Chapter II: The Survival of Pagan Deities (8)

The more closely these two identifications are examined, the more certain they will appear. Take for example Müller’s general description[612] of the celebration of Dionysus’ festivals. ‘The swarm of subordinate beings--Satyrs, Panes, and Nymphs--by whom Bacchus was surrounded, and through whom life seemed to pass from the god of outward nature into vegetation and the animal world, and branch off into a variety of beautiful or grotesque forms, were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks; it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary course of ideas, to imagine that dances of fair nymphs and bold satyrs, among the solitary woods and rocks, were visible to human eyes, or even in fancy to take a part in them. The intense desire felt by every worshipper of Bacchus to fight, to conquer, to suffer, in common with him, made them regard these subordinate beings as a convenient step by which they could approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The custom, so prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in this feeling, and not in the mere desire of concealing excesses under the disguise of a mask; otherwise, so serious and pathetic a spectacle as tragedy could never have originated in the choruses of these satyrs. The desire of escaping from _self_ into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, breaks forth in a thousand instances in these festivals of Bacchus. It is seen in the colouring the body with plaster, soot, vermilion, and different sorts of green and red juices of plants, wearing goats’ and deer skins round the loins, covering the face with large leaves of different plants; and lastly in the wearing masks of wood, bark, and other materials, and of a complete costume belonging to the character.’ To complete this description it may be added that ‘drunkenness, and the boisterous music of flutes, cymbals and drums, were likewise common to all Dionysiac festivals[613].’ Which of all these things is missing in the mediaeval or modern counterpart of the festival? The blackening of the face or the wearing of the masks, the feminine costume or beast-like disguise, the boisterous music of bells, the rioting and drunkenness--all are reproduced in the celebration of Kalandae and Brumalia or in the mumming of the Twelve Days. The mummers are the worshippers of a god, whose name however and existence they and their forefathers have long forgotten.

And again are not the Callicantzari faithful reproductions of the Satyrs and Sileni who ever attended Dionysus? Their semi-bestial form with legs of goat or ass affixed to a human trunk, their grotesque faces and goat-like ears and horns, their boisterous and mischievous merriment, their love of wine, their passion for dancing, above all in company with Nereids, the indecency of their actions and sometimes of their appearance, their wantonness and lust--all these widely acknowledged attributes of the Callicantzari proclaim them lineal descendants of Dionysus’ motley comrades.

Such is my interpretation of the facts collected by Polites, and it differs from that which he has advanced in the reversal of cause and effect. Starting from the fact that dressing up in various disguises was the chief characteristic of the Kalandae and Brumalia and is perpetuated in the mumming of the Twelve Days, but failing to carry his researches far enough back and so to discover the absolute identity of these festivals with the ancient Dionysia, he holds that the generally prevalent custom of dressing up in monstrous and horrible disguises at a given period of the year--a custom which he leaves unexplained--was the cause of the belief in the activity of monstrous and horrible demons at that period; those who had once been simply human mummers were exalted to the ranks of the supernatural, but still betrayed their origin by the possession of a name which meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or else ‘hoofed and not booted.’ In my view on the contrary the identity of the modern mumming with the ancient Dionysia is indisputable; and just as in ancient times the belief in the Satyrs and Sileni was the cause of the adoption of satyr-like disguises in the Dionysia, so in more recent times, when the Satyrs, Sileni, and others came to be included in the more comprehensive term Callicantzari, it was the belief in the Callicantzari which continued to cause the wearing of similar disguises during the Twelve Days.

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.

Thirdly, it must explain this form as a compound of a word κάντζαρος--presumably with καλός. For, in dialect, there exists a word σκατζάρι, which is used as a synonym with καλλικάντζαρος and is evidently in form a diminutive of the word κάντζαρος, and likewise there exists another synonym λυκοκάντζαρος, which cannot be formed from καλλικάντζαρος by an arbitrary shuffling of syllables but is a separate compound of κάντζαρος--presumably with λύκος.

Fourthly, and consequently on the last-named condition, the word κάντζαρος, whether alone or in composition with either καλός or λύκος, must possess a meaning adequate to denote the monsters who have been described.

All these conditions are satisfied in the identification of the word κάντζαρος with the ancient word κένταυρος.

The phonetic change herein involved will, to any who are not familiar with the pronunciation of modern Greek, appear more considerable than it really is. In that pronunciation it must be remembered that the accent, which indicates the syllable on which stress is laid, is everything, and ancient quantity is nothing; and further that the ancient diphthongs _au_ and _eu_ have come to be pronounced respectively as _av_ or _af_ and _ev_ or _ef_. The change of sound in this case may therefore be fairly measured by the difference between kéndăvrŏs and kándzărŏs in British pronunciation[615]. The phonetic modifications therefore which require notice are the substitution of α for ε in the first syllable, the introduction of a ζ after the τ, and the loss of the _v_-sound before the ρ.

