Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/168

146 joints of the baby's skull, not yet closed, are the writing. They make a feast, and leave the remains on the table all night for the Three Fates.

Burial.—The priest takes a taper, makes the sign of the cross, and lays the taper on the dead man's mouth; else he would become a vampire.

Building of Houses.—When a house is built, sacrifice is made of a fowl, or something else. When it is done, they erect two poles with a crosspiece, and all the friends bring gifts—shawl, kerchief, what they will—and hang upon it.

Ghosts.—The καλοικύτξαροι, Kali-Kántchari are a peculiar kind of ghost or goblin which appear only at the Epiphany. To keep them away, the women rub the walls of a house with ashes, repeating some lines of which my informant only knew this:—τξάγγουρ τξάγγουρ τὰ λανάρια, "twang twang the wool-carders." (See also Georgeakis op. cit.)

Times and Seasons: May 1.—The people make garlands of flowers and nettles, with garlic or onions, and hang them over the door. I saw these withered wreaths in all parts of the island five months later. They take a garlic, a vine-sprout, and some wine, and eat it before they hear the donkey bray on that day.

Elias' Day: July 21 .—They sacrifice a sheep on the hill where is a church of the prophet Elias.

New Year's Eve.—Girls throw hollybay leaves [sic] in the fire, and divine by its crackling about their future husbands, and all matters of interest, whether the mare will have a foal, or the like.

On New Year's Day the people go out early in the morning to the sea, and seek the μαλλιάρμς πέτρα, or "woolly stone," i.e. a stone with seaweed upon it; this they keep in their houses. Those who wish to be beloved break a pomegranate upon it, because the pomegranate means faithfulnessfruitfulness [sic], and the stone means steadfastness, as it must lie long in one place for seaweed to grow on it.