And this interpretation of the facts explains no less adequately than that of Polites the reason why the activities of the Callicantzari are limited to the Twelve Days. That which was in ancient times the special season for the commemoration of Dionysus and his attendants has now with the very gradual but still real decline of ancient beliefs become the only season. This is natural and intelligible enough in itself; but, if a parallel be required, Greek folklore can provide one. No one will suppose that the Dryads of ancient Greece were feared during the first six days of August only, though it is likely enough that they had a special festival at that time; but in modern folklore these are the only days on which, in many parts of Greece, any survival of the Dryads’ memory can be found[614]. Moreover the identification of the Callicantzari with the Satyrs and other kindred comrades of Dionysus elucidates a modern custom which I noticed earlier in this chapter but did not then explain--the rare, but known, custom of making offerings to the Callicantzari. The sweetmeats, waffles, sausages, and even the pig’s bone which are occasionally placed in the chimney for the Callicantzari correspond, it would seem, with offerings formerly made to Dionysus and shared by his train of Satyrs. Possibly even the choice of pork (usually in the shape of sausages) or, in the more rudimentary form of the survival, of a pig’s bone, dates from the age in which the proper victim for Dionysus at the Anthesteria was a sow; but of course it may only have been determined by the fact that pork is the peasant’s Christmas fare and therefore the most ready offering at that season. How then, it will be asked, does the conclusion here reached, namely that the Callicantzari are, in many districts, the modern representatives of the Satyrs and other kindred beings, square with that other conclusion previously drawn from another set of facts, namely that the Callicantzari were originally not demons but men who either voluntarily or under the compulsion of a kind of madness assumed the shape and the character of beasts? The reconciliation of these two apparently antagonistic conclusions depends primarily on the derivation of the name Callicantzari. Now the conditions which in my opinion that derivation should satisfy, have already been indicated in my discussion of dialectic forms and in my criticism of the several derivations proposed by others; but it will be well to summarise them here. They are four in number. First, the derivation of this word, as of all others, must involve only such phonetic changes as find parallels in other words of the language. Secondly, it must recognise the commonest form καλλικάντζαρος as being also the central and original form from which the many dialectic forms in the above table have diverged.