The change from ε to α is very common in Greek, especially (by assimilation it would seem) where the following syllable, as in the word before us, has an α for its vowel. Thus ἀλαφρός is constantly to be heard instead of ἐλαφρός (light), ἀργαλει̯ός for ἐργαλειός (a loom), ματα- for μετα- in compound verbs. The insertion of ζ (or σ) after τ is certainly a less common change, but parallels can be found for this also. The ancient word τέττιγες (grasshoppers) appears in modern Greek as τζίτζικες. A word of Latin origin[616] τεντόνω (I stretch) has an equally common by-form τσιτόνω. The classical word τύκανον (a chisel) has passed, through a diminutive form τυκάνιον, into the modern τσουκάνι. The word κεντήματα (embroideries) has a dialectic form κεντζήματα[617]. From the adjective μουντός (grey, brown, dusky) are formed substantives μουντζοῦρα and μουντζαλι̯ά (a stain or daub). The substantive κατσοῦφα (sulkiness, sullenness) is probably to be identified with the ancient κατήφεια. The two most frequently employed equivalents for ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’--τρελλός and ζουρλός--are probably of kindred origin--an insertion of ζ in the former having produced first τζερλός and thence (τ)ζουρλός. Finally there is some likelihood that the word κάντζαρος, in a botanical sense in which it is now used, is to be identified with the ancient plant-name κενταυρεῖον or κενταύριον. The former indeed now denotes a kind of juniper, while the later is of course our ‘centaury’; but this difference in meaning is not, I think, fatal to the identification of the words. At the present day the common-folk are extraordinarily vague in their nomenclature of natural objects. In travelling about I made a practice of asking my guides and others the names of flowers and birds and suchlike; and my general experience might fairly be summed up by saying that the average peasant divides all birds which he does not eat into two classes; the larger ones are hawks, and the smaller are--‘little birds, God knows what’; and an accompanying shrug of the shoulders indicates that the man does not care; while most flowers can be called either violets or gilly-flowers at pleasure. Even therefore when a peasant of superior intelligence knows that κάντζαρος is now the name of a kind of juniper, it does not follow that that name has always belonged to it, and has not been transferred to it from some plant formerly used, let us say, for a like purpose. In this case it is known that both juniper and some kind of centaury were formerly used for medicating wine[618], and the wine treated with either was prescribed as ‘good for the stomach[619].’ Hence a confusion of the two plants is intelligible enough among a peasantry not distinguished by a love of botanical accuracy. But I place no reliance upon this possible identification; the cases previously cited furnish sufficient analogies.

Further it may be noted that in the first two examples of this insertion of ζ or σ a certain change in the consonants of the next syllable accompanies it. The γ in τέττιγες becomes κ, the ντ in τεντόνω is reduced to τ. In the same way, it seems, when ζ was inserted after the τ of κένταυρος, the sound of _vr_ was reduced to _r_ only, though certainly the loss of the _v_-sound might have occurred, apart from any such predisposing modification, as in the common word ξέρω (I know) for ἠξεύρω.

Since then the etymological conditions of the problem are satisfied by the identification of the word κάντζαρος with the ancient κένταυρος, it remains only to show that the name of ‘Centaurs’ fitly belongs to the monsters whom I have described; and my contention will be that the simple word κάντζαρος, ‘Centaur,’ surviving now only in the dialectic diminutive form σκατζάρι, adequately expresses every sort and condition of Callicantzaros that has been depicted; that καλλικάντζαρος, the general word, of which so many dialectic varieties occur, being simply an euphemistic compound of κάντζαρος with καλός such as we have previously seen in the title καλλικυρᾶδες given to the Nereids, expresses precisely the same meaning as the simple word κάντζαρος, ‘Centaur’; and that λυκοκάντζαρος originally denoted one species only of the genus Centaur, namely a Callicantzaros whose animal traits were those of a wolf.

What then did the ancients mean by the word ‘centaur’?

The mention of the name is apt to carry away our minds to famous frieze or pediment, where in one splendidly impossible creation of art the excellences of man, his head and his hands, are wed with the horse’s strength and speed. This was the species of Centaur which the great sculptors and painters in the best period of Greek Art chose to depict, and these among educated men became the Centaurs _par excellence_. Yet even so it was not forgotten that they formed only one species, and were strictly to be called ἱπποκένταυροι, ‘horse-centaurs.’ Moreover two other species of Centaur are named in the ancient language, ἰχθυοκένταυροι or fish-centaurs, and ὀνοκένταυροι or ass-centaurs. Of the former nothing seems to be known beyond the mere name, but this matters little inasmuch as they can assuredly have contributed nothing to the popular conception of the wholly terrestrial Callicantzari. The ass-centaurs will prove of more interest.

But the list of ancient species of Centaur does not really stop here. No other compounds of the word Centaur may exist, but none the less there were other Centaurs--other creatures, that is, of mixed human and animal form. Chief among these were the Satyrs, who as pourtrayed by early Greek art might equally well have been called ‘hippocentaurs,’ and in the presentations of Greco-Roman art deserved the name, if I may coin it, of ‘tragocentaurs.’ And the Greeks themselves recognised this fact. ‘The evidence of the coins of Macedonia,’ says Miss Jane Harrison[620], ‘is instructive. On the coins of Orreskii, a centaur, a horse-man, bears off a woman in his arms. At Lete close at hand, with a coinage closely resembling in style, fabric, weight the money of the Orreskii and other Pangaean tribes, the type is the same in _content_, though with an instructive difference of form--a naked Satyr or Seilenos with the hooves, ears and tail of a horse seizes a woman round the waist.... This interchange of types, Satyr and Centaur, is evidence about which there can be no mistake. Satyr and Centaur, slightly diverse types of the horse-man, are in essence one and the same.’ Nor was the recognition of this fact confined to Macedonia. A famous picture by Zeuxis, representing the domestic life of Centaurs, with a female Centaur (a creature about as rare as a female Callicantzaros) suckling her young, pourtrayed her in most respects, apart from her sex, conventionally, but gave her the ears of a Satyr[621]. And reversely Nonnus ventured to describe the ‘shaggy Satyrs’ as being, ‘by blood, of Centaur-stock[622].’ In view then of this close bond between the two types of half-human half-animal creatures, it would be natural that, when the specific name Satyr was lost, as it has been lost, from the popular language, while the generic term Centaur survived in the form Callicantzaros, the Satyrs should have been amalgamated with those who from of old had professed and called themselves Centaurs; and with the Satyrs, I suppose, went also the Sileni.

