Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/397

 first syllable; while Serbian is among the two or three Slavonic languages which have discarded that liquid. It follows therefore that the Greeks borrowed the word from some Slavonic language other than Serbian, and consequently from some language which used and still uses that word in the sense of 'were-wolf.'

Further, there is evidence that in the Greek language itself the word vrykolakas does even now locally and occasionally bear its original significance. This usage indeed is flatly denied by Bernhard Schmidt, who, having accurately distinguished the were-wolf and the vampire, states that 'the modern Greek vrykolakas answers only to the latter .' This pronouncement however was made in the face of two strong pieces of independent evidence to the contrary, which Schmidt notices and dismisses in a footnote. The first witness is Hanush, who was plainly told by a Greek of Mytilene that there were two kinds of vrykolakes, the one kind being men already dead, and the other still living men who were subject to a kind of somnambulism and were seen abroad particularly on moonlight nights. The other authority is Cyprien Robert, who describes the vrykolakes of Thessaly and Epirus thus: 'These are living men mastered by a kind of somnambulism, who seized by a thirst for blood go forth at night from their shepherd's-huts, and scour the country biting and tearing all that they meet both man and beast.'

To these two pieces of testimony—strong enough, it might be thought, in their mutual agreement to merit more than passing notice and arbitrary rejection—I can add confirmation of more recent date. In Cyprus, during excavations carried out in the spring of 1899 under the auspices of the British Museum, the directors of the enterprise heard from their workmen several stories dealing with the detection of a vrykolakas. The outline of these stories (to which Tenos furnishes many parallels, though in these latter I have not found the word vrykolakas employed) is as follows. The inhabitants of a particular village, having suffered from various nocturnal depredations, determine to keep watch at night for the marauder. Having duly armed themselves they maintain a strict vigil, and are rewarded by seeing a vrykolakas.