Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/69

 explained that by the common-folk the saints are worshipped as deities—the Trinity and the Virgin occupy the highest places, rivalled perhaps here and there by some local saint of great repute for miracles, but nowhere surpassed. It is the Virgin indeed who, in Pashley's opinion, 'is throughout Greece the chief object of the Christian peasant's worship '; and certainly, I think, more numerous and more various petitions are addressed to her than to any person of the Trinity or to any saint. But the Trinity, or at any rate God ([Greek: ho Theos]) and Christ ([Greek: ho Christos]), as the peasants say,—for the Holy Ghost is hardly a personality to them and is rarely named except in doxologies and formal invocations—are of almost equal importance, and are so closely allied with the Virgin that it is difficult to draw distinctions.

But while the Church has thus secured the first place for her most venerated figures, the influence of pagan feeling is clearly seen in the popular conception of this 'God.' His position is just such as that of Zeus in the old régime. He is little more than the unnamed ruler among many other divinities. His sway is indeed supreme and he exercises a general control; but his functions are in a certain sense limited none the less, and his special province is the weather only. [Greek: Zeus hyei], said the ancients, and the moderns re-echo their thought in words of the same import, [Greek: brechei ho Theos], 'God is raining,' or [Greek: ho Theos rhichnei nero], 'God is throwing water .' So too the coming and going of the daylight is described as an act of God; [Greek: ephexe], or [Greek: ebrade[i(]ase, ho Theos], say the peasants, 'God has dawned' or 'has darkened.' When it hails, it is God who 'is plying his sieve,' [Greek: rhemmonizei] ho Theos]. When it thunders, 'God is shoeing his horse,' [Greek: kaligônei t' alogo tou], or, according to another version, 'the hoofs of God's horse are ringing,' [Greek: brontoun ta petala apo t' alogo tou Theou]. Or again the roll of the thunder sometimes suggests quite another idea; 'God is rolling his wine-casks,' [Greek: ho Theos kylaei t' askia tou] , or [Greek: ta pithar[i(]a tou]. And once again, because a Greek wedding, parallel with Strepsiades' joke (Ar. Nub. 373) [Greek: proteron ton Di' alêthôs ômên dia koskinou ourein].], I was told, is a coarse kind of sieve. The expression is from Boeotia.]