The term δράκος or δράκοντας[737] indicates to the Greek peasant a monster of no more determinate shape than does the word ‘dragon’ to ourselves. The Greek word however differs, and has always differed, from the English form of it in one respect, namely that it is often employed in a strict and narrow sense to denote a ‘serpent’ as distinguished from a small snake (in modern Greek φίδι, i.e. ὀφίδιον, the diminutive of the ancient ὄφις). On the other hand, a Greek ‘dragon,’ in the widest sense of the term, is sometimes distinctly anthropomorphic in popular stories, and is made to boil kettles and drink coffee without any sense of impropriety. It is in fact only from the context of a story that it is possible to determine in what shape the dragon is imagined; in general it is neither flesh nor fowl nor good red devil; heads and tails, wings and legs, teeth and talons, are assigned to it in any number and variety; it breathes air and fire indifferently; it sleeps with its eyes open and sees with them shut; it makes war on men and love to women; it roars or it sings, and there is little to choose between the two performances; for the lapse of centuries, it seems, has in no wise mellowed its voice[738]. The stories of the common-folk are full of these monsters’ savagery and treachery[739]; for it is the dragons, above all other supernatural beings, who provide the wandering hero of the fairy-tales with befitting adventures and tests of prowess.
A common motif of such stories is provided by the belief that dragons are the guardians of buried treasure. When a man in a dream has had revealed to him the whereabouts of buried treasure, his right course is to go to the spot without breathing to anyone a hint of his secret, and there to slay a cock or other animal such as is offered at the laying of foundation-stones, in order to appease the genius (which is almost always a dragon, though an Arab is occasionally substituted) before he ventures to disturb the soil. This is the very superstition which Artemidorus had in mind when he interpreted dreams about dragons to denote ‘wealth and riches, because dragons make their fixed abode over treasures[740].’ Having complied with these conditions the digger may hope to bring gold to light; but if he have previously betrayed to anyone his expectations or have failed to propitiate the dragon, the old proverb is fulfilled, ἄνθρακες ὁ θησαυρός[741], his treasure turns out to be but ashes (κάρβουνα).
The guardianship likewise of gardens wherein flow ‘immortal waters’ or grows ‘immortal fruit’ is the province of dragons. In Tenos a typical story concerning them is told in several versions[742]. The hero of them all bears the name of Γιαννάκης or ‘Jack’ (a familiar diminutive of Ἰωάννης, ‘John’)—a name commonly given in Greek fairy-tales to the performer of Heraclean feats. The hero who, after discovering that his youngest sister is a Strigla, has fled with his mother, the queen, from the palace where they were in imminent danger of being devoured[743], comes to a castle occupied by forty dragons. The prince straightway attacks them single-handed and slays, so he thinks, all of them, but in reality one has only feigned to be dead and so escapes to a hole beneath the castle, of which Jack now becomes the master. The remaining dragon however ventures forth, when the prince is gone out to the chase, and makes love to the queen, and after a while dragon and queen knowing that the prince would be incensed at their intrigue conspire to kill him. To this end the queen on her son’s return pretends to be ill, and in response to his enquiries tells him that the only thing that can heal her is ‘immortal water[744],’ which, as her paramour, the dragon, knows, is to be found only in a distant garden guarded by one or more other dragons. The prince at once undertakes to obtain the desired remedy, and is directed by a witch (who in some versions appears as the impersonation of his τύχη or ‘Fortune’) whither to go and how to deal with the dragons. These accordingly he slays or eludes, and so returns home unhurt bringing the immortal water. Then once more the dragon and the queen take counsel together, and the pretence of illness is repeated with a demand this time for some immortal fruit or herb[745] known to be guarded in the same way as the water; and once more the prince sets out and circumvents the dragons in some new fashion.
