But the belief does not stop here. One does not pass the custom-houses of this world, or at any rate of Greece, without some expenditure in duty or in douceur; and the same apparently holds true of the celestial custom-houses. Hence in some places the belief has generated a practice, or, to speak more exactly, has breathed a new spirit into the old practice of providing the dead with money. My view of the origin of this practice has already been explained; I have given reasons for holding that the coin placed in the mouth of the dead was simply a charm to prevent evil spirits from entering, or the soul from re-entering, into the body, and that the interpretation of the custom, according to which the coin was the fee of the ferryman Charon, was of comparatively late date. At the present day Charon in the rôle of ferryman is almost forgotten; but in his place the Telonia seem locally to have become the recipients of the fee, and the old custom has thus received a second and equally erroneous explanation.
This may have been the idea in the mind of my informant who vaguely said that a coin placed in the mouth of the dead was ‘good because of the aërial beings[756].’ If the particular aërial beings whom he had in mind were the Telonia, he no doubt thought of the coin as a fee payable to them, though in that case it is somewhat strange that he should not have used the name which actually denotes their toll-collecting functions.
But from other sources at any rate comes evidence of a less ambiguous kind that the idea of paying the Telonia for passage is, or has been, a real motive in the minds of the peasantry. In Chios (where however the object actually placed in the mouth of the dead is clearly understood as a precaution against a devil entering the body) it is believed that the soul after death remains for forty days in the neighbourhood of its old habitation, the body, and then making its way to Hades has to pass the Telonia. Happy the soul that makes its voyage on Friday, for then the activities of the Telonia (who in the conception of the islanders are clearly evil spirits and not, as sometimes, the ministers of God) are restrained. But, to appease the Telonia and to ensure the safe passage of the soul, money is distributed to the poor[757]. The same usage obtains also at Sinasos in Cappadocia, and there the money so distributed is actually called τελωνιακά, ‘duty paid at the customs[758].’ The fact that in both these cases the money is now given in alms instead of being buried with the body is clearly a result of Christian influence; before that change was effected, it is reasonably likely that the widely-known practice of placing a coin in the mouth of the dead was explained in some places, though erroneously, by the belief that the dead must pay their way through the aërial custom-houses. The term περατίκι, ‘passage-money,’ by which, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, is denoted the coin still in that district buried with the dead, has reference possibly to the same Telonia rather than to Charon[759].
Another and wholly different aspect of the Telonia concerns the living and not the dead, while it still exhibits them as true genii of the air. Any striking phenomena of the heavens at night, such as shooting-stars or comets, are believed to be manifestations of the Telonia[760]; but most dreaded of all is the phenomenon known to us as St Elmo’s light, the flame that sometimes flickers in time of storm about the mast-head and yards. This light, the Greek sailor thinks, portends an immediate onset of malevolent aërial powers, whom he straightway tries to scare away by every means in his power, by invocation of saints and incantation against the demons, by firing of guns, and, best of all, by driving a black-handled knife (which is in the Cyclades thought doubly efficacious if an onion has recently been peeled with it) into the mast. For he no longer discriminates as did the Greek mariner of old; then the appearance of two such flames was greeted with gladness as a manifestation of the Dioscuri, the saviours from storm and tempest, and evil was portended only if there appeared a single flame, the token of Helena[761], who wrecked as surely as her twin brothers guarded; now the phenomenon in any form bodes naught but ill. This change is probably due to Christian influences; the seaman no longer looks to any pagan power for succour in time of peril; he accounts St Nicholas his friend and saviour; and the Telonia, who in this province of their activity represent the older order of deities, have become by contrast man’s enemies.
Other vague and incorrect usages of the term Telonia are also recorded. Sometimes it may be heard as a synonym for δαιμόνια, any non-Christian deities. In Myconos it is said to have been applied to the genii of springs[762]. In Athens men used to speak of Telonia of the sea, who like the Callicantzari were abroad only from Christmas until the blessing of the waters at Twelfth-night; and during this time ships were wont to be kept at anchor and secure from their attacks[763]. A belief is also mentioned by Pouqueville[764], in a very confused passage, that children who die unbaptised become Telonia; but the statement is corroborated by Bernhard Schmidt[765], who adduces information of the same belief existing in Zacynthos. The idea at the root of it probably was that unbaptised children could not pass the celestial customs, and were detained there on their road to the other world in order to assist in obstructing the passage of other souls. But these are local variations of the main belief, and, so far as I can see, are of little importance. In general the Telonia are a species of aërial genius, and their two activities consist in the collecting of dues from departed souls and assaults upon mariners.
