Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/331

 may proceed with full confidence to cheat his neighbour, but if the sound come from the left, he must be wary to baffle intrigues against himself. If the hawk pursue its prey on the right or across a man's path from left to right, he may take the pursuer as the type of himself and go about the work in hand with assurance of success; but if the omen be on the other side or in the other direction, some enemy is the hawk and he himself is the pigeon to be plucked.

The interpretation of auspices is also affected by number. A single or twice repeated cry of a bird may be of good omen, but, if the same note be heard three times, the meaning may be reversed. This applies in Cephallenia, as I was told, to the case already mentioned of a raven flying over a house; one or two croaks are a presage of security or plenty, but three are a warning of imminent death. In this detail a pronounced change of feeling towards the number three is responsible for what must, I think, be a contravention of the ancient rules in the case. According to Michael Psellus, an even number of cries from the crow were lucky and an odd number unlucky; but the crow, as we have seen, was perverse and abnormal; reversing therefore the rule in the case of other birds, we find that an odd number of croaks from a raven should be lucky. But the number three, which in old times was lucky, is now universally unlucky; the peasant often will apologize for having to mention the number; and Tuesday, being called [Greek: Tritê], the 'third day' of the week, is the unlucky day. But if in this case the significance of a particular number has changed, the principle of taking number into consideration is indubitably ancient.

Moreover there are some cases in which even the particular application of the old principle holds good. The first, almost the only, literary poet of modern Greece (as distinguished from the many composers of unwritten ballads), who found beauty in the popular beliefs and music in the vulgar tongue, makes his heroine thus divine her own death:

[Greek: Kai ta poulaki apou 'rthasin syntrophiasmen' homadê sêmad' ein' pôs oglêgora pandreuomai 'ston Haidê; logiazô ki' ho 'Rôtokritos apothane 'sta xena k' êrth' hê psychê tou na m' heurê na smixê met' emena].

"And the little birds that have come consorting close together are a sign that soon I am to be wed in Hades. I see that Erotocritus has died in a strange land, and his soul has come to seek me, to mingle with me.", p. 320.]