil invests him with a double portion of magical power, which on any serious occasion is sure to be in request. But, apart from the clergy who owe their powers to the use or abuse of their office, there are other men too here and there who deal in witchcraft. They are usually specialists in some one branch, and professors of the white art rather than of the black,—one versed in popular medicine and the incantations proper to it, another in undoing mischievous spells, another in laying the restless dead. The general practitioners, causing disease as often as curing it, binding with curses as readily as loosing from them, are for the most part women.

I shall not attempt to enumerate here all the petty uses of magic of which I have heard or read: indeed an exhaustive treatment of the subject, even for one who had devoted a lifetime to cultivating an intimacy with Greek witches, would be hardly possible; for their secrets are not lightly divulged, and new circumstances may at any time require the invention of new methods. I propose only to describe some of the best known and most widely spread practices, some beneficent, others mischievous. Most of them will be seen to be based on the primitive and worldwide principle of sympathetic magic,—the principle that a relation, analogy, or sympathy existing, or being once established, between two objects, that which the one does or suffers, will be done or suffered also by the other.

If it be desired to cause physical injury or death to an enemy, the simplest and surest method is to make an image of him in some malleable material,—wax, lead, or clay,—and, if opportunity offer, to knead into it or attach to it some trifle from the enemy’s person. Three hairs from his head are a highly valuable acquisition, but parings of his nails or a few shreds of his clothing will serve: or again the image may be put in some place where his shadow will fall upon it as he passes. These refinements of the practice, however, are not indispensable; the image by itself will suffice. This being made, the treatment of it varies according to the degree of suffering which it is desired to inflict.

Acute pain may be caused to the man by driving into his image pins or nails. This device is popularly known as κάρφωμα, ‘pinning’ or ‘nailing,’ and many variations of it are practised. One case recorded in some detail was that of a priest’s wife who from her wedding-day onward was a prey to various pains and ills. The priest tried in vain to relieve them by prayer, and finally called in a witch to aid him. After performing certain occult rites of divination, she informed him that he must dig in the middle of his courtyard. There he found a tin, which on being opened revealed an assortment of pernicious charms,—one of his wife’s bridal shoes with a large nail through it, a dried-up bit of soap (presumably from the bridal bath) stuck full of pins, a wisp of hair (probably some of the bride’s combings) all in a tangle, and lastly a padlock. The nail and pins were at once pulled out and the hair carefully disentangled, with the result that the woman was freed from her pains and her complicated ailments. But the padlock could not be undone, and was thrown away into the sea, with the result that the woman remained childless. The bride had been ‘nailed’ (καρφωμένη) by a rival. In this case, it is true, no waxen or leaden image was used, but the principle is the same. The use of an image is only preferable as allowing the maker of it to select any part of the body which he wishes to torture.

Another method of dealing with the image is to melt or wear it away gradually; if it be of wax or lead, it may be seared with a red-hot poker, or placed bodily in the fire; if it be of clay, it may be scraped with a knife, or put into some stream which will gradually wash it away. Accordingly as it is thus wasted away, slowly or rapidly, so will the person whom it represents waste and die. This is in principle the same system as that adopted by Simaetha in the Idyll of Theocritus to win back the love of Delphis. ‘Even as I melt this wax,’ she cries, ‘with God’s help, so may the Myndian Delphis by love be straightway molten[20]’; and she too used in her magic rites a fringe from Delphis’ cloak, to shred and to cast into the fierce flame.[21] Only, in her case, the incantation turned what might have been a death-spell into a love-charm.

Love and jealousy are still the passions which most frequently suggest the use of magic. Occult methods are necessary to the girl whose modesty prevents her from courting openly the man on whom her heart is set, and not less so to her who would punish the faithlessness of a former lover.

The following are some recorded recipes[22] for winning the love of an apathetic swain.