Thus the word Centaur, in spite of the narrowing tendencies of Greek art which selected the hippocentaur as the ideal type, was always comprehensive in popular use, and perhaps became even wider in scope as time went on and the distinctive appellations of Satyrs and suchlike were forgotten; but it is also possible that from the very earliest times the distinction between Satyrs and Centaurs was merely an artistic and literary convention, and that in popular speech the name Centaur was applied to both without discrimination. But it does not really concern us to argue at length the question whether the common-folk in antiquity never distinguished, or, having once distinguished, subsequently confused the Satyrs and the Centaurs. It is just worth noticing that it was in art of the Greco-Roman period, so far as I can discover, that horse-centaurs first began to be represented along with Satyrs and Sileni in the _entourage_ of Dionysus; and if this addition to the conventional treatment of such scenes was made, as seems likely, in deference to popular beliefs, the date by which the close association of the two classes was an accomplished fact and confusion of them therefore likely to ensue is approximately determined.

At some date therefore probably not later than the beginning of our era, the generic name of Centaur comprised several species of half-human, half-animal monsters, of whom the best known were horse-centaurs, ass-centaurs, Satyrs, and Sileni; and each of these species, it will be seen, has contributed something to one or other of the many types of the modern Centaurs, the Callicantzari.

The horse-centaur, which was the favourite species among the artists of ancient times, has curiously enough had least influence upon the modern delineation of Callicantzari. The only attribute which they seem to have received chiefly from this source is the rough shaggy hair with which they are usually said to be covered; ‘shaggy’ is Homer’s epithet for the Centaurs[623], and the hippocentaurs of later art retained the trait; for it is specially noted by Lucian that in Zeuxis’ picture the male hippocentaur was shaggy all over, the human part of him no less than the equine[624].

The ass-centaur on the contrary is rarely mentioned by ancient writers, but has contributed largely to some presentments of the Callicantzari. Aelian mentions the name, in the feminine form ὀνοκενταύρα, but the monster to which he applies it, although true to its name in that the upper part of its body is human and the lower part asinine, is not a creation of superstitious fancy, but, as is evident from other facts which he mentions, some species of ape known to him, none too accurately, from some traveller’s tale. The _locus classicus_ on the subject of genuine supernatural ass-centaurs is a passage in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah[625]: καὶ συναντήσουσιν δαιμόνια ὀνοκενταύροις καὶ βοηθήσονται ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον, ἐκεῖ ἀναπαύσονται ὀνοκένταυροι εὑρόντες αὑτοῖς ἀνάπαυσιν--‘And demons shall meet with ass-centaurs and they shall bring help one to another; there shall ass-centaurs find rest for themselves and be at rest.’ Here our Revised Version runs:--“The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves (_Heb._ ‘howling creatures’), and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there.” The comparison is instructive. It is clear from the context that the Septuagint translators were minded to give some Greek colouring to their rendering even at the expense of strict accuracy; for in the previous verse, where our Revised Version employs the word ‘jackals,’ the Septuagint introduces beings whose voices are generally supposed to have been more attractive, the Sirens. The use of the word ‘ass-centaurs’ cannot therefore have been prompted by any pedantic notions of literal translation. The creatures, for all the lack of other literary warranty, must have been familiar to the popular imagination. And what may be gleaned from the passage concerning their character? Apparently they are the nearest Greek equivalent for ‘howling creatures’ and for ‘night-monsters’; and such emphasis in the Greek is laid upon the statement that they will ‘find rest for themselves and be at rest,’ that they must surely in general have borne a character for restlessness. These restless noisy monsters of the night, in shape half-human and half-asinine, are clearly in character no less than in form the prototypes of some modern Callicantzari.

Of the many traits inherited by the Callicantzari from the Satyrs and Sileni, the usual comrades of Dionysus, I have already spoken. So far as outward appearance is concerned, the Satyrs as they came to be pourtrayed in the later Greek art are clearly responsible for the goat-type so common in the description of the Callicantzari, while a reminiscence of the Sileni may perhaps be traced in the rarer bald-headed type. But as regards their manner of life, which as I have shown bears many resemblances to that of the Satyrs--their boisterous merriment and rioting, their love of wine, their violence, and their lewdness--these traits cannot of course be referred to the Satyrs any more than to the hippocentaurs or for that matter to the onocentaurs who were probably no more sober or chaste than their kindred. Rather it was the common possession of these qualities by the several types of half-human and half-bestial monsters that allowed them to be grouped together under the single name of Callicantzari.

