Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/406

 [Greek: na mên ton phagê to chôma], 'May the ground not consume him': [Greek: hê gê na mê se chônepsê], 'May the earth not digest thee': [Greek: hê maurê gê na s' anaxerasê] , 'May the black earth spew thee up': [Greek: na meinês al[y(]ôtos], 'Mayest thou remain incorrupt': [Greek: na mê se lyôsê hê gê], 'May the earth not loose thee' (i.e. not let thy body decompose): [Greek: na se bgalê to chôma], 'May the ground reject thee': [Greek: koutouki na bgês], 'Mayest thou become (after death) like a log (in solidity)': [Greek: to chôma 'xeras' tone], 'May the ground spew him out'—this last phrase being made more terrible by being a parody, as it were, of the prayer uttered by the mourners at every Greek funeral [Greek: ho theos 'chôres' tone], 'May God forgive him.' Such are the popular forms of the curse; and akin to them are the ecclesiastical imprecations, with which the formula of excommunication used to end: [Greek: kai esê meta thanaton alytos aiôniôs, hôs hai petrai kai ta sidêra] , 'And after death thou shalt be bound (i.e. incorrupt) eternally, even as stone and iron'; or, in a shorter form, [Greek: kai meta ton thanaton alytos kai aparalytos] , 'And after death bound and indissoluble.' Here, it will be observed, the Church spoke only of incorruptibility, but several of the popular expressions contain explicit mention of resuscitation as well; and the very forms of the curse which I have quoted show how closely knit together, how almost identical, are these two notions in the mind of the peasants. That which the earth will not 'receive,' she necessarily 'rejects'; that which she does not 'consume' or 'digest,' she necessarily 'spews up.' The man whose body does not decompose is necessarily a revenant.

Now curses, it must be remembered, among a primitive people are considered as operative, and not merely expletive; each bullet of malediction deliberately aimed is expected to find its billet; each imprecation seriously uttered has a magical power of fulfilling itself. That this belief is firmly held by the Greek folk is sufficiently proved by certain quaint solemnities enacted beside the deathbed. It is a common custom for a dying man to put a handful of salt into a vessel of water, and when it is dissolved to, 123 (from Crete).], p. 199 (from Sinasos in Asia Minor).], pp. 113-114. But it prevails also in substantially the same form in many places besides Cythnos.]