Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/92

 *gether and tried to reach to heaven with them (for what purpose, does not appear in the story; but folk-tales are often somewhat inconsequent, and this vague incident is probably an imperfect reminiscence of the legend of Prometheus); but the lightning burnt him to ashes. Then his remaining companions made a last assault, but the lightning again slew many of them, and the rest were condemned to live all their life long shut in beneath a mountain.

This story is one of those which in themselves might be suspected of scholastic origin or influence; but it so happens that practically the same story has been recorded from Chios also, with the slight addition that there the leader of the giants' assault has usurped the name of Samson. Such corroboration from the other end of the Greek world goes far to establish the genuine nature of the tradition.

Thus though Zeus has been generally superseded by the Christian God, his character and mythic attributes have left a strong and indelible mark upon the religion of to-day. The present conception of God is practically identical with the ancient conception of the deity who was indeed one among many gods and yet in thought and often also in speech the god par excellence. Christianity has effected little here beyond the suppression of the personal name Zeus.

All this, no doubt, illustrates the fusion of paganism with Christianity rather than the independent co-existence of deities of the separate systems. But there are two small facts in virtue of which I have given to Zeus a place among the pagan deities whose distinct personality is not yet wholly sunk in oblivion. The men of Aráchova, as we have noticed above, still swear by the 'god of Crete,' who can be no other than Zeus; and in Crete itself there was recently, and may still be, in use the invocation [Greek: êkoute mou Zône thee], 'Hearken to me, O god Zeus .' Such expressions, though their original force is no longer known by those who use them, are none the less indications that perhaps not many generations ago Zeus was still locally recognised and reverenced as a deity distinct from the Christian God, to whom indeed everywhere he can only gradually have ceded his position and his attributes.