In this way he collects enough to restore his circulation and to pass a convivial Epiphany. The cross is his to keep, but he must provide a new one for the coming year. The blessing of the waters is firmly believed by many good people to have one effect not claimed by mother church. It is supposed, that is, to exorcise for another year certain redoubtable beings known as _kallikántzari_. The name, according to one of the latest authorities on the subject,[2] means the good centaurs. Goodness, however, is not their distinguishing trait. They are quarrelsome, mischievous, and destructive monsters, half man, half beast, who haunt the twelve nights of the Christmas season. One of the most efficacious means of scaring them off is by firebrands, and I have wondered if the coloured lanterns to which I have alluded might owe their origin to the same idea. Many pious sailors will not venture to sea during the twelve days, for fear of these creatures. The unfurling of the sails is one of the ceremonies of Epiphany in some seaside communities. Similarly, no one—of a certain class—would dream of marrying during the twelve days, while a child so unfortunate as to be born then is regarded as likely to become a _kallikántzaros_ himself. Here a teaching of the church perhaps mingles with the popular belief. But that belief is far older than the church, going back to Dionysus and the fauns, satyrs, and sileni who accompanied him. In many parts of the Greek world it is still the custom for men and boys to masquerade in furs during the twelve days. If no trace of the custom seems to survive in Constantinople it may be because the early fathers of the church thundered there against this continuance of the antique Dionysiac revels, which became the Brumalia and Saturnalia of the Romans. [2] J. C. Lawson: “Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion.”