Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/217

 The wicked stepmother seeing that her plans have miscarried and that her stepdaughter is now rich while her own daughter is poor, determines to send the latter the next evening to the mill. She too finds the mill occupied by the Callicantzari, but not being so shrewd as her half-sister either falls a victim to the lust of the monsters, or is killed and eaten by them, or, in one version, is stripped of her own clothes, dressed in the skin of her mule which the Callicantzari have killed and flayed, and sent home with a necklace of the mule's entrails about her neck.

The third type of story, one which is known all over Greece, introduces us to the domestic circle of a Callicantzaros. A midwife is roused one night during the Twelve Days by a furious rapping at her door, and, imagining that the call is urgent, slips on her clothes in haste without enquiring who it is that needs her services, and stepping out of her door finds herself face to face either with an unmistakeable Callicantzaros who seizes her and carries her off, or else with a man unknown to her who subsequently proves to be a Callicantzaros. On their way to his home he bids her see to it that the child with which his wife is about to present him be male; in that case he will reward her handsomely; but if a female child be born, he will devour the midwife. Arrived at the cave or house where the Callicantzaros dwells, the midwife goes about her task, and the Callicantzaros' wife is soon delivered of a child; but to the midwife's horror it is female. Her wits however do not desert her, and she quickly devises a scheme for her escape. Taking a candle, she warms it and fashions from the wax a model of the male organs and fastens it to the child. Then calling the Callicantzaros, she tells him that a fine male child is born and holds up the infant for him to see. Thereat he is content and bids her swaddle it. This done, she craves leave to go home, and the Callicantzaros, true to his word, rewards her with a sack of gold and lets her go.

The conclusion of the story varies. In some versions, the fraud is discovered before the midwife reaches her home, the Callicantzaros curses the gold which he has given her, and when she opens her sack she finds nothing but ashes. In others, she reaches home in safety with the gold and by magic means breaks p. 372.] p. 229.]