Part 23 (1/2)

Of all supernatural Christmas visitors, the most vividly realized and believed in at the present day are probably the Greek _Kallikantzaroi_ or _Karkantzaroi_.{69} They are the terror of the Greek peasant during the Twelve Days; in the soil of his imagination they flourish luxuriantly, and to him they are a very real and living nuisance.

Traditions about the _Kallikantzaroi_ vary from region to region, but in general they are half-animal, half-human monsters, black, hairy, with huge heads, glaring red eyes, goats' or a.s.ses' ears, blood-red tongues hanging out, ferocious tusks, monkeys' arms, and long curved nails, and commonly they have the foot of some beast. ”From dawn till sunset they hide themselves in dark and dank places ... but at night they issue forth and run wildly to and fro, rending and crus.h.i.+ng those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and l.u.s.t mark their course.” When a house is not prepared against their coming, ”by chimney and door alike they swarm in, and make havoc of the home; in sheer wanton mischief they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants half dead with fright or violence.” Many like or far worse pranks do they play, until at the crowing of the third c.o.c.k they get them away to their dens. The signal for their final departure does not come until the Epiphany, when, as we saw in Chapter IV., the ”Blessing of the Waters”

takes place. Some of the hallowed water is put into vessels, and with these and with incense the priests sometimes make a round of the village, sprinkling the people and their houses. The fear of the

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_Kallikantzaroi_ at this purification is expressed in the following lines:--

”Quick, begone! we must begone, Here comes the pot-bellied priest, With his censer in his hand And his sprinkling-vessel too; He has purified the streams And he has polluted us.”

Besides this ecclesiastical purification there are various Christian precautions against the _Kallikantzaroi_--_e.g._, to mark the house-door with a black cross on Christmas Eve, the burning of incense and the invocation of the Trinity--and a number of other means of aversion: the lighting of the Yule log, the burning of something that smells strong, and--perhaps as a peace-offering--the hanging of pork-bones, sweetmeats, or sausages in the chimney.

Just as men are sometimes believed to become vampires temporarily during their lifetime, so, according to one stream of tradition, do living men become _Kallikantzaroi_. In Greece children born at Christmas are thought likely to have this objectionable characteristic as a punishment for their mothers' sin in bearing them at a time sacred to the Mother of G.o.d.

In Macedonia{70} people who have a ”light” guardian angel undergo the hideous transformation.

Many attempts have been made to account for the _Kallikantzaroi_. Perhaps the most plausible explanation of the outward form, at least, of the uncanny creatures, is the theory connecting them with the masquerades that formed part of the winter festival of Dionysus and are still to be found in Greece at Christmastide. The hideous b.e.s.t.i.a.l shapes, the noise and riot, may well have seemed demoniacal to simple people slightly ”elevated,” perhaps, by Christmas feasting, while the human nature of the maskers was not altogether forgotten.{71} Another theory of an even more prosaic character has been propounded--”that the Kallikantzaroi are nothing more than established nightmares, limited like indigestion to the twelve days of feasting. This view is

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taken by Allatius, who says that a Kallikantzaros has all the characteristics of nightmare, rampaging abroad and jumping on men's shoulders, then leaving them half senseless on the ground.”{72}

Such theories are ingenious and suggestive, and may be true to a certain degree, but they hardly cover all the facts. It is possible that the _Kallikantzaroi_ may have some connection with the departed; they certainly appear akin to the modern Greek and Slavonic vampire, ”a corpse imbued with a kind of half-life,” and with eyes gleaming like live coals.{73} They are, however, even more closely related to the werewolf, a man who is supposed to change into a wolf and go about ravening. It is to be noted that ”man-wolves” ([Greek: lykanthropoi]) is the very name given to the _Kallikantzaroi_ in southern Greece, and that the word _Kallikantzaros_ itself has been conjecturally derived by Bernhard Schmidt from two Turkish words meaning ”black” and ”werewolf.”{74} The connection between Christmas and werewolves is not confined to Greece.

According to a belief not yet extinct in the north and east of Germany, even where the real animals have long ago been extirpated, children born during the Twelve Nights become werewolves, while in Livonia and Poland that period is the special season for the werewolf's ravenings.{75}

Perhaps on no question connected with primitive religion is there more uncertainty than on the ideas of early man about the nature of animals and their relation to himself and the world. When we meet with half-animal, half-human beings we must be prepared to find much that is obscure.

With the _Kallikantzaroi_ may be compared some goblins of the Celtic imagination; especially like is the Manx _Fynnodderee_ (lit. ”the hairy-dun one”), ”something between a man and a beast, being covered with black s.h.a.ggy hair and having fiery eyes,” and prodigiously strong.{76} The Russian _Domovy_ or house-spirit is also a hirsute creature,{77} and the Russian _Ljeschi_, goat-footed woodland sprites, are, like the _Kallikantzaroi_, supposed to be got rid of by the ”Blessing of the Waters” at the Epiphany.{78} Some of the monstrous German figures already dealt with here

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bear strong resemblances to the Greek demons. And, of course, on Greek ground one cannot help thinking of Pan and the Satyrs and Centaurs.[98]

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CHAPTER X

THE YULE LOG

The Log as Centre of the Domestic Christmas--Customs of the Southern Slavs--The _Polaznik_--Origin of the Yule Log--Probable Connection with Vegetation-cults or Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p--The _Souche de Noel_ in France--Italian and German Christmas Logs--English Customs--The Yule Candle in England and Scandinavia.

