The more closely these two identifications are examined, the more certain they will appear. Take for example Müller’s general description[612] of the celebration of Dionysus’ festivals. ‘The swarm of subordinate beings—Satyrs, Panes, and Nymphs—by whom Bacchus was surrounded, and through whom life seemed to pass from the god of outward nature into vegetation and the animal world, and branch off into a variety of beautiful or grotesque forms, were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks; it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary course of ideas, to imagine that dances of fair nymphs and bold satyrs, among the solitary woods and rocks, were visible to human eyes, or even in fancy to take a part in them. The intense desire felt by every worshipper of Bacchus to fight, to conquer, to suffer, in common with him, made them regard these subordinate beings as a convenient step by which they could approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The custom, so prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in this feeling, and not in the mere desire of concealing excesses under the disguise of a mask; otherwise, so serious and pathetic a spectacle as tragedy could never have originated in the choruses of these satyrs. The desire of escaping from self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, breaks forth in a thousand instances in these festivals of Bacchus. It is seen in the colouring the body with plaster, soot, vermilion, and different sorts of green and red juices of plants, wearing goats’ and deer skins round the loins, covering the face with large leaves of different plants; and lastly in the wearing masks of wood, bark, and other materials, and of a complete costume belonging to the character.’ To complete this description it may be added that ‘drunkenness, and the boisterous music of flutes, cymbals and drums, were likewise common to all Dionysiac festivals[613].’ Which of all these things is missing in the mediaeval or modern counterpart of the festival? The blackening of the face or the wearing of the masks, the feminine costume or beast-like disguise, the boisterous music of bells, the rioting and drunkenness—all are reproduced in the celebration of Kalandae and Brumalia or in the mumming of the Twelve Days. The mummers are the worshippers of a god, whose name however and existence they and their forefathers have long forgotten.
And again are not the Callicantzari faithful reproductions of the Satyrs and Sileni who ever attended Dionysus? Their semi-bestial form with legs of goat or ass affixed to a human trunk, their grotesque faces and goat-like ears and horns, their boisterous and mischievous merriment, their love of wine, their passion for dancing, above all in company with Nereids, the indecency of their actions and sometimes of their appearance, their wantonness and lust—all these widely acknowledged attributes of the Callicantzari proclaim them lineal descendants of Dionysus’ motley comrades.
Such is my interpretation of the facts collected by Polites, and it differs from that which he has advanced in the reversal of cause and effect. Starting from the fact that dressing up in various disguises was the chief characteristic of the Kalandae and Brumalia and is perpetuated in the mumming of the Twelve Days, but failing to carry his researches far enough back and so to discover the absolute identity of these festivals with the ancient Dionysia, he holds that the generally prevalent custom of dressing up in monstrous and horrible disguises at a given period of the year—a custom which he leaves unexplained—was the cause of the belief in the activity of monstrous and horrible demons at that period; those who had once been simply human mummers were exalted to the ranks of the supernatural, but still betrayed their origin by the possession of a name which meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or else ‘hoofed and not booted.’ In my view on the contrary the identity of the modern mumming with the ancient Dionysia is indisputable; and just as in ancient times the belief in the Satyrs and Sileni was the cause of the adoption of satyr-like disguises in the Dionysia, so in more recent times, when the Satyrs, Sileni, and others came to be included in the more comprehensive term Callicantzari, it was the belief in the Callicantzari which continued to cause the wearing of similar disguises during the Twelve Days.
And this interpretation of the facts explains no less adequately than that of Polites the reason why the activities of the Callicantzari are limited to the Twelve Days. That which was in ancient times the special season for the commemoration of Dionysus and his attendants has now with the very gradual but still real decline of ancient beliefs become the only season. This is natural and intelligible enough in itself; but, if a parallel be required, Greek folklore can provide one. No one will suppose that the Dryads of ancient Greece were feared during the first six days of August only, though it is likely enough that they had a special festival at that time; but in modern folklore these are the only days on which, in many parts of Greece, any survival of the Dryads’ memory can be found[614].
Moreover the identification of the Callicantzari with the Satyrs and other kindred comrades of Dionysus elucidates a modern custom which I noticed earlier in this chapter but did not then explain—the rare, but known, custom of making offerings to the Callicantzari. The sweetmeats, waffles, sausages, and even the pig’s bone which are occasionally placed in the chimney for the Callicantzari correspond, it would seem, with offerings formerly made to Dionysus and shared by his train of Satyrs. Possibly even the choice of pork (usually in the shape of sausages) or, in the more rudimentary form of the survival, of a pig’s bone, dates from the age in which the proper victim for Dionysus at the Anthesteria was a sow; but of course it may only have been determined by the fact that pork is the peasant’s Christmas fare and therefore the most ready offering at that season.
How then, it will be asked, does the conclusion here reached, namely that the Callicantzari are, in many districts, the modern representatives of the Satyrs and other kindred beings, square with that other conclusion previously drawn from another set of facts, namely that the Callicantzari were originally not demons but men who either voluntarily or under the compulsion of a kind of madness assumed the shape and the character of beasts? The reconciliation of these two apparently antagonistic conclusions depends primarily on the derivation of the name Callicantzari.
Now the conditions which in my opinion that derivation should satisfy, have already been indicated in my discussion of dialectic forms and in my criticism of the several derivations proposed by others; but it will be well to summarise them here. They are four in number.
First, the derivation of this word, as of all others, must involve only such phonetic changes as find parallels in other words of the language.
Secondly, it must recognise the commonest form καλλικάντζαρος as being also the central and original form from which the many dialectic forms in the above table have diverged.
Thirdly, it must explain this form as a compound of a word κάντζαρος—presumably with καλός. For, in dialect, there exists a word σκατζάρι, which is used as a synonym with καλλικάντζαρος and is evidently in form a diminutive of the word κάντζαρος, and likewise there exists another synonym λυκοκάντζαρος, which cannot be formed from καλλικάντζαρος by an arbitrary shuffling of syllables but is a separate compound of κάντζαρος—presumably with λύκος.