Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/325

 *paired; and the omen is even worse if the priest happen to be riding a donkey, for even the name of that animal is not mentioned by some of the peasants without an apology. To meet a witch also is unfortunate, and since any old woman may be a witch, it is wise to make the sign of the cross before passing her. A cripple is also ominous of failure in an enterprise. On the other hand to meet an insane person is usually accounted a good omen, for insanity implies close communion with the powers above. To meet a woman with child is also fortunate, for it indicates that the journey undertaken will bear fruit; and the peasant by way of acknowledgement never fails to bow or to bare his head, and if he be exceptionally polite may Wish the woman a good confinement. Of animals those which most commonly forebode ill are the hare, the rat, the stoat, the weasel, and any kind of snake. In Aetolia superstition is so strong regarding these that the mere sight of one of them, or indeed of the trail of a snake across the path, is enough to deter many a peasant from his day's work and to send him back home to sit idly secure from morn till night; and even the more stout-hearted will cross themselves or spit three times before proceeding.

That some of these beliefs date from classical times is certain. Aristophanes, playing upon the use of [Greek: ornis], 'a bird,' in the sense of 'omen,' rallies the Athenians upon calling 'a meeting a bird, a sound a bird, a servant a bird, and an ass a bird '; and there can be little doubt that the ass belonged then as now to the category of objects ominous to encounter on the road; and the same author , corroborated in this case by Theophrastus' portrait of the superstitious man, speaks to the dread inspired by a weasel crossing a man's path. The snake too, it can hardly be doubted, was, owing perhaps to its association with tombs, an object of awe to the superstitious out of doors as well as within the house. On the other hand an insane person apparently was in Theophrastus' time not as now an omen of good but of evil, to be averted by spitting on the bosom. But though the modern interpretations of such omens may not be identical in every respect with the old, enough, 'a donkey, with your leave.' So also often in mentioning the number 'three,' and sometimes with 'five.']