Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/306

 attached to a man is in a story in Hahn's collection, which tells of an old wizard whose life was bound up with that of a ten-headed snake which lived beneath a threshing-floor. Here the monstrous nature of the genius is doubtless intended to match the character of the wizard; ordinary men, unversed in magic, may have genii of a less complex pattern. Thus the snake which so commonly acts as genius to a house is also in many cases regarded as the genius of the head or some other member of the household. When therefore the death-struggle of any person is prolonged, this is sometimes set down to the unwillingness of the genius to permit his death; and in extreme cases of protracted agony recourse has before now been had to a priest, who, entering the sick man's room alone, reads a special prayer for the sufferer's release, and by virtue of this solemn office causes the house-snakes, who are pagan genii, to burst. With their disruption of course the soul of the dying man is at once set free.

But the guardian spirits of whom the peasants most commonly speak belong to the personnel of Christian theology or demonology, and are therefore not actually numbered among genii. These are angels, two of whom are allotted to each man, the one good ([Greek: ho kalós angelos]) and the other bad ([Greek: ho kakos angelos]). But though the designation genius is not applied to them, in functions angels and genii do not differ. To them belongs the control of a man's life, the one guiding him in the way of righteousness, and the other diverting him to the pitfalls of vice. Their presence is ever constant, but seldom visible. Sometimes indeed, in stories at any rate, we hear of the good angel appearing to a man and rewarding him in his old age for a virtuous life ; and in general men born on Saturday, [Greek: sabbatogennêménoi], are reputed to be [Greek: alaphrostoiche[i(]ôtoi] and endowed with special powers of seeing and dealing with the supernatural. But most commonly the power to see the guardian angel is granted only to the dying, and the vision is a warning that the end is near. So, when the gaze of a dying man becomes abstracted and fixed, they say in some places [Greek: blépei tòn angeló tou], or in one word [Greek: angelothôrei], 'he sees his angel,' or again, p. 77.]