Obtain some milk from the breasts of a mother and daughter who are both nursing male infants at the same time, or, in default of that, from any two women both nursing first-born male infants; mix it with wheat-flour and leaven, and contrive that the man eat of it. Repeat therewith the following incantation: ὅπως κλαῖνε καὶ λαχταρίζουν τώρα τὰ παιδία ποῦ τοὺς λείπει τὸ γάλα τους, ἔτσι νὰ λαχταρίσῃ καὶ ὁ τάδε γι̯ὰ τὴν τάδε, ‘As the infants now cry and throb with desire for the milk which fails them, so may N. throb with desire for M.’

Take a bat or three young swallows, and roast to cinders on a fire of sticks gathered by a witch at midnight where cross-roads meet: at the same time repeat the words, ὅπως στρηφογυρίζει, τρέμει, καὶ λαχταρίζει ἡ νυχτερίδα ἔτσι νὰ γυρίζῃ ὁ τάδε, νὰ τρέμῃ καὶ νὰ λαχταρίζῃ ἡ καρδι̯ά του γι̯ὰ τὴν τάδε, ‘As the bat writhes, quivers, and throbs, so may N. turn, and his heart quiver and throb with desire for M.’ The ashes of the bat are then to be put into the man’s drink.

Take a bat and bury it at cross-roads; burn incense over it for forty days at midnight; dig it up and grind its spine to powder. Put the dust in the man’s drink as before.

Such are some of the magic means of winning love; and the rites, while involving as much cruelty to the bat as was suffered by the bird of witchcraft, the ἴυγξ, in the ancient counterpart of these practices, are at any rate, save for the ashes in the man’s liquor, innocuous to him. But the weapon of witchcraft wherewith a jealous woman takes vengeance upon a man who has forsaken her or who has never returned her affection and takes to himself another for his bride, is truly diabolical. This is known as the spell of ‘binding’ (δέσιμον or ἀμπόδεμα[23]). Its purpose is to fetter the virility of the husband and so to prevent the consummation of the marriage. The rite itself is simple. Either the jealous girl herself or a witch employed by her attends the wedding, taking with her a piece of thread or string in which three loops have been loosely made. During the reading of the gospel or the pronouncement of the blessing, she pulls the ends of the string, forming thereby three knots in it, and at the same time mutters the brief incantation, δένω τὸν τάδε καὶ τὴν τάδε, καὶ τὸ διάβολο ’στὴ μέση, ‘I bind N. and M. and the Devil betwixt them.’ The thread is subsequently buried or hidden, and unless it can be found and either be burnt or have the knots untied, there is small hope for the man to recover from his impotence. There is no doubt, I think, that the extreme fear in which this spell is held has in some cases so worked upon the bridegroom’s nerves as to render the ‘binding’ actually effective, just as extreme faith in miraculous icons occasionally effects cures of nervous maladies[24]. Sonnini de Magnoncourt vouches for a case, known to him personally, in which the effect of this terror continued for several months, until finally the marriage was dissolved on the ground of non-consummation, and the man afterwards married another wife and regained his energy[25]. I myself have more than once been told of similar cases, in which however divorce was not sought (it is extremely rare in Greece) but the spell was broken by the finding of the thread or by countervailing operations of magic. In Aetolia, where this superstition is specially rife, I knew of a priest, a son of Belial by all accounts, who made a speciality of loosing these binding-spells. By his direction the afflicted man and his wife would go at sunset to a lonely chapel on a mountain-side, taking with them food and a liberal supply of wine, with which to regale themselves and the priest till midnight. At that hour they undressed and stood before the priest, who pronounced over them some form of exorcism and benediction,—my informant could not give me the words. They then retired to rest on some bedding provided by the priest on the chapel-floor, while he recited more prayers and swung his censer over them. I was assured that more than one couple in the small town where I was staying confessed to having obtained release from the spell by a night thus spent and with the extreme simplicity of the peasants of that district thought no shame to confess it. And this is the more easily intelligible, because, as we shall see later[26], the practice of ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in some holy place with a view to being cured of any ailment, is as familiar to Christians of to-day as it was to their pagan ancestors.