There remain only for consideration the genii of human beings, or the attendant spirits to whom is committed in some way the guidance of men’s lives. To some of them the name genius (i.e. στοιχειό) would hardly perhaps be extended by the peasants; but they all bear the same kind of relation towards men, and may therefore conveniently be grouped together for discussion.
The best example which I know of an acknowledged genius attached to a man is in a story in Hahn’s collection[766], which tells of an old wizard whose life was bound up with that of a ten-headed snake which lived beneath a threshing-floor. Here the monstrous nature of the genius is doubtless intended to match the character of the wizard; ordinary men, unversed in magic, may have genii of a less complex pattern. Thus the snake which so commonly acts as genius to a house is also in many cases regarded as the genius of the head or some other member of the household. When therefore the death-struggle of any person is prolonged, this is sometimes set down to the unwillingness of the genius to permit his death; and in extreme cases of protracted agony recourse has before now been had to a priest, who, entering the sick man’s room alone, reads a special prayer for the sufferer’s release, and by virtue of this solemn office causes the house-snakes, who are pagan genii, to burst[767]. With their disruption of course the soul of the dying man is at once set free.
But the guardian spirits of whom the peasants most commonly speak belong to the personnel of Christian theology or demonology, and are therefore not actually numbered among genii. These are angels, two of whom are allotted to each man, the one good (ὁ καλὸς ἄγγελος) and the other bad (ὁ κακὸς ἄγγελος). But though the designation genius is not applied to them, in functions angels and genii do not differ. To them belongs the control of a man’s life, the one guiding him in the way of righteousness, and the other diverting him to the pitfalls of vice. Their presence is ever constant, but seldom visible. Sometimes indeed, in stories at any rate, we hear of the good angel appearing to a man and rewarding him in his old age for a virtuous life[768]; and in general men born on Saturday, σαββατογεννημένοι, are reputed to be ἀλαφροστοίχει̯ωτοι[769] and endowed with special powers of seeing and dealing with the supernatural. But most commonly the power to see the guardian angel is granted only to the dying, and the vision is a warning that the end is near. So, when the gaze of a dying man becomes abstracted and fixed, they say in some places βλέπει τὸν ἄγγελό του, or in one word ἀγγελοθωρεῖ[770], ‘he sees his angel,’ or again ἀγγελοσκιάζεται[771], ‘he is terrified of an angel.’ In these expressions it is not clear which of the two angels is intended; but, to judge from other expressions, popular belief recognises the activity of the one or the other according to the peace or pain of the death. ‘He is borne away by an angel,’ ἀγγελοφορᾶται[772], suggests a quiet passing, as of Lazarus who was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; while the word ἀγγελομαχεῖ, ‘he is fighting with an angel,’ an expression used in Laconia of a protracted death-struggle, and again ἀγγελοκρούσθηκε[773], ‘he was stricken by an angel,’ a term which denotes a sudden death, argue rather the presence of the evil angel.
Another kind of genius sometimes associated with men is the ἴσκιος (the modern form of σκιά), the ‘shadow’ personified. The phrase ἔχει καλὸ ἴσκιο, ‘he has a good shadow,’ is used of a man who enjoys good fortune, and he himself is described sometimes as καλοΐσκι̯ωτος[774], ‘good-shadowed,’ that is, ‘lucky.’ But apparently a man may also get into trouble with this shadow no less than with an angel. The word ἰσκιοπατήθηκε, ‘he has been trampled upon by his shadow[775],’ is used occasionally of a man who has been stricken down by some sudden, but not necessarily fatal, illness such as epilepsy or paralysis. This personification of the shadow as genius is perhaps responsible in some measure for the fear which the peasant feels of having the foundation-stone of a building laid upon his shadow; but, as I have said above, the principle of sympathetic magic will explain the cause of fear without this supposition.