Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/202

 'vrykolakas,' or 'gorgon'; and this variety of names is in itself a proof that, while the idea of infant cannibals is widespread, no exact verbal equivalent now exists, and each of the several names used is only requisitioned to supply the deficiency. A child can indeed enjoy the title of Strigla by courtesy; only an old woman can possess it of right.

Thus the old Graeco-Roman fear of Striges still remains little changed. The Church has repeatedly forbidden belief in them ; legislation has prohibited in times past the killing of them. But the link of superstition between the past and the present is still unbroken; and witch-burning is an idea which in any secluded corner of Greece might still be put into effect.

§ 12.

The modern conception of the Gorgon ([Greek: hê gorgona]) or Gorgons ([Greek: gorgones])—for popular belief seems to vary locally between recognising one or more such beings—is extremely complex. Of my own knowledge I can unfortunately contribute nothing new to what has been published by others concerning them; for though I have several times heard Gorgons mentioned, and always on further enquiry found them to be terrible demons who dwell in the sea, it has so chanced that I have been unable to get any more explicit information on the subject. The present section is therefore, so far as the facts are concerned, a compilation from the researches of others, especially of Prof. Polites of Athens University.

A Gorgon is represented as half woman, half fish. Rough sketches on the walls of small taverns and elsewhere may often be observed, depicting a woman with the tail of a fish, half emerging from the waves, and holding in one hand a ship, in the other an anchor; sometimes also she is armed with a breastplate. Similar designs are also to be seen tattooed upon the arms or breasts of men of the lower classes, especially among the maritime population.in [Greek: Parnassos], p. 261 (1878).]