Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/399

 The appearance and the habits of the re-animated corpse according to Slavonic superstition differ hardly at all from those described in the last chapter. Indeed the question is not so much whether the Greeks are indebted to the Slavs in respect of this belief, as what is the extent of their indebtedness. Is the whole superstition a foreign importation, or is it only partly alien and partly native?

The former alternative is rendered improbable in the first place by the fact that the Greeks have not adopted the word 'vampire.' If the whole idea of dead men remaining under certain conditions incorrupt and emerging from their graves to work havoc among living men had been first communicated to them by the Slavs, they must almost inevitably have borrowed the name by which the Slavs described those men. But since in fact they did not adopt the Slavonic name 'vampire,' it is probable that they already possessed in their own language some word adequate to express that idea, and therefore possessed also some native superstition concerning resuscitation of the dead which Slavonic influence merely modified.

Further, there is positive evidence that such a word or words existed; for there have been, and still are, dialects which employ a word of Greek formation in preference not merely to the word 'vampire,' which seems to be unknown in Greece proper, but even to the misapplied Slavonic word vrykolakas. Thus Leo Allatius was familiar with the word [Greek: tympaniaîos], 'drum-like,' but whether in his day it belonged especially to his native island Chios or was still in general usage, he does not record. At the present day it survives only, so far as I know, in Cythnos, where also [Greek: alytos], 'incorrupt,' is used as another synonym. From Cythera are reported three names, [Greek: anárracho], [Greek: lámpasma], and [Greek: lámpastro], evidently Greek in formation but to me, I must confess, unintelligible. In Cyprus (where, as we have seen, the word vrykolakas, p. 367, and see above p. 193.], p. 125. The two words are given in the neuter plural [Greek: tympaniaîa] and [Greek: alyta], as equivalents of the word vrykolakas which, in the form [Greek: bourdoúlakkas], is also employed.], vol. 12, no. 278, p. 335 and vol. 13, no. 308, p. 505, cited by Schmidt, op. cit. p. 160.]