Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/252

 formed substantives [Greek: mountzoura] and [Greek: mountzal[i(]a] (a stain or daub). The substantive [katsoupha] (sulkiness, sullenness) is probably to be identified with the ancient [Greek: katêpheia]. The two most frequently employed equivalents for 'mad' or 'crazy'—[Greek: trellos] and [Greek: zourlos]—are probably of kindred origin—an insertion of [Greek: z] in the former having produced first [Greek: tzerlos] and thence [Greek: (t)zourlos]. Finally there is some likelihood that the word [Greek: kantzaros], in a botanical sense in which it is now used, is to be identified with the ancient plant-name [Greek: kentaureion] or [Greek: kentaurion]. The former indeed now denotes a kind of juniper, while the later is of course our 'centaury'; but this difference in meaning is not, I think, fatal to the identification of the words. At the present day the common-folk are extraordinarily vague in their nomenclature of natural objects. In travelling about I made a practice of asking my guides and others the names of flowers and birds and suchlike; and my general experience might fairly be summed up by saying that the average peasant divides all birds which he does not eat into two classes; the larger ones are hawks, and the smaller are—'little birds, God knows what'; and an accompanying shrug of the shoulders indicates that the man does not care; while most flowers can be called either violets or gilly-flowers at pleasure. Even therefore when a peasant of superior intelligence knows that [Greek: kantzaros] is now the name of a kind of juniper, it does not follow that that name has always belonged to it, and has not been transferred to it from some plant formerly used, let us say, for a like purpose. In this case it is known that both juniper and some kind of centaury were formerly used for medicating wine , and the wine treated with either was prescribed as 'good for the stomach .' Hence a confusion of the two plants is intelligible enough among a peasantry not distinguished by a love of botanical accuracy. But I place no reliance upon this possible identification; the cases previously cited furnish sufficient analogies.

Further it may be noted that in the first two examples of this insertion of [Greek: z] or [Greek: s] a certain change in the consonants of the next syllable accompanies it. The [Greek: g] in [Greek: tettiges] becomes [Greek: k], the [Greek: nt] in [Greek: tentonô] is reduced to [Greek: t]. In the same way, it seems, when [Greek: z] was.]