Opening the text

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in SurvivalsLawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)

Religion

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

Name: Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals
Author: Lawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)

Lawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)

Folklore -- Greece; Greece -- Religion; Mythology, Greek

The other and more pagan conception of Charos excludes all traits
of kindness and mercy; and men do not stint the expression of their
hatred of him. He is ‘black,’ ‘bitter,’ ‘hateful’ (μαῦρος[199], πικρός,
στυγερός). He is the merciless potentate of the nether world,
independent of the God of heaven, equally powerful in his own domain,
but more terrible, more inexorable: for his work is death and his abode
is Hades. Thence he issues forth at will, as a hunter to the chase.
‘Against the wounds that Charos deals herbs avail not, physicians give
no cure, nor saints protection[200].’ His quarry is the soul of man;
‘where he finds three, he takes two of them, and where he finds two,
takes one, and where he finds but one alone, him too he takes[201].’
Sometimes he is enlarging his palace, and he takes the young and strong
to be its pillars; sometimes he is repairing the tent in which he
dwells, and uses the stout arms of heroes for tent-pegs and the tresses
of bright-haired maidens for the ropes; sometimes he is laying out a
garden, and he gathers children from the earth to be the flowers of
it and young men to be its tall slim cypresses; more rarely he is a
vintager, and tramples men in his vat that their blood may be his red
wine, or again he carries a sickle and reaps a human harvest.

But most commonly he is the warrior preëminent in all manner of
prowess--archer, wrestler, horseman. Once a bride boasted that she
had no fear of Charos, for that her brothers were men of valour and
her husband a hero; then came Charos and shot an arrow at her, and
her beauty faded; a second and a third arrow, and he stretched her
on her death-bed[202]. Often in the pride of strength have young
warriors laughed Charos to scorn; then has he come to seize the
strongest of them, and though the warrior strain and struggle as in
a wrestling-match, yet Charos wearies not but wins the contest by
fair means or foul: for he is no honourable foe, but dishonest above
thieves, more deceitful than women[203]: he seizes his adversary by the
hair and drags him down to Hades. Even more striking is the picture of
Charos as horseman riding forth on his black steed to the foray, and
it is this conception which has inspired one of the finest achievements
of the popular muse:--

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in SurvivalsLawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)

Religion

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

Lawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)

Folklore -- Greece; Greece -- Religion; Mythology, Greek

The other and more pagan conception of Charos excludes all traits
of kindness and mercy; and men do not stint the expression of their
hatred of him. He is ‘black,’ ‘bitter,’ ‘hateful’ (μαῦρος[199], πικρός,
στυγερός). He is the merciless potentate of the nether world,
independent of the God of heaven, equally powerful in his own domain,
but more terrible, more inexorable: for his work is death and his abode
is Hades. Thence he issues forth at will, as a hunter to the chase.
‘Against the wounds that Charos deals herbs avail not, physicians give
no cure, nor saints protection[200].’ His quarry is the soul of man;
‘where he finds three, he takes two of them, and where he finds two,
takes one, and where he finds but one alone, him too he takes[201].’
Sometimes he is enlarging his palace, and he takes the young and strong
to be its pillars; sometimes he is repairing the tent in which he
dwells, and uses the stout arms of heroes for tent-pegs and the tresses
of bright-haired maidens for the ropes; sometimes he is laying out a
garden, and he gathers children from the earth to be the flowers of
it and young men to be its tall slim cypresses; more rarely he is a
vintager, and tramples men in his vat that their blood may be his red
wine, or again he carries a sickle and reaps a human harvest.

But most commonly he is the warrior preëminent in all manner of
prowess--archer, wrestler, horseman. Once a bride boasted that she
had no fear of Charos, for that her brothers were men of valour and
her husband a hero; then came Charos and shot an arrow at her, and
her beauty faded; a second and a third arrow, and he stretched her
on her death-bed[202]. Often in the pride of strength have young
warriors laughed Charos to scorn; then has he come to seize the
strongest of them, and though the warrior strain and struggle as in
a wrestling-match, yet Charos wearies not but wins the contest by
fair means or foul: for he is no honourable foe, but dishonest above
thieves, more deceitful than women[203]: he seizes his adversary by the
hair and drags him down to Hades. Even more striking is the picture of
Charos as horseman riding forth on his black steed to the foray, and
it is this conception which has inspired one of the finest achievements
of the popular muse:--

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

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