Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/47

 in the river bed is K'atra a Buflui (The Owl’s Stone), and a riven mass of stone on the hill side is known as K'atra Asparta (The Riven Stone). We soon pass a small shrine with a heap of horse-shoes by it, where the pious leave coins, and then crossing a bridge over the stream from the Greklu ridge, now a torrent in full flood, enter Samarina in a deluge of rain.

A crowd of those who had come up earlier (few families had stayed through the winter) came out to meet the new arrivals, to hear the latest news from below, and to escort relations to their various homes. The house belonging to our temporarily adopted family had stood the winter well, so we found a shelter waiting for us. Others were less fortunate, and one family had to dwell in a house that had only three walls left. That evening female relatives of the family with whom we were living, brought in as gifts to welcome their relations home several pite, a Vlach speciality of which more below. The next morning we made our way to the misohori or village square, where the market is held, and the village meets and talks.

Such was our journey with Vlach families from Thessaly up to their homes in Macedonia. In Samarina alone there are each summer over eight hundred families, which with few exceptions spend the winter elsewhere, and though all do not go so far afield as Tirnavos, still some go yet further, and most if not all twice every year in spring and autumn, set out with all their belongings on a journey of several days. This semi-nomadic life has its effect on the national character, and there are some Vlach customs which can be attributed directly to it. One minor result which is of practical use, is that it has taught the Vlachs, alone of Balkan races, that absolute independence in travelling is synonymous with absolute comfort.