A Greek peasant looks upon death quite differently from what a peasant of the western world is taught to believe. To him it is the end of all joy and gladness; the songs over his body (myriologues) speak of the black earth, the end of light and brilliancy. A popular Klephtic song on the death of Zedros, when read by the side of Sophocles’ description of the death of Ajax, shows how curiously alike are the ideas of death as painted in the two poems. Charon is still believed to be a white-haired old man with long and fearful nails, and in myriologues or lamentations, which are still of every-day occurrence in the islands, you actually hear of Charon’s caïque. He is now spoken of as Charos. I had been told that, in some parts of Greece they still put money on the mouth of a deceased person to pay the passage (ναὗλον). I sought in vain for instances of it in the islands; but one day, whilst attending a child’s funeral in a mountain village of Naxos, I saw a wax cross put on the childs’ mouth by the priest, and on inquiry I was told it was the ναὗλον, _i.e._, freight money—so completely has the Eastern Church incorporated into itself the ancient ideas. In a popular song I have heard Charon spoken of as a “bird like unto a black swallow,” which compares curiously with the passage in the twenty-second _Odyssey_, where Athena is represented as sitting on the roof of the palace at Ithaca like a swallow, on the day of vengeance for Penelope’s suitors. It will be apparent from the above remarks that at the time of the change of religion from paganism to Christianity, names were given to saints to supply wants felt by the abandonment of polytheism. There are many instances of this. For example, St. Eleutherius is the saint called upon by women in childbirth to deliver them; deaf people are recommended to consult St. Jacob (Ἄκουφος as he is called, κουφος—deaf), and in Lesbos I was told that St. Therapon could heal all manner of diseases. In the same way young married people who wish for a numerous progeny chose St. Polycarp as their patron saint, so that they may have many teeth in their house, as the saying goes (πολὺ 'δοντια 'στὸ σπίτι).