Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/389

 not known to have been exerted and no act of violence had been traced to it.

For further attestation of the prevalence and the violence of this superstition it would be easy to quote many graphic accounts by other writers, such as Robert Sauger, another Jesuit of Santorini, or the traveller Tournefort. But it will suffice to call as witness Paul Lucas, whose observations concern a part of the Greek world remote enough from either Chios or Santorini, the island of Corfu. 'Some persons,' he says, 'who seem possessed of sound good sense speak of a curious thing which often happens in this place, as also in the island of Santorini. According to their account dead persons return and show themselves in open day, going even into the houses and inspiring great terror in those who see them. In consequence of this, whenever one of these apparitions is seen, the people go at once to the cemetery to exhume the corpse, which is then cut in pieces and finally is burnt by sentence of the Governors and Magistrates. This done, these quasi-dead return no more. Monsieur Angelo Edme, Warden and Governor of the island, assured me that he himself had pronounced a sentence of this kind in a case where upwards of fifty reasonable persons were found to testify to the occurrence .'

The superstition, which had so firm a grip upon the Greeks of two or three centuries ago, has by no means relaxed its hold at the present day, in spite of the efforts made by the higher authorities civil and ecclesiastical, native and foreign, to suppress those savage and gruesome ceremonies to which it leads. The horrible scenes of old time, when the suspected body was dragged from its grave and dismembered by a panic-stricken and desperate mob, when the heart, as sometimes happened, was torn out and boiled to shreds in vinegar, or when the ghastly remains were burnt on a public bonfire, have certainly become rarer. The administrative action of the Venetians in the Ionian Islands in requiring proof to be furnished of the vrykolakas' resuscitation, and official sanction to be obtained for exhuming and burning the body; the more vigorous suppression, as [Greek: Historia tês Tênou], pp. 105 ff.]