Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/97

 well-known superstition when he made the goat-herd say: 'Nay, shepherd, it may not be; in the noontide we may not pipe; 'tis Pan that we fear'; for in his rage if roused from his midday slumber he was believed to strike the intruder with 'panic' terror: and it was this superstition which influenced the translators of the Septuagint when they rendered the phrase, which in our Bible version of the Psalms appears as 'the destruction that wasteth at noonday,' by the words [Greek: symptôma kaì daimónion mesêmbrinón]. By the latter half of this phrase the memory of Pan was undoubtedly perpetuated; for in certain forms of prayer quoted by Leo Allatius in the seventeenth century, among the perils from which divine deliverance is sought is mentioned more than once this 'midday demon'; and a corresponding 'daemon meridianus ' found a place of equal dignity among the ghostly enemies of Roman Catholics.

Perhaps even yet in the pastoral uplands of Greece some traveller will hear news of Pan.

§ 5.

Of few ancient deities has popular memory been more tenacious than of Demeter; but in different districts the reminiscences take very different forms. There are many traces of her name and cult, and of the legends concerning both her and her daughter; but in one place they have been Christianised, in another they have remained pagan.

In so far as she has affected the traditions of the Church, a male deity, S. Demetrius, has in general superseded her. Under the title of [Greek: stereanós], 'belonging to the dry land,' he has in most districts taken over the patronage of agriculture; while his inherited interest in marriage receives testimony from the number of weddings celebrated, especially in the agricultural districts, on his day. But at Eleusis, the old home of Demeter's most sacred rites, the people, it seems, would not brook the substitution of a male saint for their goddess, and yielded to ecclesiastical influence only so far as to create for themselves a