Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/228

 follows. Children born in the octave of Christmas are seized with a kind of madness; they rage to and fro with incredible swiftness; and their nails grow sharp like talons. To any wayfarer whom they meet they put the question 'Tow or lead?' If he answer 'tow,' he escapes unhurt; if he answer 'lead,' they crush him with all their power and leave him half-dead, lacerated by their talons.

Thus far the testimony of Leo Allatius distinctly favours the belief that Callicantzari are human and not demoniacal in origin; but at the same time it must be admitted that his statement was probably founded upon the particular traditions of his native island only and carries therefore less weight. The barbarous custom however which he next proceeds to describe is of some importance. He states that children born during the dangerous period between Christmas and New Year had the soles of their feet scorched until the nails were singed and so they could not become Callicantzari. Now there is a small but obvious inconsistency in this statement. Persons who scratch one another use, presumably, not their toe-nails but their finger-nails; and animals likewise employ the fore feet and not the hind feet. To scorch the feet therefore, and particularly the soles of the feet, is not a logical method of preventing the growth of talons. But on the other hand the treatment adopted might well be supposed to prevent the development of hoofs, such as in many parts of Greece the Callicantzari are still believed to have. In other words, the custom which Leo Allatius describes was not properly understood in his time. But a custom which has ceased to be properly understood and has had an inaccurate interpretation set upon it is necessarily of considerable age. Already therefore in the first half of the seventeenth century the custom which Allatius describes was of some antiquity; and the belief that children turn into Callicantzari, which is implied alike by the original meaning and by the later interpretation of the custom, was equally ancient. In Chios then at any rate the human origin of Callicantzari is a very old article of faith.

But more important for our consideration is the answer to be made to the following question; is it more probable, that Callicantzari, if they were originally demons, should have come in the belief of many people to be men, or that, being originally men, they should