Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/301

 Reviews. 273

whom one would have been interested to learn facts, if any are known.

Secret dances appear to be a social institution disapproved of by the moralists, probably, to judge from some of the stories, not without justification in fact.

Torr' t's yi'i'ttiK-as SoAtov etrri Kat traOpoif.^

There are many stories of the sin of those who attend these gatherings finding them out, of the appearance of the devil or ghosts at the merrymaking, or of the expiation of their guilt by the souls of dancers dead and gone.

It is natural that in the traditions of herds and hunters living lonely lives in " that tremendous neighbourliood " the spiritual should figure largely. The avalanche has left its mark on popular imagination in tales of sin and punishment. Up among the glaciers the souls of the dead endure the torments of Purgatory, and some have been seen by the occasionally privileged tucked up in beds of comfortable aspect ; but place a stick beneath the bed and immediately it will burst into flame ! Through the mountains too the dead have been seen marching in the solemn procession of All Soul's Eve.

When the herds move their pasture with the seasons, the spirits of olden times occupy the vacated huts. There is the oft-repeated story of the shepherd boy who was sent back for something and finds the strangers in occupation. In one, a delicious piece of realism, he thinks they must be tourists ! Often an animal is killed, and he is invited to partake of the meal. After it is over, the bones are laid in order upon the skin. Next day the herd notices that one of his cattle is lame, and lacks the piece of flesh from the leg which he himself consumed. Ghostly appetites are apparently satisfied without resulting in material damage. The spiritual manifestations are legion. There are of course their material counterparts, robbers and witches. The latter appear usually as foxes, and are vulnerable only when the powder has been blessed by the priest. But the solitary may also meet with souls of the wicked dead, spinners who plied their craft after mid-

^ Euripides, Bacchae, 487. Cf. Ion 550 et seq., a close parallel to some of the traditions attaching to the secret dance.

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