Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/257

 the Satyrs—their boisterous merriment and rioting, their love of wine, their violence, and their lewdness—these traits cannot of course be referred to the Satyrs any more than to the hippocentaurs or for that matter to the onocentaurs who were probably no more sober or chaste than their kindred. Rather it was the common possession of these qualities by the several types of half-human and half-bestial monsters that allowed them to be grouped together under the single name of Callicantzari.

Thus the conclusion drawn from an historical survey of those ancient festivals which are now represented by the Twelve Days, namely that the Callicantzari are the modern representatives of Dionysus' monstrous comrades, is both corroborated and amplified by the etymological identification of the Callicantzari (or in the simple and unadorned form, the [Greek: skatzaria]) with the Centaurs, of whom the Satyrs and the Sileni are species.

The remaining modern name on which I have to touch readily explains itself in the light of what has already been said. If the word [Greek: kantzaros] is the modern form of [Greek: kentauros], and if by the name 'Centaur' was denoted a being half-human and half-animal both in shape and in character, then the name [Greek: lykokanzaros] clearly should mean a creature half-man half-wolf, such as the ancients might have called a lycocentaur, but did actually name [Greek: lykanthrôpos]. Lycocantzaros then etymologically should mean the werewolf—a man transformed either by his own power or by some external influence into a wolf.

The idea of lycanthropy has probably been familiar to the peasants of Greece continuously from the earliest ages down to the present day, either surviving traditionally like so many other beliefs, or possibly stimulated by actual experiences; for lycanthropy is not a mere figment of the imagination, but is a very real and terrible form of madness, under the influence of which the sufferer believes himself transformed (and by dress or lack of it tries to transfigure himself) into a wolf or other wild animal, and in that state develops and satisfies a craving for human flesh. Outbreaks of it were terribly frequent in the east of Europe during the Middle Ages, especially among the Slavonic populations; and it is not likely that Greece wholly escaped this scourge. But whether the idea received some such impetus or no, it was certainly known to the ancient Greeks, and is not wholly forgotten