But far more frequently the genii of water, and especially of wells, appear in the form of Arabs (Ἀράπηδες), and may be seen sometimes smoking long pipes in the depths. They have the power of transforming themselves into any shape. At one time they assume dragon-form and terrorise a whole country side; at another they adopt the guise of a lovely maiden weeping beside a well, and, on pretence of having dropped into it a ring, induce gallant and unwary men to descend to their death[728]; for when once the Arab has entrapped them in his well he feeds upon them or smokes them in lieu of tobacco in his pipe.
How Arabs have come to find a place among the genii of modern Greece is a question which must be answered in one of two ways. Either during the Turkish domination of Greece the Arab slaves, who were to be found in every wealthy house, were suspected by the Christian population of possessing magical powers, and from being magicians were elevated, as the Striges often were in mediaeval and modern Greece, to the rank of demons; or else they are another example of the transmutation of victims into genii. For several reasons I incline to the latter explanation. First, these Arabs are most commonly associated with wells, and for the sinking of a well, no less than for the erection of a building or the opening of a quarry, a victim would naturally be required. Secondly, an animal victim is for choice of a black or dark colour, and, by parity of reasoning, among human victims an Arab (or other man of dark colour, for the word Arab is used popularly of all such) would be preferable to a white man. Thirdly, it was reported from Zacynthos only a generation ago that a strong feeling still existed there in favour of sacrificing a Mohammedan or a Jew at the foundation of important bridges and other buildings[729]; and there is a legend of a black man having been actually immured in the bridge of an aqueduct near Lebadea in Boeotia[730]. Lastly, I heard from a shepherd belonging to Chios the story of a house in that island haunted by beings whom he called indifferently Arabs[731] and vrykólakes. He himself had been mad for eight months from the shock of seeing them, and four of his friends who visited the house to discover the cause of his disaster were similarly afflicted. The demons were finally laid to rest by an old man driving a flock of goats through the house[732]. Now vrykólakes, with whom I shall deal at length later on, are persons resuscitated after death who issue from their graves; and among those who are predisposed to such reappearance are men who have met with a violent death. The identification therefore of Arabs with vrykólakes in this story suggests that an Arab victim sacrificed at the foundation of some building might become the genius of it—not in this case the beneficent guardian of it, but owing to his violent death a malicious and hurtful monster. On this evidence I incline to the view that the Arabs who now form a class of genii were originally the human victims preferred at the sinking of wells—a piece of engineering, it must be remembered, of first-rate importance in a country as dry as Greece—and that, when once these genii had become associated with water, the popular imagination soon assigned them to rivers and natural springs no less than to wells.
The genii of rivers sometimes appear also in the shape of bulls, though as I have already remarked this type of genius is far more commonly associated with churches. Possibly in some cases the fact that the church was built in the neighbourhood of some sacred spring, whose miraculous virtue was of older date and repute than Christianity, first caused the transference; but at any rate some rivers still retain this type of genius, the type under which river gods were regularly represented in ancient times. In this connexion a story entitled ‘the ox-headed man[733]’ and narrated to me at Goniá in the island of Santorini deserves mention.
A princess and a poor girl once agreed that when they were married, if of their respective first-born the one should be a boy and the other a girl, these two should be married. Now, as it chanced, princess and peasant-maid were both wed on the same day, but for a long time both remained childless. Then at last they prayed to the Panagia, the princess for a child even if it were but a girl, the peasant for a son even if he were but half a man; and their prayers were answered; for the poor woman bore a son with the head of an ox, while the princess was blest with a beautiful daughter.
When the two children were grown up, the poor woman went one day to claim the fulfilment of the agreement, and the princess, or rather now the queen, went to ask her husband. He however objected to the suitor on the grounds of personal appearance, and stipulated that he should at least first perform certain feats to prove his worthiness. The first task was to build a palace of pearls, the second to plant the highest mountain of Santorini (μέσο βουνί, ‘central mountain,’ as it is locally called) with trees, and the third to border all the roads of the island with flowers. For each labour one single night was the limit of time. But the ox-headed man was equal to the work, and having accomplished it came riding on a white horse to claim his bride. The king however, who had imposed these three labours in full assurance that the unseemly suitor would fail, now flatly refused to abide by his promise, and the man retired disconsolate and disappeared none knew whither.
The young princess was much affected at the unfair treatment of her lover, and each day she grew more and more melancholy. But finally she hit upon a means of cheering herself. She proposed to her father that they should leave the palace and start an inn, not for money, but for the sake of the amusement to be derived from the stories and witty sayings of the guests. The king consented, and the inn was set up.
Now one day a boy who had been fishing dropped his rod into the river, and having dived in after it came to a flight of stairs at the bottom. Having walked down forty steps, he entered a large room where sat the ox-headed man, who talked with him and told him that he was waiting there for a princess who came not. The boy then returned without hurt, and on his way home had to pass the inn. Having turned in there, he was asked by the princess to tell her something amusing. He replied however that he knew no stories, but would recount to her an adventure which had just befallen him. In the course of the story the princess recognised that what the boy called the genius of the river (τὸ στοιχειὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ) could be no other than her lover, and having been straightway conducted to the spot, found and married the ox-headed man, and in his palace under the river lived happily ever afterwards—“but” (as Greek fairy-tales often end) “we here much more happily.”
It is curious that Santorini of all places should be the source of this story; for the island does not possess a stream. Locally however certain gullies by which the island is intersected are known as rivers (ποταμοί)[734], and after unusually heavy rain they might perhaps form torrents; at any rate one known as ‘the evil river’ (ὁ κακὸς ποταμός) is frequently mentioned in popular traditions as a real river. Possibly the tradition is accurate; for the volcanic nature of the island would readily account for the disappearance of a single stream[735]. But the importance of the story lies in the mention of an ox-headed man as genius of a river. The fact that he is made the son of a peasant-woman need not concern us; the first part of the story is probably adapted from some other folk-tale with a view to account for the wooing of a princess by so ill-favoured a suitor. In the latter part we have a more ancient motif, the wedding of a mortal maid with a river-god. If only it were mentioned in this tale that, besides the power of performing miraculous tasks, the bull-headed man had the faculty, which modern genii possess, of transforming himself into other shapes, we should have a complete parallel (save in the princess’ willingness to wed) with the wooing of Deianira by the river-god Achelous; “for he,” says she, “in treble shapes kept seeking me from my sire, coming now in true bull-form, now as a coiling serpent of gleaming hues, anon with human trunk and head of ox[736].” The genii of rivers have not, it would seem, changed their forms and attributes, save for the admission of Arabs to their number, from the age of Sophocles to this day.
The third class of genius which we have to notice is terrestrial, inhabiting mountains, rocks, caves, and any other grim and desolate places. These genii are the most frequent of all, and are known as dragons. Not of course that all dragons are terrestrial; the dragon-form has already been mentioned among the forms proper to the genii of springs and wells, and also as a shape assumed at will by the Arabs who more frequently occupy those haunts. But terrestrial genii, in whatever place they make their lair—and no limit can be set to such places—are far most commonly pictured as dragons; and I have therefore preferred to speak of the dragons in general here, rather than among the genii of either buildings or water.