Thus the conclusion drawn from an historical survey of those ancient festivals which are now represented by the Twelve Days, namely that the Callicantzari are the modern representatives of Dionysus’ monstrous comrades, is both corroborated and amplified by the etymological identification of the Callicantzari (or in the simple and unadorned form, the σκατζάρια) with the Centaurs, of whom the Satyrs and the Sileni are species.

The remaining modern name on which I have to touch readily explains itself in the light of what has already been said. If the word κάντζαρος is the modern form of κένταυρος, and if by the name ‘Centaur’ was denoted a being half-human and half-animal both in shape and in character, then the name λυκοκάντζαρος clearly should mean a creature half-man half-wolf, such as the ancients might have called a lycocentaur, but did actually name λυκάνθρωπος. Lycocantzaros then etymologically should mean the werewolf--a man transformed either by his own power or by some external influence into a wolf.

The idea of lycanthropy has probably been familiar to the peasants of Greece continuously from the earliest ages down to the present day, either surviving traditionally like so many other beliefs, or possibly stimulated by actual experiences; for lycanthropy is not a mere figment of the imagination, but is a very real and terrible form of madness, under the influence of which the sufferer believes himself transformed (and by dress or lack of it tries to transfigure himself) into a wolf or other wild animal, and in that state develops and satisfies a craving for human flesh. Outbreaks of it were terribly frequent in the east of Europe during the Middle Ages, especially among the Slavonic populations; and it is not likely that Greece wholly escaped this scourge. But whether the idea received some such impetus or no, it was certainly known to the ancient Greeks, and is not wholly forgotten at the present day. This was curiously betrayed by some questions put to an American archaeologist by an Arcadian peasant. Among the items of falsehood vended as news by the Greek press he had seen, but owing to the would-be classical style had failed to understand, certain allegations concerning the cannibalistic habits of Red Indians; and the points on which he sought enlightenment were, first, whether they ran on all fours, and, secondly, whether they went naked or wore wolf-skins. In effect the only form of savagery familiar to his mind was that of the werewolf.

Now here, it might be thought, is the clue by which to explain the first conclusion which we reached, namely, that the Callicantzari were originally men capable of transformation into beasts. The name λυκοκάντζαρος or werewolf, it might be urged, involved the idea of such transformation; and the idea originally associated with the one species was extended to the whole tribe of Callicantzari. At first sight such an explanation is attractive and appears tenable; but maturer consideration compels me to reject it.

In the first place, although the word λυκοκάντζαρος cannot etymologically have meant anything but werewolf when it was first employed, at the present day in the few districts where the name may be heard, in Cynouria, in Messenia, and, so far as I can ascertain, in Crete, it involves no idea of the transformation of men into beasts; it is merely a variant form for καλλικάντζαρος and in no way distinguished from it in meaning, and the Callicantzari in those districts are demons of definite hybrid form, not men temporarily transformed into beasts. And conversely in the Cyclades and other places where the belief in this transformation of men is prevalent, the compound λυκοκάντζαρος seems to be unknown, and καλλικάντζαρος (or some dialectic form of the same word) is in vogue. Since then in many places where the generic name Callicantzari is alone in use, the human origin of these monsters is maintained, while in those few districts where the specific name Lycocantzari is also used that human origin is denied, it is hard to believe that in this respect the surviving ideas concerning the genus can be the outcome of obsolete ideas concerning the species.

Secondly, if for the sake of argument it be granted that the Callicantzari had always been demons, how came the werewolf, the λυκάνθρωπος, whose very name proved him half-human, to change that name to λυκοκάντζαρος? How came a man who occasionally turned into a wolf to be classified as one species in a genus of beings who _ex hypothesi_ were not human even in origin, but demoniacal? We should have to suppose that the peasants of that epoch in which the change of name occurred did not distinguish between men and demons--which, as Euclid puts it, is absurd; wherefore the supposition that the Callicantzari had always been regarded as demons until werewolves were admitted to their ranks cannot be maintained. Rather the point of resemblance between the earliest Callicantzari and werewolves, which made the amalgamation of them possible, must have been the belief that both alike were men transformed into animals.

Since then the belief in the metamorphosis of men into Callicantzari existed before that epoch--a quite indeterminate epoch, I am afraid--in which the word λυκάνθρωπος fell into desuetude[626] and was replaced by λυκοκάντζαρος, where are we to look for the origin of the idea?

Since the Callicantzari bear the name of the Centaurs, it is obvious that the enquiry must be carried yet further back, and that the ancient ideas concerning the Centaurs’ origin must be investigated. Pindar touches often upon the Centaur-myths; what view did he take of the Centaurs’ nature? Were they divine in origin or human? We shall see that he held no settled view on the subject. Both traditions concerning the origin of the Centaurs were familiar to him just as both traditions still prevail in modern accounts of the Callicantzari; sometimes he follows the one, sometimes the other. On the one hand the Centaur Chiron is consistently described as divine. ‘Fain would I,’ says Pindar[627], ‘that Chiron ... wide-ruling scion of Cronos the son of Ouranos were living and not gone, and that the Beast of the wilds were ruling o’er the glens of Pelion’; and again he names him ‘Chiron son of Cronos[628]’ and ‘the Beast divine[629].’ In Pindar’s view Chiron, be he Beast or God, is certainly not human; and if he is once named by the same poet ‘the Magnesian Centaur[630],’ the epithet need only perhaps declare his habitation. His divinity is plainly asserted, and the legend that he resigned the divine guerdon of immortality in order to deliver Prometheus accords with Pindar’s doctrine.

