THE PANATHENÆA CONTINUED
The folk-lore and customs of modern Greece, as heirs of the past, have been carefully scrutinized. Any knowledge that can be culled from special treatises will everywhere increase the traveller’s sense of historic continuity and will enrich his pleasure in meeting the country folk. But by means of only a modicum of Greek poetry he may discover for himself in Athens certain ancient beliefs and practices. On the first of March, associated like the May Day of colder climates with the blossoming of spring, bands of boys go about the streets carrying the wooden image of a bird, singing a carol which announces the arrival of the swallow, and begging gifts. One of these songs from Thessaly begins:—
“She is here, she is here, the swallow!
Cometh another of honey’d song,
She percheth, twittereth all day long,
Sweet are her notes that follow.”
That the same custom, no newer than the recurrence of Nature’s happiest gifts, enchanted the boys of ancient Athens we may infer from our knowledge of it in “seagirt” Rhodes. There the carol began:—
“She is here, she is here, the swallow!
Fair seasons bringing, fair years to follow!