But pure magic too, no less than these quasi-Christian methods, may effect the loosing of the bond, even without the discovery of the knotted thread which is the source of the mischief. In a recent case on record, a witch, having been consulted by a couple thus distressed, took them to the sea-shore, bade them undress, bound them together with a vine-shoot, and caused them to stand embracing one another in the water until forty waves had beaten upon them[27]. On the significance of the details of this charm no comment is made by the recorder of it; but they deserve, I think, some notice. The vine-shoot, like the olive-shoot, is a known instrument of purification, and is sometimes laid on the bier beside the dead during the lying-in-state (πρόθεσις). Salt is likewise possessed of magical powers to avert all evil influences,—we have noticed the use of it in amulets to protect from the evil eye,—and the sea is therefore more efficacious than a river for mystic purposes. Forty is the number of purification; the churching of women takes place on the fortieth day from the birth, whence the Greek word for to ‘church’ is σαραντίζω,—from σαράντα, ‘forty.’ Lastly the beating of the waves seems intended to drive out by physical compulsion the devil or any power of evil by which husband and wife are kept apart.

In view of this danger it is natural that ample precautions should be taken at every wedding. During the dressing of the bride or the bridegroom, it is customary to throw a handful of salt into a vessel of water, saying, ὅπως λυώνει τὸ ἁλάτι, ἔτσι νὰ λυώσουν οἱ ὀχτροί (ἐχθροί), ‘As the salt dissolves, so may all enemies dissolve.’ The black-handled knife worn by the bridegroom in his belt, and the pair of scissors put in the bride’s shoe or sometimes attached to her girdle, both of which have been noticed as safeguards against the evil eye, serve also to ‘cut’ this magic bond of impotence. Sometimes too a pair of scissors and a piece of fisherman’s net are put in the bridal bed. In Acarnania and Aetolia, and it may be elsewhere, a still more primitive custom prevails; both bride and bridegroom wear an old piece of fishing-net,—in which therefore resides the virtue of salt water,—round the loins next to the body; and from these bits of netting are afterwards made amulets to be worn by any children of the marriage. Such customs are likely long to continue among the simpler folk of modern Greece, who frankly and innocently wish the bride at her wedding reception ‘seven sons and one daughter.’

But it is not only for ailments induced by malicious magic that magical means of cure or aversion are used. The whole of popular medicine is based upon the knowledge of charms and incantations. Many simples and drugs are of course known and employed; but it is still generally believed, as it was in old time, that ‘there would be no good in the herb without the incantation[28].’ For the most ordinary diseases are credited to supernatural causes, and there is no ill to which flesh is heir,—from a headache to the plague,—without some demon responsible for it. A nightmare and the sense of physical oppression which often accompanies it are not traced to so vulgar a cause as a heavy supper, but are dignified as the work of a malicious being named Βραχνᾶς[29], who in the dead of night delights to seat himself on the chest of some sleeper, and by his weight produces an unpleasant feeling of congestion. Material for a similar personification has been found also in the more terrible pestilences by which Greece has from time to time been visited. It is still believed among the poorest folk of Athens that in a cleft on the Hill of the Nymphs, undisturbed even by the modern observatory on its summit, there lives a gruesome sisterhood, a trinity of she-devils, Χολέρα, Βλογι̯ά, and Πανοῦκλα,—Cholera, Smallpox, and Plague.

Granted then that illness in general is the malicious work of supernatural beings, common reason recommends the employment of supernatural means to defeat and expel them. Forms of exorcism have in past times been provided by the Church and are still in vogue; but here, as in other matters, the functions of the priest are shared with the witch, and an old woman versed in the traditional lore of popular medicine is as competent as any bishop to cast out the devils of sickness. Nor do the popular incantations differ much in substance from the ecclesiastical. The witch knows better than to try to cast out devils in the Devil’s name, and her exorcisms contain invocations of God and the saints of the same character as those sanctioned by the Church; only in her accompanying rites and gestures there is a picturesque variety which is lacking in the swinging of the priest’s censer.

