Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/99

Rh wrist action. A big fellow got up and began to dance. In each hand he held a pair of painted wooden spoons, which served as castanets, and to their music he trod a monotonous measure of small steps round and round the confined space enclosed by the sitting company. His performance was interrupted by the entry of food, (dried fish and rice in round dishes and the flat round cakes of local bread), brought in on low circular Turkish tables, and set round the inner edge of the assembly of guests.

All this time the bridegroom had been standing, neglected by everybody, against a wall of the yard, a disconsolate figure with a guttering candle in his hand and by his side his (sýnteknos) or best man. This official is a god-child of the bridegroom's father, and will himself be godfather to the first child born of the marriage. In this case he was an unhappy-looking little boy of eight or nine years old.

When the food had been taken away, the priest took a lighted candle in his left hand, and set in front of him a bundle of new clothes tied up in a handkerchief. He proceeded to chant a prayer for the blessing of the Holy Ghost, concluding with the words,—"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The bundle was then opened, and the bridegroom led in front of the priest. To his left and a little in his rear stood the (parisámenos), his brother-in-law, whose duty it is to prompt and direct his movements throughout the ceremony. To his right stood his (kumbáros), or godfather, and to him the priest handed one by one the articles of clothing, two waistcoats, trousers, a belt, a coat, and a fez. As he received each, the kumbáros passed it three times widdershins round the bridegroom's head before clothing him with it, saying each time,—"I put this (naming the garment) on the boy; may he be of good repute and live many years,"—a refrain which is taken up by the crowd in chorus. When the bridegroom has thus been reduced to a helpless bundle of new clothes, he bends down, and the priest ties round his neck a yellow handkerchief and tucks the ends in his belt, forming a St. Andrew's Cross on his breast. This crossed handkerchief is called the (polysiávro).

After kissing the priest's hand, the bridegroom stands neglected for a time, while the collection of parádhes is conducted. The