Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/402

 vrykolakas meant a 'were-wolf,' and a 'vampire' was denoted by [Greek: tympaniaios] or some other Greek word, nowadays vrykolakas almost always means a 'vampire' and [Greek: tympaniaios] is well-nigh obsolete.

The Slavs brought with them into Greece two superstitions, the one concerning were-wolves and the other concerning vampires. The old Hellenic belief in lycanthropy was apparently at that time weak—confined perhaps to a few districts only—for the Greeks borrowed from the invaders their word vrykolakas in the place of the old [Greek: lykanthrôpos], by which to express the idea of a 'were-wolf.' They also learnt the Slavonic superstition concerning vampires, but in this case did not borrow the word 'vampire' but expressed the notion adequately by means of one of those words which now survive only in insular dialects—adequately, I say, but not exactly. For—and here I must anticipate what will be proved later—the Greeks denoted by those words a revenant but not a vampire. They believed in the incorruptibility and the re-animation of certain classes of dead men, but they did not impute to these revenants the savagery which is implied by the name 'vampire.' The dead who returned from their graves acted, it was held, as reasonable men, not as ferocious brutes. This did not of course exclude the idea that a revenant might return to seek revenge where vengeance was due; he was not necessarily peaceable; but if he exacted even the life of one who had wronged him, the act of vengeance was reasonable. To the proof of this, as I have said, I shall come later on; here I will only point out that the names which survive in the island-dialects are perfectly consistent with my view. Of the words [Greek: tympaniaios], 'drumlike,' [Greek: sarkômenos], 'fleshy,' [Greek: stoicheiômenos], 'genius,' [Greek: anaikathoumenos], 'sitting up' in the grave, and, if my interpretation is right, [Greek: katachanas], 'gaper,' not one suggests any inherent ferocity in the resuscitated dead.

Nevertheless, when the Greeks first heard of the Slavonic 'vampire,' they naturally regarded it merely as a new and particularly vicious species of the genus revenant. Their own wordswas superseded by a new Greek compound [Greek: lykokantzaros]; but this new term was probably always confined, as it now is, to the vocabulary of a few districts only, while the Slavonic word vrykolakas enjoyed a wider vogue.]