Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/388

 on the ground or rolled along, sound like drums; for this reason they have the name [Greek: ntoupi] (drum) The common opinion of the Greeks is that this inflation is a sure sign that the man had suffered excommunication; and indeed Greek priests and bishops add always to the formula of excommunication the curse, [Greek: kai meta ton thanaton alytos kai aparalytos], 'and after death to remain indissoluble .'

In a manuscript from the Church of St Sophia at Thessalonica, he continues, I found the following:

[Greek: Hopoios echei entolên ê kataran, kratousi monon ta emprosthen tou sômatos tou.]

[Greek: Ekeinos hopou echei anathema, phainetai kitrinos kai zarômena ta daktylia tou.]

[Greek: Ekeinos hopou phainetai aspros] (sic), [Greek: einai aphôrismenos para tôn theiôn nomôn.]

[Greek: Ekeinos hopou phainetai mauros, einai aphôrismenos hypo archiereôs.]

'He who has left a command of his parents unfulfilled or is under their curse has only the front portions of his body preserved.

'He who is under an anathema looks yellow and his fingers are wrinkled.

'He who looks white has been excommunicated by divine laws.

'He who looks black has been excommunicated by a bishop.'

From this account it is manifest that Father Richard, with the experience acquired by residence in Santorini, drew a distinction not known to Leo Allatius between two classes of dead persons. Those, who though not subject to the natural law of decomposition lay quiescent in their graves, were merely [Greek: tympaniaioi] or 'drum-like'; while vrykolakes proper were addicted also to periodical resurrection. And the extract with which he concludes his description shows that the authorities of the rival Church pretended to powers of even more subtle discrimination between different species of incorrupt corpses. The importance of Father Richard's distinction will appear later; there was originally a difference in the usage of the two words, although not precisely the difference which he makes; but by the middle of the seventeenth century popular speech rarely discriminated between them. To the common-folk, whose views Leo Allatius fairly presents, any body which was withheld from decomposition for any cause was at least a potential vrykolakas, even if its power of resurrection was(= [Greek: tympanon], cf. Du Cange, Med. et infim. Graec., s.v. [Greek: tympanitês]), with metathesis of the nasal. Cf. the word [Greek: tympaniaios] above.].]