The details of the rites and the full forms of incantation are in general extremely difficult to obtain. The witches themselves are always reticent on such points, and I have known one plead, by way of excuse for her apparent discourtesy in withholding information, that the virtue of magic was diminished in proportion as the knowledge of it was disseminated. One cure, however,—a cure for headache—will sufficiently illustrate the principle on which the healing art among the common-folk generally proceeds. This cure is based upon the assumption that the tense and bruised feeling of a bad headache is due to the presence of some demon within the skull, and that the room which he occupies must have been provided by distention of the head,—which will therefore measure more in circumference while it aches than when the demon has been exorcised. This is demonstrated in the course of the cure. The witch takes a handkerchief and measures with it the patient’s head. Doubling back the six or eight inches of the handkerchief that remain over, she puts in the fold three cloves of garlic, three grains of salt, or some other article of magical virtue, and ties a knot. Then waving the handkerchief about the patient’s head, she recites her form of exorcism,—but usually in a tone so low and mumbling that the bystanders cannot catch the words. The exorcism being finished, she again measures the head, and this time the knot, which marks the previous measurement, is found to overlap, by two or three inches it may be, the other end of the kerchief,—a sure sign that the intruding demon has been expelled and that the head having returned to its natural dimensions will no longer ache[30]. The exact words of the incantation which should accompany this rite I could not obtain; but I make little doubt that in substance they would differ little from a Macedonian formula recently published:—

‘For megrim and headache:

‘Write on a piece of paper:—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, loose the demon of the megrim from the head of Thy servant. I charge thee, unclean spirit which ever sittest in the head of man, take thy pain and depart from the head: from half-head, membrane, and vertebra, from the servant of God, So-and-so. Stand we fairly, stand we with fear of God. Amen[31].’

In this instance we have the formula but not, it seems, the rite which should accompany it; for the mere act of committing the words to paper is hardly likely to be deemed sufficient. Probably the paper would be laid under the pillow at night, or, as I have known in other cases, would be burnt, and its ashes taken as a sedative powder.

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

Perpería goes his way

And to God above doth pray,

Rain, O God, a gentle rain,

Shed, O God, a gentle shower,

That the fields may give their grain,

And the vines may come to flower,

and so forth in such simple strain[34]. At each doorway and more particularly at every spring and well, which it is the special duty of the Perpería to visit, anyone who will may empty a vessel of water over the boy, to whom some compensation for his drenching is usually made in the form of sweetmeats or coppers.

The word περπερία has been the subject of considerable discussion. By-forms περπερίτσα, περπεροῦνα, and παππαροῦνα also occur. The first two are of the nature of diminutives; the last-named is a corrupt form used only, so far as I know, in one district of Epirus, and means a ‘garden-poppy.’ The perversion of the word has in this district (Zagorion) affected the rite itself; for it is considered necessary for this flower to be used largely in dressing up the chief actor in the ceremony[35]. But the most general, and, as I think, most correct form is περπερία (or περπερεία). With the ancient word περπερεία, derived from the Latin perperus and used in the sense of ‘boasting’ or ‘ostentation,’ it can, I feel, have no connexion; and I suggest that it stands for περιπορεία, with the same abbreviation as in περπατῶ for περιπατῶ, ‘walk,’ and subsequent assimilation of the first two syllables. If my conjecture is right, the word originally meant nothing more than a ‘procession round’ the village; next it became confined in usage to a procession for the particular purpose of procuring rain; and finally, the words πορεία[36] and πορεύομαι having been lost from popular speech, it was taken to be the name of the boy who plays the uncomfortable part of vegetation craving water. And indeed it would seem likely that the song which forms part of the ceremony was actually first composed at a time when περπερία was still understood in the sense of ‘procession’: for in every recorded version known to me it would be still possible to interpret the word in this meaning without detriment to the context.

The rite itself as an example of sympathetic magic requires no commentary: a simpler application of the principle that like produces like could not be found.

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