But on the other hand the story of Ixion as told by Pindar reveals another tradition. Ixion himself was human; for his presumptuous sin of lusting after the wife of Zeus ‘swiftly he suffered as he, mere man, deserved, and won a misery unique[631].’ The son of Ixion therefore by a nebulous mother could not be divine. The cloud wherewith in his delusion he had mated ‘bare unto him, unblest of the Graces, a monstrous son, a thing apart even as she, with no rank either among men or where gods have their portion; him she nurtured and named Centauros; and he in the dales of Pelion did mate with Magnesian mares, and thence there sprang a wondrous warrior-tribe like unto both their parents--like to their dams in their nether parts, and the upper frame their sire’s[632].’ The first Centaur then, the founder of the race, though only half-human in origin, was in no respect divine. How then came Chiron, one of that race, to be divine? The two traditions are inconsistent. Pindar as a poet was not troubled thereby; he chose now the one, now the other, for his art to embroider. But in the science of mythology the discrepancy of the two traditions is important. Once more we must carry our search further back--to Hesiod and to Homer.

The former, in placing the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs among the scenes wrought on the shield of Heracles[633], says never a word to suggest that either set of combatants were other than human; the contrast between them lies wholly in the weapons they use. The Lapithae have their leaders enumerated, Caineus, Dryas, Pirithous, and the rest; the Centaurs in like manner are gathered about their Chieftains, ‘huge Petraeos and Asbolos the augur and Arctos and Oureios and black-haired Mimas and the two sons of Peukeus, Perimedes and Dryalos.’ The account reads like a description of a fight between two tribes, one of them equipped with body-armour and using spears, the other more primitive and armed only with rude wooden weapons.

To this representation of the Centaurs Homer also, in the _Iliad_, consents; for, though he names them Pheres or ‘Beasts,’ it is quite clear that this is the proper name of a tribe of men--men who dwelt on Mount Pelion and were hardly less valiant than the heroes who conquered them. ‘Never saw I,’ says Nestor, ‘nor shall see other such men as were Pirithous and Dryas, shepherd of hosts, and Caineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemus and Theseus, son of Aegeus, like unto the immortals. Mightiest in sooth were they of men upon the earth, and against mightiest fought, even the mountain-haunting Pheres, and fearfully they did destroy them[634].’ And again we hear how Pirithous ‘took vengeance on the shaggy Pheres, and drave them forth from Pelion to dwell nigh unto the Aethices[635].’ Apart from the name ‘Pheres,’ which will shortly be examined, there is nothing in these passages any more than in that of Hesiod to suggest that the conflict of the Lapithae and the Centaurs means anything but the destruction or expulsion of a primitive and wild mountain-tribe by a people who, in the wearing of body-armour, had advanced one important step in material civilisation. Yet in some respects the tribe of Centaurs were, according to Homer, at least the equals of their neighbours; for Chiron, ‘the justest of the Centaurs[636],’ was the teacher both of the greatest warrior, Achilles[637], and of the greatest physician, Asclepios[638]. The only passage of Homer which has been held to imply that the Centaurs were not men comes not from the _Iliad_ but from the _Odyssey_[639]--ἐξ οὗ Κενταύροισι καὶ ἀνδράσι νεῖκος ἐτύχθη--which Miss Harrison[640] translates ‘Thence ’gan the feud ’twixt Centaurs and mankind,’ inferring therefrom the non-humanity of the Centaurs. It is however legitimate to take the word ἀνδράσι in a stricter sense, and to render the line, ‘Thence arose the feud between Centaurs and heroes,’ to wit, the heroes Pirithous, Dryas, and others; and the inference is then impaired. But in any case the _Iliad_, the earlier authority, consistently depicts both Chiron and the other Centaurs as human. The tradition of a divine origin must have arisen between the date of the _Iliad_ and the time of Pindar, and from then until now popular opinion must have been divided on the question whether the Centaurs, the Callicantzari, were properly men or demons. But one part of the conclusion at which we first arrived, namely that Callicantzari were originally men, is justified by Homer’s and Hesiod’s testimony.

What then of the other part of that conclusion? There is ancient proof that the Callicantzari were originally men; but what witness is there to the metamorphosis of those men into beasts? The Centaurs’ alternative name, Pheres.

