Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/278

 not infrequently some hole or crevice in a rough cottage-floor is regarded as the entrance to its home. About such holes peasants have been known to sprinkle bread-crumbs ; and I have been informed, though I cannot vouch as an eye-witness for the statement, that on the festival of that saint whose name the master of a house bears, he will sometimes combine services to both his Christian and his pagan tutelary deities, substituting wine for the water on which the oil of the sacred lamp before the saint's icon usually floats, and pouring a libation of milk—for the older deities disapprove of intoxicants—about the aperture which leads down to the subterranean home of the genius. If it so happen that there is a snake in the hole and the milky deluge compels it speedily to issue from its hiding-place, its appearance in the house is greeted with a silent delight or with a few words of welcome quietly spoken. For on no account must the 'guardian of the house,' [Greek: noikokyrês] or [Greek: topakas], as it is sometimes called, be frightened by any sound or sudden movement. Much less of course must any physical hurt or violence be done to it; the consequences of such action, even though it be due merely to inadvertence, are swift and terrible; the house itself falls, or the member of the family who was guilty of the outrage dies in the self-same way in which he slew the snake.

These beliefs and customs are probably all of ancient date. Theophrastus notes how the superstitious man, if he sees a snake in the house, sets up a shrine for it on the spot. The observation also of such snakes was a recognised department of 'domestic divination' ([Greek: oikoskopikê]) on which one Xenocrates—not the disciple of Plato—wrote a treatise. They were probably known as [Greek: oikouroi], 'guardians of the house' (a name which is identical in meaning with the modern [Greek: noikokyrês]), for it is thus at any rate that Hesychius designates the great snake which Herodotus tells us was 'guardian ([Greek: phylaka]) of the acropolis' at Athens, and, with initial [Greek: n] attached (first in the accusative) from the article ([Greek: ton]) preceding. This is the ordinary word for 'the master of a house.']. The word is used in Cythnos and Cyprus. Cf. [Greek: Ballêndas], [Greek: Kythniaka], p. 124. [Greek: Sakellarios], [Greek: Kypriaka], p. 286.]and [Greek: Xenokratês].].]