Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/494

 in early times referred to a common origin warrants the suggestion that such influence had been exercised. Now [Greek: alastos] always remained in meaning true to its derivation. Itself employed in the passive sense, 'unforgotten,' it seems to have made over the active meaning, 'unforgetting,' 'vindictive' (which, on the analogy of [Greek: apraktos] and a score of similar forms, it should naturally have possessed), to the apparently kindred word [Greek: alastôr]. This adventitious meaning accorded well with the popular conception of the most conspicuous class of 'wanderers' from the grave—those whose wanderings had a vindictive aim; and thus, by the help of the accidental resemblance of two words, it seems to have come to pass that the term Alastores ceased to be applicable to all kinds of revenants and denoted only the 'Avengers.' At this point it became in fact synonymous with Miastores, and, like that word, enlarged its scope so as to denote not only the prime Avenger, the revenant himself, but also any divine or human agents employed by him as subsidiary Avengers.

So much then for the first meaning which the lexicons attach to the words Alastor and Miastor; the second interpretation of them, in relation to a blood-guilty man, may be more briefly treated. Alastor in this passive sense is alleged to mean a man who suffers from the vengeance of one who is an Alastor in the active sense; and Miastor to mean a man who is himself polluted and therefore pollutes those with whom he associates.

As regards Alastor, this explanation stands already condemned by the fact that it pre-supposes the derivation from [Greek: lanthanomai], and even then it does fresh and incredible violence to language; a sane philologist may commit the error of deriving [Greek: alastôr] from [Greek: lanthanomai] and making it mean 'one who does not forget'; but only the maddest could dream of interpreting it as 'one who does deeds which others do not forget.' But, if in spite of this we trouble to turn up the references which the lexicons give under this heading, it is obvious at once that there is no more support for such a meaning in idiomatic usage than in etymological origin. Three references are cited. The first is to that passage of the Eumenides in which Orestes declares himself [Greek: alastora, ou prostropaion] , a phrase which means, as I have already shown, 'an