An ethnological explanation of this name has recently been put forward by Prof. Ridgeway[641]. Concluding from the evidence of the _Iliad_ that ‘the Pheres are as yet nothing more than a mountain tribe and are not yet conceived as half-horse half-man,’ he points out, on the authority of Pindar, that Pelion was the country of the Magnetes[642] and that Chiron not only dwelt in a cave on Pelion, but is himself called a Magnete[643]. ‘It is then probable,’ he continues[644], ‘that the Centaur myth originated in the fact that the older race (the Pelasgians) had continued to hold out in the mountains, ever the last refuge of the remnants of conquered races. At first the tribes of Pelion may have been friendly to the (Achaean) invader who was engaged in subjugating other tribes with whom they had old feuds; and as the Norman settlers in Ireland gave their sons to be fostered by the native Irish, so the Achaean Peleus entrusted his son to the old Chiron. Nor must it be forgotten that conquering races frequently regard the conquered both with respect and aversion. They respect them for their skill as wizards, because the older race are familiar with the spirits of the land.... On the other hand, as the older race have been driven into the most barren parts of the land, and are being continually pressed still further back, and have their women carried off, they naturally lose no opportunity of making reprisals on their enemies, and sally forth from their homes in the mountains or forests to plunder and in their turn to carry off women. The conquering race consequently regard the aborigines with hatred, and impute to them every evil quality, though when it is necessary to employ sorcery they will always resort to one of the hated race.’

Then follow a series of instances from various parts of the world which amply justify this estimate of the relations between conquerors and conquered. But in applying the principle thus obtained to the case of the Centaurs Prof. Ridgeway goes a little further. ‘As it is therefore certain that aboriginal tribes who survive in mountains and forests are considered not only possessed of skill in magic, but as also bestial in their lusts, _and are even transformed into vipers and wild beasts by the imagination of their enemies_, we may reasonably infer from the Centaur myth that the ancient Pelasgian tribes of Pelion and Ossa had been able to defy the invaders of Thessaly, and that they had from the remotest times possessed these mountains.

‘We can now explain why they are called Pheres, Centauri and Magnetes. Scholars are agreed in holding that Pheres (φῆρες) is only an Aeolic form for θῆρες, “wild beasts.” Such a name is not likely to have been assumed by the tribe itself, but is rather an opprobrious term applied to them by their enemies. Centauri was probably the name of some particular clan of Magnetes[645].’

Prof. Ridgeway then, as I understand, believes the Centauri to have been named Pheres or ‘Beasts’ by their enemies because they were bestial in character, and supports his view by the statement which I have italicised. On this point I join issue.

First, the phrase in question is based upon one only out of the many instances which he adduces as evidence of the relations between invaders and aborigines--and that the most dubious, for it depends upon a somewhat arbitrary interpretation of a passage[646] of Procopius. ‘He wrote,’ says Prof. Ridgeway[647], ‘in the sixth century of Britain thus: “The people who in old time lived in this island of Britain built a great wall, which cut off a considerable portion of it. On either side of this wall the land, climate and everything are different. For the district to the east of the wall enjoys a healthy climate, changing with the seasons, being moderately warm in summer and cool in winter. It is thickly inhabited by people who live in the same way as other folk.” After enumerating its natural advantages he then proceeds to say that “On the west of the wall everything is quite the opposite; so that, forsooth, it is impossible for a man to live there for half-an-hour. Vipers and snakes innumerable and every kind of wild beast share the possession of that country between them; and what is most marvellous, the natives say that if a man crosses the wall and enters the district beyond it, he immediately dies, being quite unable to withstand the pestilential climate which prevails there, and that any beasts that wander in there straightway meet their death.”

‘There seems little doubt that the wall here meant is the Wall of Hadrian, for the ancient geographers are confused about the orientation of the island.

‘It is therefore probable that the vipers and wild beasts who lived beyond the wall were nothing more than the Caledonians, nor is it surprising to learn that a sudden death overtook either man or beast that crossed into their territory.’

That a native British statement made in the sixth century to the effect that the country beyond Hadrian’s wall was pestilential in climate and infested with vipers, snakes, and wild beasts, should be considered as even probable evidence that either the Romans or the natives of Britain regarded the Caledonians as noxious animals, is to me surprising. The question whether the Centaurs were called Pheres because of their bestial repute among neighbouring tribes must be decided independently of that inference and on its own merits.

Secondly then, was there anything bestial in the conduct of the Centaurs, as known to Homer, which could have won for them the name of ‘Beasts’? All that ancient mythology tells of their conduct may be briefly summarised; they fought with the men and carried off the women of neighbouring tribes, and occasionally drank wine to excess. Were the Achaeans then such ardent abstainers that they dubbed those who indulged too freely in intoxicants ‘Beasts’? Did the invaders of Greece and the assailants of Troy hold fighting so reprehensible? Or was it the Centaurs’ practice of carrying off the women of their enemies which convicted them of ‘bestial lust’? In all ages surely _humanum est errare_, but in that early age the practice was not only human but manly; the enemy’s womenfolk were among the rightful prizes of a raid. There is nothing then in mythology to warrant the belief that the Centaurs’ moral conduct was such as to win for them, in that age, the opprobrious name of ‘Beasts.’

