Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/216

 vineyards. The fear which the Callicantzari feel of this purification is embodied in some rough lines which they are supposed to chant as they disappear at Twelfth-night:

[Greek: phygete, na phygoume, t' ephtas' ho tourlopapas me tên hag[i(]astoura tou kai me tê brechtoura tou, ki' hag[i(]ase ta rhemmata kai mas emagarise].

Quick, begone! we must begone, Here comes the pot-bellied priest, With his censer in his hand And his sprinkling-vessel too; He has purified the streams And he has polluted us.

In the actual tales however as told by the people the intervention of the priests is not a common episode. More often the story ends in a rescue effected by neighbours armed with firebrands, of which the Callicantzari go in mortal terror, or simply with the crowing of the black cock.

The second type of story deals with the adventures of a girl sent by her wicked stepmother to a mill during the dangerous Twelve Days, nominally to get some corn ground, but really in the hope that she will fall a prey to the Callicantzari. Having arrived at the mill the girl calls in vain to the miller to come and help unload her mule, and entering in search of him finds him bound to his chair or dead with fright and the Callicantzari standing about him. They at once seize the girl, and begin to quarrel which shall have her for his own. But the girl keeps her wits, and says that she will be the wife of the one who brings her the best bridal array. So they disperse in search of fine raiment and jewels. Meanwhile she sets to work to grind the corn, and each time a Callicantzaros returns with presents, she sends him on a fresh errand for something more. Finally the corn is all ground, and she quickly loads the mule with two sacks, one on either side, clothes herself in the gold and jewels which the Callicantzari have brought, mounts the mule and lies flat on the saddle covered over with a sack, and eluding the Callicantzari who pursue her, like the muleteer in the previous story, reaches home in safety. pp. 337-41 and p. 1305.]