Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/88

 to me is confirmed by the fact that in the island of Cythnos the other word, [Greek: zôntobola], is recorded to bear also the meaning of 'insects .' The joke, if such it be, must date from a long time back and in its prime must have enjoyed a widespread popularity; for at Aráchova on the slopes of Parnassus, a place far distant from Scyros, the word [Greek: zoumpira] is employed in the sense of supernatural beings by persons who apparently are quite ignorant of its original meaning. To these difficult terms must be added a few euphemisms of a simple nature—[Greek: ta pizêla] (i.e. [Greek: epizêla]) 'the enviable ones' in one Village of Tenos, and in many places such general terms as [Greek: hoi kaloi] 'the noble,'—[Greek: hoi aderphoi mas] 'our brothers,'—[Greek: hoi kalorizikoi] 'the fortunate ones,'—[Greek: hoi charoumenoi] 'the joyful ones.' These evasions of a more direct nomenclature are very frequent, and, since the choice of epithet is practically at the discretion of the speaker, it would be impossible to compile a complete list of them.

How far each of these names may be applied in general to all the classes of pagan gods and demons and monsters whom I am about to describe is a question which I cannot determine. On the one hand many of the names, as we have seen, are purely local, confined to a few villages or districts or islands and unknown and unintelligible elsewhere: and on the other hand some of these supernatural beings themselves are equally local, and my information concerning them has been gathered from widely separated regions of the Greek world. Hence it follows that while the several terms which I have explained are comprehensive in local usage and include all the supernatural beings locally recognised, it is impossible to say whether the users of them would think fit to extend them to the deities of other districts. Probably they would do so; but only for the most widely current terms, [Greek: daimonia] and [Greek: exôtika], can I claim with assurance anything like universal application.

The surviving pagan deities fall naturally into two classes. There are the solitary and individual figures such as Demeter, and there is the gregarious and generic class to which belong for example the Nymphs. An exceptional case may occur in which, anno 1861, p. 1851, quoted by Schmidt, ''loc. cit.'']