Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/400

 may still bear its old sense 'were-wolf') the revenant is named [Greek: sarkômenos], because his swollen appearance suggests that he has 'put on flesh,' or more rarely [Greek: stoicheiômenos] , perhaps with the idea that he has become the 'genius' ([Greek: stoicheio]) of some particular locality. Again, from the village of Pyrgos in Tenos is reported the word [Greek: anaikathoumenos] meaning apparently one who 'sits up' in his grave. Finally, in Crete the name popularly employed is [Greek: katachanas] , the origin of which is not certain. Bernhard Schmidt , following Koraës , derives it from [Greek: kata] and [Greek: chanô] (= ancient Greek [Greek: chaoô]), 'lose,' 'destroy,' and would have it mean accordingly 'destroyer.' I would suggest that derivation from [Greek: kata] and the root [Greek: chan-], 'gape,' 'yawn,' is at least equally probable, inasmuch as other local names such as [Greek: tympaniaios], 'drumlike,' and [Greek: sarkômenos], 'fleshy,' have reference to the monster's personal appearance, and the 'gaper' in like manner would be a name eminently suitable to a creature among whose features are numbered by Leo Allatius 'a gaping mouth and gleaming teeth .' The same name was some forty years ago, and probably still is, used in Rhodes, and in a Rhodian poem of the fifteenth century occurs both in its literal sense and as a term of abuse[10]. This secondary usage however is in no way a proof that the word meant originally 'destroyer' rather than 'gaper'; for by the fifteenth century there can be little doubt that the revenant was everywhere an object of horror, and therefore his name, whatever it originally meant, furnished a convenient term of vituperation. But one thing at least is clear, that [Greek: katachanas], whichever(periodical), p. 539; [Greek: Politês, Paradoseis], p. 574.], ibid.]in [Greek: Ephêmeris tôn Philomathôn], 1861, p. 1828. Schmidt interprets the word as 'der Aufhockende,' one who sits upon and crushes his victims, a habit sometimes ascribed to vrykolakes, but more often to callicantzari. My own interpretation has the support of many popular stories, in which, when the exhumation of a vrykolakas takes place, he is found sitting up in his tomb. See e.g. [Greek: Politês, Paradoseis], p. 590.], p. 27 (Athens, 1842); [Greek: Grêg. Papadopetrakês, Historia tôn Sphakiôn], pp. 72-3.], p. 114.](The Black Death of Rhodes), ll. 267 and 579, published in Wagner's Medieval Greek Texts, p. 179 (from Schmidt, op. cit. p. 160, note 4).]