Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/268

 of illustration a passage of the Eclogues, in which Vergil 'tells of Moeris as turning into a wolf by the use of poisonous herbs, as calling up souls from the tombs, and as bewitching away crops,' he points out that in the popular opinion of Vergil's age 'the arts of the werewolf, the necromancer or "medium," and the witch, were different branches of one craft.'

If then the Centaurs were a tribe of reputed sorcerers and also obtained the secondary name of 'Beasts,' the analogy of world-*wide superstitions suggests that the link between these two facts is to be found in their magical power of assuming the shape of beasts.

What particular beast-shape the Centaurs most often affected need not much concern us. The analogy, on which my interpretation of the name Pheres rests, makes certainly for some shape more terrifying than that of a horse; and the word [Greek: phêres] itself also denotes wild and savage beasts rather than domestic animals. But the horse-centaur, though it monopolised art, was not the only form of centaur known, nor, if we may judge from modern descriptions of the Callicantzari, had it so firm a hold on the popular imagination as some other types. Possibly its very existence is due only to the aesthetic taste of a horse-loving people. Pindar certainly knew of one Centaurus earlier in date and far more monstrous than the horse-centaurs which artists chose to depict, and provided a genealogy accordingly. Moreover in the passage of Hesiod which I have quoted above and which, by its agreement with the Iliad as to the human character of the Centaurs, is proved to embody an early tradition, there is at least a suggestion of a more savage form assumed by the Centaurs. Several of their names in that passage seem to indicate various qualities and habits which they possessed. One is called Petraeos, because the Centaurs lived in rocky caves or because they hurled rocks at their foes; another is Oureios, because they were a mountain-tribe; then there are the two sons of Peukeus, so named because the Centaurs' weapons were pine-branches. And why isand [Greek: Elatos] (suggesting [Greek: elatê], the fir-tree from which their weapons were made) in Apollodor. 5. 4. The name [Greek: Asbolos] in Hesiod, meaning 'soot,' I cannot interpret; for it is hard to suppose that the ancient Centaurs, like the Callicantzari, came down the chimney. But the word is possibly corrupt; for Ovid (Met. 307) refers to an augur Astylus among the Centaurs.]