Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/404

 '^i'j^i The Magical and Ceremonial Uses of Fire.

the dead person may warm himself, should he feel cold.i

In modern Greece there is a custom of keeping alight the " Unsleeping Lamp." This light is kept burning some- times for forty days, sometimes for three years, either in the death-chamber or on the grave. Sometimes a lantern is used, at other times a lamp. When the body is laid out in the chamber of death, candles and lamps are lighted and placed at the head and foot of the corpse. They are kept burning until the funeral procession starts. Either these same lights, or other tapers or candles lighted from them, are carried in the procession to the grave, and here " the unsleeping lamp " is lighted with the same fire that was burning in the house. This lamp is said to give light to the spirit, should it wander at night to its former earthly home. These lamps are kept burning till the body is thought to have entirely decayed — this period being forty days in some parts of Greece and three years in others."^ A popular dirge runs thus :

"And within forty days they (the dead) are severed joint from joint, their bright hair falls away, their dark eyes fall out, and asunder go trunk and head."^

Another dirge runs as follows. In this case the dead man speaks to his lady-love :

" And when the priests with solemn song march toward the grave

with me. Steal thou out from thy mother's side and light me torches

three ; And when the priests shall quench again those lights for me —

ah then, Then, like the breath of roses sweet, thou passest from my ken." ^

^ Rev. James Sibree, Madagascar, p. 291.

-J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, p. 508, ^ Bern. Schmidt, " Lieder, Marchen, Sagen," etc., Folksong, No. 33, quoted by J. C. Lawson, p. 486.


 * J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, p. 511.