Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/226

 considerations might be thought abundantly to prove that the Callicantzari were a species of demon.

But on the other hand there is equally abundant evidence of the belief that Callicantzari are men who are seized with a kind of bestial madness which often effects a beast-like alteration in their appearance. This madness is not chronic, but recurrent with each returning Christmas, and the victim of it displays for the time being all the savage and lustful passions of a wild animal. The mountaineers of South Euboea for example have acquired the reputation of being Callicantzari and are much feared by the dwellers on the coast.

A remarkable feature in this form of the superstition is the idea that the madness is congenital. Children born on Christmas-day, or according to some accounts on any day between Christmas and Epiphany, are deemed likely to become Callicantzari. This, it is naively said, is the due punishment for the sin of a mother who has presumed to conceive and to bring forth at seasons sacred to the Mother of God; whence also the children are called [Greek: heortopiasmata] or 'feast-stricken.' In Chios, in the seventeenth century, this superstition was so strong that extraordinary methods of barbarism were adopted to render such children harmless. They were taken, says Leo Allatius, to a fire which had been lighted in the market-place, and there the soles of their feet were exposed to the heat until the nails were singed and the danger of their attacks obviated. A modern and modified form of this treatment is to place the child in an oven and to light a fire outside to frighten it, and then to ask the question, 'Bread or meat?' If the child says 'bread,' all is well; but if he says 'meat,' he is believed to be possessed by a savage craving for human flesh, and the treatment is continued till he answers 'bread .'

These infant Callicantzari are particularly prone, it is said, to attack and kill their own brothers and sisters. Hence comes the by-name by which they are sometimes known, [Greek: aderphophades], 'brother-eaters,' as also, according to Polites' interpretation, the name [Greek: kaêdes], which is an equivalent for Callicantzari in several islands of the Aegean Sea. This word Polites holds to be the plural of the name Cain, and to denote 'brother-slayers'; but, [Greek: Paradoseis], p. 1286.]