Between such stories and the ancient fable of Heracles’ journey to the land of the Hesperides in search of the golden apples, and of his victory over the guardian-dragon Ladon, the connexion is self-evident. Whether that connexion is one of direct lineage, is less certain. More probably, I think, a form of this same story was already current in an age to which the name of Heracles was as unknown as that of the modern Jack; and just as the story of Peleus and Thetis became the classical example of the winning of a nymph to wife by a mortal man[746], so the myth, by which the exploit of bearing off wonderful fruit from the custody of a dragon was numbered among the labours of Heracles, is nothing more than the authorised version, so to speak, of a fairy-tale that might have been heard of winter-nights in Greek cottage-homes any time between the Pelasgian and the present age.
Daemons of the air, the fourth class of genius which we have to consider, have been acknowledged ever since the time of Hesiod and doubtless from a period far anterior to that. In his theology it was the lot of the first race of men in the golden age to become after death daemons ‘clothed in air and going to and fro through all the world’ as good guardians of mortal men. But the goodness which Hesiod attributes to the genii of the air was never, I suspect, an essential trait in their character. In Hesiod it is a corollary of the statement that they are the spirits of men who belonged to the golden age; but there is no reason to suppose that the common-folk ever regarded them as more beneficent than other gods and daemons. At any rate at the present day the ἀερικά, or genii of the air, are no better disposed towards mankind than any other supernatural beings.
Of this class as a whole little can be said. The word ἀερικό is applied to almost any apparition too vague and transient to be more clearly defined. It suggests something ‘clothed in air,’ something less tangible, less discernible, than most of the beings whom the peasant recognises and fears. The limits of its usage are hard to fix. It may properly include a Nereid whose passing through the air is the whirlwind, and it will equally certainly exclude a callicantzaros or a dragon. Yet even the Nereids are more substantial than the genii of the air in their truest form; for the assaults of Nereids upon men and women are made, as we have seen, from without[747], while genii of the air are more often supposed to ‘possess’ men in the same way as do devils, and to be liable to exorcism.
But, if the class as a whole is too vague and shadowy in the popular imagination to be capable of exact description, one division of it is more clearly defined and has a generally acknowledged province of activity. These particular aërial genii are known as Telonia (τελώνια or, more rarely, τελωνεῖα). They cannot claim equal antiquity with some of their fellows, for they are, it would seem, a by-product of Christianity, with a certain accretion however of pagan superstition.
The origin of the name Telonia is not in dispute. It means frankly and plainly ‘custom-houses.’ Such is the bizarre materialism of the Greek imagination that the soul in its journeys no less than the body is believed to encounter the embarrassment of custom-houses. An institution which of all things mundane commands least sentiment and sympathy has actually found a place in popular theology. Many of the people indeed at the present day, as I know from enquiry, have ceased to connect their two usages of the word; but others accept as reasonable the belief that the soul in its voyage after death up from the earth to the presence of God must bear the scrutiny of aërial customs-officers.
But, apart from modern belief, the apotheosis of the douane is amply proved by passages cited by Du Cange[748] from early Christian authors. ‘Some spirits,’ says one[749], ‘have been set on the earth, and some in the water, and others have been set in the air, even those that are called “aërial customs-officers” (ἐναέρια Τελώνια).’ Another[750] speaks of ‘the Judge and the prosecutions by the toll-collecting spirits.’ Yet another[751] explains the belief in fuller detail: ‘as men ascend, they find custom-houses guarding the way with great care and obstructing the soaring souls, each custom-house examining for one particular sin, one for deceit, another for envy, another for slander, and so on in order, each passion having its own inspectors and assessors[752].’ Again a prayer for the use of the dying contains the same idea: ‘Have mercy on me, all-holy angels of God Almighty, and save me from all evil Telonia, for I have no works to weigh against my wrong-doings[753].’ Appeal in support of this belief was made even to the authority of Christ as given in the words, ‘Thou fool, this night they require thy soul of thee[754],’ where the commentators explained the vague plural as implying some such subject as ‘toll-collectors’ or ‘custom-house officers[755].’