[OLD MYTHOLOGY IN NEW APPAREL.]
BY J. THEODORE BENT.
We are generally accustomed to consider mythology as a bygone episode of juventus mundi; it may seem at first sight strange to realize that what we have read of in Homer exists to-day. But so it is, and the following facts collected during lengthened tours in remote corners of Greece will prove, I hope, that the mystic beings of classical Greece are present now, when the world is supposed to be growing old. All my instances are from the islands of the Ægean Sea, the Cyclades and the Sporades, where communication with the outer world has never been great, and over which the various waves of Goths, Italians, Turks, which in a measure destroyed the identity of continental Greece, had, comparatively speaking, slight influence, and that only in the towns near the coast, whereas up in the mountains of Naxos, Amorgos, &c., pure Greek blood still flows.
Here the mythology of their ancestors is deeply ingrained in the inhabitants, both in the ritual of their Church, and in their manners and customs; the ritual, indeed, of the Eastern Church is but an intellectual adaptation under Christian guidance of the problems propounded by the later philosophers to the popular doctrines of polytheism.
I was in the island of Keos, or Zia, one of the Cyclades, when the idea of forming this collection struck me, and it was on the occasion of being told that here St. Artemidos is considered as the patron saint of weakly children. The church dedicated to this saint is some little way from the town on the hill slopes; thither a mother will take a child afflicted by any mysterious wasting, “struck by the Nereids,” as they say; she then strips off its clothes, and puts on new ones blessed by the priest, leaving the old ones as a perquisite for the church; and then if perchance the child grows strong, she will thank St. Artemidos for the blessing vouchsafed, unconscious that she is perpetuating the archaic worship of Artemis. The Ionian idea of the fructifying and nourishing properties of the Ephesian Artemis has been transferred to her Christian namesake.
About these Nereids, too, we hear much in modern Greece, and they have the properties of many of our mythological friends, those of Keos, for example, are supposed to live on cliffs and in trees; if a man sleeps under the shadow of a cliff or tree, and is taken with a cold sweat, they say “the goddess of the tree has injured him,” and accordingly to appease her they spread on the place a clean white cloth, and put on it new-made bread, a plate with honey, another with sweetmeats, a bottle of good wine, a knife and fork and an empty glass, an unburnt candle, and an incense pot; an old woman utters some mystic words, and then all go away, “that the Nereids may eat and the sufferer regain his health.” We have here a ceremony very like that anciently performed at Athens to appease the Eumenides when a banquet was laid near the caves they were supposed to haunt, of which honey and milk were the necessary ingredients.
The Nereids in many cases correspond to the nymphs of antiquity; they preside over healing streams, and they wash in them at night when the waters sleep, and no one at that time dares to approach for fear of becoming frenzied (νυμφόληπτος).
The cloak of Phœbus Apollo has fallen on the prophet Elias. As of old temples on all the highest hills of the islands are dedicated to the sun-god; the reason is obvious. Ἡλιος, the sun deity (the h not being aspirated), at once suggested Elias to the easily accommodating divines, and to all intents and purposes the prophet supplies the place of the sun-god of antiquity. Prophet Elias has power over rain; in times of drought people assemble in crowds in his church to pray for rain, and in this he has the attribute of ὄμβριος or ὑέτιος Ζεῦς. When it thunders they say the prophet is driving in his chariot in pursuit of demons.
To pass on to another analogy. There is a curious parallel between St. Anarguris, the patron saint in some parts of flocks and herds, and the god Pan of ancient days. On the island of Thermià (Κύθνος) I saw a church dedicated to St. Anarguris built over the mouth of a cavern, as the protecting saint of the place, instead of Pan, the ancient god of grottos. But a still more marked instance of the continuation of Pan worship occurs to-day on Keos at the little church of St. Anarguris, at a remote hamlet called 'στὸ μακρινὸ. Whenever an ox is ailing they take it to this church and pray for its recovery; if the cock crows when they start, or they hear the voice of a man or the grunt of a pig, there is every hope that the animal will be cured; but on the contrary, if they hear a cat, a dog, or a woman, it is looked upon as an evil omen. When at the church of St. Anarguris they solemnly register a vow that if the ox recovers they will present it to the saint when its days of work are over; accordingly, every year on the 1st of July, the day on which they celebrate the feast of St. Anarguris, numbers of aged oxen may be seen on the road to this church, where they are slaughtered on the threshold and the flesh distributed amongst the poor.
St. Nicholas, again, is the lineal descendant of Poseidon; he is the sailor’s god. Wherever in ancient times there existed a temple to the honor of Poseidon we now find an insignificant white-washed edifice dedicated to St. Nicholas. This is especially noticeable at Tenos, where was in antiquity the famous shrine and feast of Poseidon. On this island the chief town is now called St. Nicholas, and hither yearly assemble to worship thousands of Greeks from all parts of the world before a miracle-working shrine. Modern priestcraft, in short, has cleverly arranged that Tenos should be the modern Delos where the topic of independent panhellenism can be freely discussed.