The Callicántzari (Καλλικάντζαροι) are the most monstrous of all the creatures of the popular imagination, and none are better known to the Greek-speaking world at large; for even where educated men have ceased to believe in them, they still figure in the stories told and retold to children with each recurring New Year’s Day; and, among the peasants, many reach manhood or womanhood without outgrowing their early fears of them. The name Callicantzaros itself appears in many dialectic and widely differing forms, and there are also a multitude of local by-names. Of the former I shall treat later in discussing the origin of the word Callicantzaros, while the by-names, being for the most part descriptive of the appearance or qualities of these monsters, will be mentioned as occasion requires. But even where other local names are in common use, some form of the word Callicantzaros is almost always employed as well, or at least is understood. As in the nomenclature, so too in the description of the Callicantzari, one locality differs very widely from another. And this cannot be merely a result of the wide distribution of the belief in them; for the Nereids certainly are equally widely known, and yet their appearance and habits are, broadly speaking, everywhere the same. The extraordinary divergences and even contradictions in different accounts of the Callicantzari demand some other explanation than that of casual variation. That explanation, as I shall show later, lies in their identity with the ancient Centaurs. But before I discuss their origin, I must attempt as general a description of their appearance and habits as the vast variation of local traditions permits. In revising this description I have had the advantage of consulting Prof. Polites’ new work on the traditions of modern Greece[511], from which I have learnt some new facts, and have obtained on several points confirmation from a new source of what I had myself heard or surmised. I take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to him. In describing the Callicantzari, although the diversities of their outward form are almost endless, two main classes of them must be distinguished, because corresponding with that physical division there is also a marked difference in character. The two classes differ physically in stature, and, while all Callicantzari are essentially mischievous in character, the mischief wrought by the larger sort is often of a malicious and even deadly order, while the smaller sort are more frolicsome and harmless in their tricks.