Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/234

 a Greek writer, Oeconomos, whose theory, that 'callicantzaros' is a corruption of the Latin 'caligatus' or perhaps of 'calcatura,' suggests a vision of a monster in hob-nailed boots which does more credit to its author's imagination than to his knowledge of philology.

A suggestion which deserves at any rate more serious consideration is that of Bernhard Schmidt who holds that the word is of Turkish origin and passed first into Albanian and thence into Greek—reversing, that is, the steps indicated in the above table. But to this there are several objections, each weighty in itself, and cumulatively overwhelming.

First, if the Turkish word karakondjolos be the source from which the multitude of Greek forms, including in that case [Greek: lykokantzaros] are derived, it ought to be shown how the Turkish word itself came to mean anything like 'were-wolf .' It is compounded, says Schmidt, of kara, 'black,' and kondjolos which is connected with koundjul, a word which means a 'slave of the lowest kind .' But before that derivation can be accepted, it should be shown what link in thought may exist between a slave even of the lowest and blackest variety and a were-wolf, and also how the supposed Turkish compound came to have the Greek termination [Greek: -os].

Secondly, the theory that the Greeks borrowed the word, and presumably also the notion which it expressed, from the Turks contravenes historical probability. For when did the supposed borrowing take place? Evidently not before the Ottoman influence had made itself thoroughly felt in Eastern Europe not only in war but in peace; for only those peoples who are living side by side in friendly, or at the least pacific, relations, are in a way to exchange views on the subject of were-wolves or any other superstitions; and in the case of the Greeks and the Turks such intercourse would certainly have been retarded by religious as well as racial animosity. Presumably then, even if the transference of the word from the Turkish to the Greek language had been direct and not, as Schmidt somewhat unnecessarily supposes,