Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/405

 nomenclature; and in presenting it I have incidentally stated my view that the genuinely Greek element in the modern superstition is a belief in the incorruptibility and re-appearance of dead persons under certain special conditions, and that the imported and now dominant element is the Slavonic belief that the resuscitation of the dead renders them necessarily predatory vampires. This I now have to prove.

It is a well-established characteristic of the Slavonic vampire that his violence is directed first and foremost against his nearest of kin. The same trait is so pronounced too in the modern Greek vrykolakas that it has given rise to the proverb, [Greek: ho brykolakas archizei apo ta geneia tou], 'the vrykolakas begins with his own beard'—a saying which carries a double meaning, so a peasant told me. It may be taken literally, inasmuch as the vrykolakas usually appears bald and beardless; but the words [Greek: ta geneia tou], 'his beard,' are popularly understood as a substitute, half jocose and half euphemistic, for [Greek: tê genea tou], 'his family.' In other words, this most deadly of pagan pests, like the most lively of Christian virtues, begins at home.

Such being the acknowledged and even proverbial habits of the vrykolakas, nothing, it might be supposed, could be more repugnant and fearful to the near relations of a dead man than the possibility that he would turn vrykolakas and return straightway to devour them. The first sufferers from such an eventuality would be the man's own kinsfolk, the next his acquaintances and fellow-villagers, but he himself would appear to be aggressor rather than sufferer. Nevertheless, in face of this consideration, there is no more commodious form of curse in popular usage than the ejaculation of a prayer that the person who has incurred one's displeasure may be withheld from corruption after death and return from his grave. I have heard it extended even to a recalcitrant mule; but it is also used gravely by parents as an imprecation of punishment hereafter upon undutiful children. A few samples of this curse will not be out of place, as showing at once its frequency and its range.

[Greek: Na mên ton dechtê hê gês], 'May the earth not receive him':