Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/271

 striking manifestation of power, in the eyes of their Achaean neighbours, was to turn themselves into wild beasts. The name Pheres was then in truth a title of respect, a title in no way derogatory to the virtuous Chiron, who, if he exercised his magical powers chiefly in mercy and healing, shared doubtless with the other Centaurs the miraculous faculty of metamorphosis.

Our first conclusion then concerning the Callicantzari, namely that they were originally men capable of turning into beasts, was no less correct than the second conclusion which showed them as the modern representatives of Dionysus' attendant Satyrs and Sileni. Where the beliefs in their human origin and in their power of metamorphosis still prevail, Greek tradition has preserved not only the name but the essential character of the ancient Centaurs.

Does it seem hardly credible that popular tradition should still faithfully record a superstition which dates from before Homer and yet is practically ignored by Greek literature? Still if the fidelity of the common-folk's memory is guaranteed in many details by its agreement with that which literature does record, it would be folly to disregard it where literature is silent or prefers another of the still prevalent traditions. Let us take only Apollodorus' account of the fight of Heracles with the Centaurs and mark the several points in which it confirms the present beliefs about the Callicantzari. The old home, he says, of the Centaurs before they came to Malea was Pelion; Pelion is now the place where above all others stories of the Callicantzari are rife; and in the neighbouring island of Sciathos it is believed that they come at Christmas not from the lower world, but from the mainland, the old country of the Magnetes; even local associations then seem to have survived, just as in the modern stories about Demeter from Eleusis and from Phigaleia. Heracles was entertained in the cave of the Centaur Pholos; the Callicantzari likewise live in caves during their sojourn on earth, and their hospitality, though never sought, has been endured. The Centaur Pholos ate raw meat, though he provided his guest with cooked meat; the Callicantzari also regale themselves on uncooked food, toads and, [Greek: Paradoseis], p. 339.]