194 THE GRAND DUKE TALKS WITH THE SFAKIANS. [CHAP. conversation particularly to my informant and his fellow Sfakians. The Russian government paid all their travelling expenses, and even supplied them with money. So did most of the governments in the other countries through which they passed. THE VAMPIRE COSTUME OF THE CRETAN WOMEN SOMEWHAT CHANGED SINCE ETYMOLOGIES OF THE WORDS VURVULAKAS AND 196 THE CRETAN WOMEN. [CHAP. KATAKHANAS. A BELIEF IN VAMPIRES ENTERTAINED BY THE JEWS AND ARABS; AND ALSO FOUND IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE. SIMILAR NOTIONS OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. THE NEREidhes, OR "BEAUTIFUL LADIES," OF MODERN GREECE, RESEMBLE BOTH THE NEREIDS OF ANCIENT GREECE, AND THE FAIRIES OF OLD ENGLAND. OTHER LEGENDS. A MID-DAY DEMON OF THE MOUNTAINS. THE POWER OF WITCHCRAFT SUPPOSED TO BE POSSESSED BY THE CLERGY. DIFFERENT POSITION OF THE CLERGY IN GREECE AND ENGLAND WITH RESPECT TO WITCHCRAFT. ADDITIONAL NOTES ON VAMPIRISM, AND ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH CUSTOM OF DRIVING A STAKE THROUGH THE BODIES OF SUICIDES. SPECIMENS OF THE SFAKIAN DIALECT. The THE Costume of the women in Crete has undergone some little alteration since the time of Tournefort. trowsers which they now wear in every part of the island, were nowhere seen by him. "Les dames de l'Archipel portent des caleçons: les Candiotes n'ont que la chemise sous leur jupe." The French naturalist seems to have admired the rarities of the inanimate more than those of the animate creation, in Crete. He says, "A l'égard des dames nous en avons veû d'assez jolies à Girapetra: ailleurs elles sont laides." He thus describes their dress: "Cet habit est très simple: C'est une jupe de drap rouge tirant sur le grisdelin, fort plissée, suspendue sur les épaules par deux gros cordons, et qui leur laisse le sein tout découvert." When at Askýfo I had asked about the Vampires, or Katakhanádhes as the Cretans call them, of whom I had heard from Maniás and others of his fellowcountrymen, and whose existence and ill-deeds form a general article of popular belief throughout the island. Of course this belief is very strong in the mountains. If any one ventures to doubt it, undeniable facts are brought forward to silence the incredulous. At Anópolis I am on ground which has long been haunted by them, and is celebrated in numerous stories, some of which are amusing enough, in which their exploits are recorded. XXXVI.] A CRETAN VAMPIRE-STORY. 197 I subjoin' one of these stories in the very words in which it was communicated to me. The account is peculiarly worthy of credit, since I heard it in many places, and all the relations given to me agreed in every material point. The following is a translation, and, even without comparing it with the original, the reader will see, from its very style, that it is a close, though somewhat condensed, version of the words of the Sfakian peasants. "Once on a time the village of Kalikráti, in the district of Sfakiá, was haunted by a Katakhanás, and people did not know what man he was or from what part. This Katakhanás destroyed both children and many full-grown men ; and desolated both that village and many others. They had buried him at the church of Saint George at Kalikráti, and in those times he was a man of note, and they had built an arch over his grave. Now a certain shepherd, his mutual Sýnteknos2, 1 See the original Sfakian Greek in Note A, at the end of the Chapter. 2 I believe I first heard this word in Crete: it is always used to denote the relation of a person to his god-child's father. The one is the spiritual, the other the natural father of the same child: hence they are well called Σúvτεκνοι. Here as in many other instances the simple word (Téкvov) has gone out of use, although the compound is still retained. See Vol. 1. p. 63. Sýnteknos is more common, among the Cretans, than compare (коνμжáρns), the word generally used elsewhere to express this relation. On compater and commater see DU CANGE, Glossarium med. et inf. Lat. under Commater, Commaternitas, Compater, Compaternitas, and Compateratus. The mother of a man's god-child is also his σύντεκνος οι κουμπάρισσα (the diminutive of which latter word is κουμπαρισσάκι). Our Cretan word ΣΥΝΤΕΚΝΟΣ occurs, in its present sense, in a sepulchral inscription which was dug up near the Savoy in London, three or four years ago, and seems to have belonged to the collection formed by the Earl of Arundel, in the early part of the seventeenth century. See the TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, Vol. II. Part II. Appendix 1. pp. 463-4. The expression, mutual Sýnteknos, is used, as my Sfakian companion explained it, for persons αποῦ εἶχε παιδὶ ὁ γῆς τοῦ ἄῤῥου βαπτισμένον, where ἀποῦ stands for ὁ ὁποῖος, ὁ γῆς for ὁ ἕνας, and ἄῤῥου for ἄλλου. On this gossipred, see Vol. 1. pp. 10-11. where I promised to recur to the subject. The relation is considered, in the Greek Church, as complete a bar to marriage as the closest consanguinity. A man could never wed a widow, if he had been sponsor for any of her children at the baptismal font; and a Greek would almost as soon think of marrying the daughter of his own father as the daughter of his god father. 198 A CRETAN VAMPIRE-STORY. [CHAP. was tending his sheep and goats near the church, and, on being caught by a shower, he went to the sepulchre, that he might be shaded from the rain. Afterwards he determined to sleep, and to pass the night there, and, after taking off his arms3, he placed them by the stone which served him as his pillow, crosswise. And people might say, that it is on this account that the Katakhanás was not permitted to leave his tomb. During the night, then, as he wished to go out again, that he might destroy men, he said to the shepherd: "Gossip, get up hence, for I have some business that requires me to come out." The shepherd answered him not, either the first time, or the second, or the third; for thus he knew that the man had become a Katakhanás, and that it was he who had done all those evil deeds. On this account he said to him, on the fourth time of his speaking, “I shall not get up hence, gossip, for I fear that you are no better than you should be, and may do me some mischief: but, if I must get up, swear to me by your winding-sheet, that you will not hurt me, and on this I will get up." And he did not pronounce the proposed words, but said other things: nevertheless, when the shepherd did not suffer him to get up, he swore to him as he wished. On this he got up, and, taking his arms, removed them away from the monument, and the Katakhanás came father. HARTLEY, Researches in Greece, p. 79. "A young man of Ithaca informed me, that it was difficult to obtain a wife in his native island; for the principal families had become connected with each other, to such an extent, by marriages and baptisms, that it was almost necessary to resort to Cephalonia or elsewhere, in order to effect a marriage.” 3 Arms were part of every Sfakian's dress, and were never laid aside by him except for the hours during which he slept. 4 The readers must not suppose that the Vampire feared the mortal weapons: no, they were placed crosswise, and, therefore, the form of the cross, and not the cold steel, repelled him. Some people say that the cross made by the handle of the sword produced this effect others believe it was owing to one of the pistols having been laid across the other. 5 That is, by the Vampire's words, which betrayed his inability to come forth so long as his pious friend and his crossed arms were lying upon him. 6 That is, he did not pronounce the words of the only oath which binds a Katakhanás: μà тò ávaßóri μoù. "By my winding-sheet." |