Leo Allatius, by whom this passage is cited, produces both from his own experience and from the testimony of others several instances of such occurrences, and mentions also the various precautions taken against them. These include all-night watches, lamps suspended before the pictures of patron-saints, amulets of garlic or of coral, and the smearing of oil from some saint’s lamp on the face of the child or invalid. It will suffice however to quote his general description of the Striges according to the beliefs of the seventeenth century. Striges (στρίγλαις), he tells us in effect, are old women whom poverty and misery drive to contract an alliance with the devil for all evil purposes; men are little molested by them, but women and still more commonly children, being a weaker and easier prey, suffer much from them, their breath alone[484] being so pernicious as to cause insanity or even death. They are especially addicted to attacking new-born babes, sucking out their blood and leaving them dead, or so polluting them by their touch that what life remains to them is never free from sickness.
It will have been noticed in this last account of the Striges, that the range of their activity is somewhat enlarged, so that women as well as children fall victims to them. At the present day, though they are believed to prey chiefly upon infants, even grown men are not immune, as witness a story[485] from Messenia.
Once upon a time a man was passing the night at the house of a friend whose household consisted of his wife and mother-in-law. About midnight some noise awakened him, and listening intently he made out the voices of the two women conversing together. What he heard terrified him, for they were planning to eat himself or his host, whichever proved the fatter. At once he perceived that his friend’s wife and mother-in-law were Striges, and knowing that there was no other means of escaping the danger that was threatening him, he determined to try to save himself by guile. The Striges advanced towards the sleeping men and took hold of their guest’s foot to see if it was heavy, and consequently fat and good for eating; he however, understanding their purpose, raised his foot of his own accord as they took it in their hands and weighed it, so that it felt to them as light as a feather, and they let it drop again disappointed. Then they took hold of the foot of the other man who was sleeping, and naturally found it very heavy. Delighted at the result of their investigation, they ripped open the wretched man’s breast, pulled out his liver and other parts, and threw them among the hot ashes on the hearth to cook. Then noticing that they had no wine, they flew to the wine-shop, took what they wanted and returned. But in the interval the guest got up, collected the flesh that was being cooked, stowed it away in his pouch, and put in its place on the hearth some animal’s dung. The Striges however ate up greedily what was on the hearth, complaining only that it was somewhat over-done. The next day the two friends rose and left the house; the victim of the previous night was very pale, but he did not bear the slightest wound or scar on his breast. He remarked to his companion that he felt excessively hungry, and the other gave him what had been cooked during the night, which he ate and found exceedingly invigorating; the blood mounted to his cheeks and he was perfectly sound again. Thereupon his friend told him what had happened during the night, and they went together and slew the Striges.
This story exhibits all the essential qualities of Striges. The pair of them are women, and one at least, the mother-in-law, is old; they choose the night for their depredations; they can assume the form of birds, for ‘they flew,’ it is said, to the wine-shop; and their taste for human flesh is the motif of the story.
It must however be acknowledged that as the area of the Striges’ activities has become somewhat extended, so also has the ancient limitation of the term to old women become locally somewhat relaxed. In many parts of Greece a belief is held that certain infants are liable to a form of lycanthropy; and female infants so disposed are sometimes called Striges. A story from Tenos[486], narrated in several versions, concerns an infant princess who was a Strigla. Every day one of the king’s horses was found to have been killed and devoured in the night. The three princes, her brothers, therefore kept watch in turn; and it fell to the fortune of the youngest of them, owing to his courage and skill, to detect the malefactor. About midnight he heard a noise, and fired into the middle of a cloud that seemed to hang over the horses, thereby so wounding his sister that the mark observed on her next day betrayed her nightly doings. Not daring however to accuse her to his father, he fled from home with his mother to a place of safety, while the girl remained undisturbed in her voracity and consumed one by one all the people of the town.
But in other places where the same belief prevails, as we shall see later, these enfants terribles, who may be of either sex, are called not Striges but by some such name as ‘callicantzaros,’ ‘vrykolakas,’ or ‘gorgon’; and this variety of names is in itself a proof that, while the idea of infant cannibals is widespread, no exact verbal equivalent now exists, and each of the several names used is only requisitioned to supply the deficiency. A child can indeed enjoy the title of Strigla by courtesy; only an old woman can possess it of right.
Thus the old Graeco-Roman fear of Striges still remains little changed. The Church has repeatedly forbidden belief in them[487]; legislation has prohibited in times past the killing of them[488]. But the link of superstition between the past and the present is still unbroken; and witch-burning is an idea which in any secluded corner of Greece might still be put into effect[489].
§ 12. Gorgons.
The modern conception of the Gorgon (ἡ γοργόνα) or Gorgons (γοργόνες)—for popular belief seems to vary locally between recognising one or more such beings—is extremely complex. Of my own knowledge I can unfortunately contribute nothing new to what has been published by others concerning them; for though I have several times heard Gorgons mentioned, and always on further enquiry found them to be terrible demons who dwell in the sea, it has so chanced that I have been unable to get any more explicit information on the subject. The present section is therefore, so far as the facts are concerned, a compilation from the researches of others, especially of Prof. Polites of Athens University.
A Gorgon is represented as half woman, half fish. Rough sketches on the walls of small taverns and elsewhere may often be observed, depicting a woman with the tail of a fish, half emerging from the waves, and holding in one hand a ship, in the other an anchor; sometimes also she is armed with a breastplate[490]. Similar designs are also to be seen tattooed upon the arms or breasts of men of the lower classes, especially among the maritime population.