And here Art supports Mythology; for clearly the representation of the Centaurs in semi-animal form cannot be dissociated from their name of Pheres; the same idea must lie at the root of both. If then the name Pheres was given to the Centaurs because of their violence or lust, the animal portion of them in the representations of early Greek Art should have been such as to express one or both of those qualities. But what do we find? In discussing the development of the horse-centaur in art, Miss Harrison[648] points out that though in horse-loving Athens, by the middle of the fifth century B.C., the equine element predominated in the composite being, ‘in archaic representations the reverse is the case. The Centaurs are in art what they are in reality, _men_ with men’s legs and feet, but they are shaggy mountain-men with some of the qualities and habits of beasts; so to indicate this in a horse-loving country they have the hind-quarters of a horse awkwardly tacked on to their human bodies.’ Now the particular ‘qualities and habits of beasts,’ if such there be, in the Centaurs must be their violence and lust. Are these then adequately symbolised by ‘the hind-quarters of a horse awkwardly tacked on to their human bodies’? In scenes of conflict, in the archaic representations, it is the human part of the Centaur which bears the brunt of the fight, and the weapon used is a branch of a tree, the primitive human weapon; the Centaur fights as a man fights. If he had been depicted with horns or teeth or claws as his weapons of offence, then the animal part of him would fairly symbolise his bestial violence; but who could discover a trace of pugnacity in his equine loins and rump, hind legs and tail? Or again if pugnacity is not the particular quality which caused the Centaurs to be named ‘Beasts’ and to be pourtrayed in half-animal form, is it their lewdness which art thus endeavoured to suggest? Surely, if the early artists had understood that the name Pheres was a contemptuous designation of a tribe bestial in their lust, Greek taste was not so intolerant of ithyphallic representations that they need have had recourse to so cryptic a symbol as the hind-quarters of a horse. But if it be supposed that, while a sense of modesty, unknown to later generations, deterred those early artists from a more obvious method of expressing their meaning, the idea of the Centaurs’ lewdness was really present to their minds, then Chiron too falls under the same condemnation and is tainted with the same vice as the rest. ‘A black-figured vase,’ says Prof. Ridgeway, _à propos_ of the virtues, not of the vices, of this one Centaur, ‘shows the hero (Peleus) bringing the little Achilles to Chiron, who is depicted as a venerable old man with a white beard and clad in a long robe from under the back of which issues the hinder part of a diminutive pony, the equine portion being a mere adjunct to the complete human figure[649].’ So far then as the animal part is concerned, the representation of Chiron in early art differs no whit from that of other Centaurs, and the quality, which is symbolised by the equine adjunct in these, is imputed to him also. Yet to convict of bestial lust the virtuous Chiron, the chosen teacher of great heroes, is intolerable. In effect, no explanation of the name Pheres in mythology and of the biform representation of the Centaurs in art can be really satisfactory which does not reckon with Chiron, the most famous and ‘the most just’ of the Centaurs, as well as with the rest of the tribe. Some characteristic common to them all--and therefore not lust or any other evil passion--must be the basis of any adequate interpretation of the name ‘Beasts.’

If then the name Pheres cannot have been an opprobrious term applied to the Pelasgian tribe of Centauri by the Achaean invaders in token of their lusts or other evil qualities, can it have been a term of respect? It may not now sound a respectful title; but in view of that ethnological principle which Prof. Ridgeway enunciates, namely ‘that conquering races frequently regard the conquered both with respect and aversion,’ the enquiry is worth pursuing. The principle itself seems to me well established; it is only his application of it in the particular case of the Centaurs to which I have demurred.

The conquering race, he shows, are apt to respect the conquered for their skill as wizards. This certainly holds true in the case before us. Chiron was of high repute in the arts of magic and prophecy. It was from him that Asclepios learned ‘to be a healer of the many-plaguing maladies of men; and thus all that came unto him whether plagued with self-grown sores or with limbs wounded by the lustrous bronze or stone far-hurled, or marred by summer heat or winter cold--these he delivered, loosing each from his several infirmity, some with emollient spells and some by kindly potions, or else he hung their limbs with charms, or by surgery he raised them up to health[650].’ And it was Chiron too to whom Apollo himself resorted for counsel, and from whom he learned the blissful destiny of the maiden Cyrene[651]. Nor was Chiron the only exponent of such arts among the Centaurs; for Hesiod names also Asbolos as a diviner.

If then the tribe of Centaurs enjoyed a reputation for sorcery, could this have won for them the name of ‘Beasts’? Can it have been that, in the exercise of their magic powers, they were believed able to transform themselves into beasts?

Within the limits of Greek folk-lore we have already once encountered such a belief, namely in the case of the ‘Striges,’ old witches capable of turning themselves into birds of prey; and in the folk-lore of the world at large the idea is extremely frequent. There is no need to encumber this chapter with a mass of recorded instances; the verdict of the first authority on the subject is sufficient. According to Tylor[652], the belief ‘that certain men, by natural gift or magic art, can turn for a time into ravening wild beasts’ is ‘a widespread belief, extending through savage, barbaric, classic, oriental, and mediaeval life, and surviving to this day in European superstition.’ ‘The origin of this idea,’ he says, ‘is by no means sufficiently explained,’ but he notes that ‘it really occurs that, in various forms of mental disease, patients prowl shyly, long to bite and destroy mankind, and even fancy themselves transformed into wild beasts.’ Whether such cases of insanity are the cause or the effect of the belief, he does not determine; but he adds, what is most important to the present issue, that ‘professional sorcerers have taken up the idea, as they do any morbid delusion, and pretend to turn themselves and others into beasts by magic art’; and, later on[653], citing by way of illustration a passage of the _Eclogues_[654], in which Vergil ‘tells of Moeris as turning into a wolf by the use of poisonous herbs, as calling up souls from the tombs, and as bewitching away crops,’ he points out that in the popular opinion of Vergil’s age ‘the arts of the werewolf, the necromancer or “medium,” and the witch, were different branches of one craft.’