The peoples of Europe have various centres for their Christmas rejoicing.

In Spain and Italy the crib is often the focus of the festival in the home as well as the church. In England--after the old tradition--, in rural France, and among the southern Slavs, the centre is the great log solemnly brought in and kindled on the hearth, while in Germany, one need hardly say, the light-laden tree is the supreme symbol of Christmas. The crib has already been treated in our First Part, the Yule log and the Christmas-tree will be considered in this chapter and the next.

The log placed on the fire on the Vigil of the Nativity no longer forms an important part of the English Christmas. Yet within the memory of many it was a very essential element in the celebration of the festival, not merely as giving out welcome warmth in the midwinter cold, but as possessing occult, magical properties. In some remote corners of England it probably lingers yet. We shall return to the traditional English Yule log after a study of some Continental customs of the same kind.

First, we may travel to a part of eastern Europe where the log ceremonies are found in their most elaborate form. Among the Serbs and Croats on Christmas Eve two or three young oaks are felled for every house, and, as twilight comes on, are brought in and laid on the fire. (Sometimes there is one for each male

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member of the family, but one large log is the centre of the ritual.) The felling takes place in some districts before sunrise, corn being thrown upon the trees with the words, ”Good morning, Christmas!” At Risano and other places in Lower Dalmatia the women and girls wind red silk and gold wire round the oak trunks, and adorn them with leaves and flowers. While they are being carried into the house lighted tapers are held on either side of the door. As the house-father crosses the threshold in the twilight with the first log, corn--or in some places wine--is thrown over him by one of the family.

The log or _badnjak_ is then placed on the fire. At Ragusa the house-father sprinkles corn and wine upon the _badnjak_, saying, as the flame shoots up, ”Goodly be thy birth!” In the mountains above Risano he not only pours corn and wine but afterwards takes a bowl of corn, an orange, and a ploughshare, and places them on the upper end of the log in order that the corn may grow well and the beasts be healthy during the year. In Montenegro, instead of throwing corn, he more usually breaks a piece of unleavened bread, places it upon the log, and pours over it a libation of wine.{1}

The first visit on Christmas Day is considered important--we may compare this with ”first-footing” in the British Isles on January 1--and in order that the right sort of person may come, some one is specially chosen to be the so-called _polaznik_. No outsider but this _polaznik_ may enter a house on Christmas Day, where the rites are strictly observed. He appears in the early morning, carries corn in his glove and shakes it out before the threshold with the words, ”Christ is born,” whereupon some member of the household sprinkles him with corn in return, answering, ”He is born indeed.” Afterwards the _polaznik_ goes to the fire and makes sparks fly from the remains of the _badnjak_, at the same time uttering a wish for the good luck of the house-father and his household and farm. Money and sometimes an orange are then placed on the _badnjak_. It is not allowed to burn quite away; the last remains of the fire are extinguished and the embers are laid between the branches of young fruit-trees to promote their growth.{2}

How shall we interpret these practices? Mannhardt regards the log as an embodiment of the vegetation-spirit, and its burning

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as an efficacious symbol of suns.h.i.+ne, meant to secure the genial vitalizing influence of the sun during the coming year.{3} It is, however, possible to connect it with a different circle of ideas and to see in its burning the solemn annual rekindling of the sacred hearth-fire, the centre of the family life and the dwelling-place of the ancestors. Primitive peoples in many parts of the world are accustomed to a.s.sociate fire with human generation,{4} and it is a general belief among Aryan and other peoples that ancestral spirits have their seat in the hearth. In Russia, for instance, ”in the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up the smouldering f.a.ggots in a stove, because to do so might cause the ancestors to fall through into h.e.l.l. And when a Russian family moves from one house to another, the fire is conveyed to the new one, where it is received with the words, 'Welcome, grandfather, to the new home!'”{5}

Sir Arthur Evans in three articles in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for 1881{6} gave a minute account of the Christmas customs of the Serbian highlanders above Risano, who practise the log-rites with elaborate ceremonial, and explained them as connected in one way or other with ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, though the people themselves attach a Christian meaning to many of them.

He pointed to the following facts as showing that the Serbian Christmas is at bottom a feast of the dead:--(1) It is said on Christmas Eve, ”To-night Earth is blended with Paradise” [_Raj_, the abode of the dead among the heathen Slavs]. (2) There is talk of unchristened folk beneath the threshold wailing ”for a wax-light and offerings to be brought them; when that is done they lie still enough”--here there may be a modified survival of the idea that ancestral spirits dwell beneath the doorway.