Morning journal and courier., 1882-07-08
SuperstitiOms of Modern Greece.

It is the custom in all Greek towns for the papp0s to visit the inhabitants on Epiphany day, in order to bestow the benediction upon their dwellings, with the new years water. This ceremony has also another purpose, ac cording to the belief of the peasants, that of driving away the Kal1kantzari. These genil do not sojourn among men during the whole year; they appear at Christmas, and depart on the 9th of January. But. on the other hand they make the best possible use of this short time, and do not let a minute slip with out plaping trick some one. They pre- fer the evening for their diversions. and at that proyitious time these funny beings swoop down upon house, most frequently upon mill, make their way into 1t by way of the chimney, and depart at cockcrow through the keyhole. Their favorite prank Is to steal the dinner while in process of cooking, but the owners of the house are on their guard, and when the old grandmother (sitting in the chimney corner) sees the smoke begin to thicken around the pot she lifts her crutch and bestows hearty blows at random upon the air to frighten the Kalikantzari. Some times the sprites, taking advantage of the darkness, indulge their taste for metamor- phoses, turn themselves into tiny beings, and tiutter about in the houses. The good man of the house will be sitting with crossed arms, taking his ease. when all of a sudden he re- ceives a slap he turns sharply round, but nothing; then comes a second slap upon the other cheek still he sees nothing. Then he quits his place and planes none but the Kalikantzari Their practical jokes are not however, always harmless and we sometimes find that attempts to disturb the peace of households attributed to these indefatiga
 ble little imps. They have the temperament fa well as the horns and hoofs of the goat-(like Faunus and the god Pan n)-and when they are not occupied in teasing cIedulous mortals they resort to the society of the Nereids con- template their charms, and join in their dan- ces. Undoubtedly the tales that are told of these unions are a survival of those of the Satyrs and Nymphs. They seek out women also and the latter aver that 1t is impossible, at least for any who are not crafty and CO.,
 quettish, to resist them. It would be too much to assert that the Kalikantzari tually guilty of all the crimes laid to their charge, and perpetrators of practical jokes do we'll not to trust implicitly to the fear in- spired by these superstitions, It is not un- common to find a skeptic who will return the slap dealt him in the dark, with interest and seek the object whom his vengeance ought to fall elsewhere than among the kalikantzari. True believers, however, do not fail to em- ploy beforehand the preventive measures which are sanctioned by the teachings of tradition. To provide against certain mal-
 practices on the part of the sprites 1t Is only necessary to keep,black cocks on one's prem ises, even, if there are none, to call out Sticks, sticks, burning brandsn' so that the cry may be heard by some living being
 tue Kalikantzar take flight at once. Very frequently these joyous sprites have not enough house-room, and they are found wan dering in the country, or along tbe high roads. For this reason they are called in
 Cyprus Planitari, vagabonds, when they appear under the strangest variety of shapes. They conceal themselves in the body of a dog or an ass, and especially of & horse !; sometimes they will even change themselves into stone, and so familiar to them if every kind of metamorphosis that NJ Loukas tells us the following fact in the work upon Cy- prus which we have already quoted "When the weary traveller seats himself upon stone 1 it changes into an ass, then the ass changes | into camel, and the camel into mountain,
 so that the unhappy traveller, suddenly hoist ed up to the skies falls fainting down to l earth again, to the great rejoicing of the Kalikantzari who have played him this trick