A comparison of these allied modern customs can only lead to one conclusion. The use of the same word to denote the mummers in Crete and the Callicantzari in Achaia; the name ῥουκατζιάρια for these mummers at Palaeogratsana; the custom of blackening the face, which is clearly indicated by the employment of the name ‘Arab’ in this connexion; the monstrous and half-animal appearance produced by masks, foxes’ brushes, goat-skins, and suchlike adornments; the attempted rape of the bride by the ‘Arab’ in the play at Pharsala--all furnish contributory evidence that the mummers themselves represent Callicantzari. Only at Portariá is the significance of the custom somewhat confused; there the ‘Arab’ in his old cloak and bells has long ceased to represent a Callicantzaros, and has actually been provided with a lantern with which to scare the Callicantzari away. The mummers then represent Callicantzari; the question which remains to be answered is whether the mumming was the cause or the effect of the belief in Callicantzari. Polites, in support of his theory that the name Callicantzari, in its earliest form, meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or ‘possessors of hoofs instead of boots,’ claims that the mummers first suggested to the Greek imagination the conception of the Callicantzari (it is not indeed anywhere mentioned in the above traditions that the feet or the footgear of the mummers were in any way remarkable, but we may let that pass), and that the fear which their riotous conduct inspired in earlier times gradually elevated them in men’s minds to the rank of demons. This, he urges, is the reason why these demons are feared only during the Twelve Days, the period when such mumming was in vogue. In confirmation of his view Polites cites some of the evidence concerning the human origin of the Callicantzari, mentioning both the fairly common belief that men turn into Callicantzari, and the rarer traditions that a Callicantzaros resumes his human shape if a torch be thrust in his face and that the transformation of men into Callicantzari can be prevented by certain means. With this evidence I have already dealt, and I agree with Polites that in it there survives a genuine record of the human origin of the Callicantzari. But of course on the further question, whether the particular men thus elevated to the dignity of demons were the mummers of Christmastide, it has no immediate bearing.