Transcriber's Note
[i]
MODERN GREEK FOLKLORE
AND
ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION
[ii]
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
All rights reserved
[iii]
MODERN GREEK FOLKLORE
AND
ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION
A STUDY IN SURVIVALS
BY
JOHN CUTHBERT LAWSON, M.A.
FELLOW AND LECTURER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
FORMERLY CRAVEN STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1910
[iv]
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
[v]
PIIS MANIBUS
ROBERTI ALEXANDRI NEIL
LABORUM ADHORTANTE IPSO SUSCEPTORUM
HUNC DEDICAVI FRUCTUM.
[vii]
PREFACE.
This book is the outcome of work undertaken in Greece duringmy two years’ tenure of the Craven Studentship from 1898to 1900. It is therefore my first duty gratefully to commemorateJohn, Lord Craven, to whose benefactions of two and a half centuriesago I owed my opportunity for research.
The scheme of work originally proposed was the investigationof the customs and superstitions of modern Greece in theirpossible bearing upon the life and thought of ancient Greece;and to the Managers of the Craven Fund at that time, withwhom was associated Mr R. A. Neil of Pembroke College towhose memory I have dedicated this book, I render hearty thanksfor their willingness to encourage a venture new in direction,vague in scope, and possibly void of result.
The course of research proposed was one which required as thefirst condition of any success considerable readiness in speakingand understanding the popular language, and to the attainmentof this my first few months were necessarily devoted. When oncethe ear has become accustomed to the modern pronunciation, aknowledge of ancient Greek makes for rapid progress; and somethree or four months spent chiefly in the cafés of small provincialtowns rendered me fairly proficient in ordinary conversation.Subsequent practice enabled me also to follow conversations noti