If then the Centaurs were a tribe of reputed sorcerers and also obtained the secondary name of ‘Beasts,’ the analogy of worldwide superstitions suggests that the link between these two facts is to be found in their magical power of assuming the shape of beasts.

What particular beast-shape the Centaurs most often affected need not much concern us. The analogy, on which my interpretation of the name Pheres rests, makes certainly for some shape more terrifying than that of a horse; and the word φῆρες itself also denotes wild and savage beasts rather than domestic animals. But the horse-centaur, though it monopolised art, was not the only form of centaur known, nor, if we may judge from modern descriptions of the Callicantzari, had it so firm a hold on the popular imagination as some other types. Possibly its very existence is due only to the aesthetic taste of a horse-loving people. Pindar certainly knew of one Centaurus earlier in date and far more monstrous than the horse-centaurs which artists chose to depict, and provided a genealogy accordingly. Moreover in the passage of Hesiod which I have quoted above and which, by its agreement with the _Iliad_ as to the human character of the Centaurs, is proved to embody an early tradition, there is at least a suggestion of a more savage form assumed by the Centaurs. Several of their names in that passage[655] seem to indicate various qualities and habits which they possessed. One is called Petraeos, because the Centaurs lived in rocky caves or because they hurled rocks at their foes; another is Oureios, because they were a mountain-tribe; then there are the two sons of Peukeus, so named because the Centaurs’ weapons were pine-branches. And why is another named Arctos? Is it not because the Centaurs assumed by sorcery the form of bears? There is some probability then that the equine type of Centaur, the conventional Centaur of Greek Art, was a comparatively late development, and that the remote age which gave to the Centaurs the name of Pheres believed rather that that tribe of sorcerers were wont to transform themselves into the more monstrous and terrible shapes of bears and other wild beasts.

But if the particular animal which Greek artists selected as a component part of their Centaurs is thus of minor importance, the fact that their Centaurs were always composite in conception, always compounded of the human and the animal, is highly significant. In discussing the various types of Callicantzari in various parts of Greece, we found that, where there exists a belief in their power of metamorphosis, they are stated to appear in single and complete shapes, while, where the belief in their transformation is unknown, they are represented in composite shapes; and having previously concluded that the belief in their metamorphosis was a genuine and original factor in the superstition, we were led to formulate the principle, that a being of some single, normal, and known shape who has originally been believed capable of transforming himself into one or more other single, normal, and known shapes, comes to be represented, when the belief in his power of transformation dies out, as a being of composite, abnormal, and fantastic shape, combining incongruous features of the several single, normal, and known shapes. Now the horse-centaur of Greek Art is a being of composite, abnormal, and fantastic shape, combining incongruous features of man and animal. If then the principle based on facts of modern Greek folk-lore may be applied to the facts of ancient Greek folk-lore, the horse-centaur of Greek Art replaced a completely human Centaur capable of transforming himself into completely animal form.

Moreover I am inclined to think that such a development was likely to occur in the representations of art even more readily than in verbal descriptions. For even if the artist belonged to an age which had not yet forgotten that the Centaurs were human beings capable of turning themselves by sorcery into beasts, how was he to distinguish the Centaur in his picture either from an ordinary man, if the Centaur were in his ordinary human shape, or from a real animal, if the Centaur were in his assumed shape? He might of course have drawn an ordinary man and have inscribed the legend, ‘This is a Centaur capable of assuming other forms’; or he might have drawn an ordinary animal with the explanatory note, ‘This is not really an animal but a Centaur in disguise.’ But if such expedients did not satisfy his artistic instincts, what was he to do? Surely his only course was to depict the Centaur in his normal human shape, and by some animal adjunct to indicate his powers of transformation. And that is what he did; for in the earliest art the fore part of the Centaur is a complete human figure, and the hind part is a somewhat disconnected equine appendage[656].

Nor is this artistic convention without parallel in ancient Greece. At Phigalea there was once, we are told, an ancient statue of Demeter represented as a woman with the head and mane of a horse; and the explanation of this equine adjunct was that she had once assumed the form of a mare[657]. In other words, the power of transformation was indicated in art by a composite form.

Hence indeed it is not unlikely that the very method which early artists adopted of indicating the Centaurs’ power to assume various single forms, being misunderstood by later generations among whom the Centaurs’ human origin and faculty of magical transformation were no longer predominant traditions, contributed not a little to the conception of Centaurs in an invariable composite form; and that later art, by blending the two incongruous elements into a more harmonious but less significant whole, confirmed men in that misunderstanding, until the old traditions became a piece of rare and local lore.

Thus on three separate grounds--the analogy of world-wide superstition which attributes to sorcerers the power of assuming bestial form; the tendency detected in modern Greek folk-lore to replace beings of single shape, but capable of transforming themselves into other single shapes, by creatures of composite shape; and the contrast between the horse-centaurs of archaic art and those of the Parthenon--we are led to the same conclusion, namely that the Centaurs were a tribe of reputed sorcerers whose most striking manifestation of power, in the eyes of their Achaean neighbours, was to turn themselves into wild beasts. The name Pheres was then in truth a title of respect, a title in no way derogatory to the virtuous Chiron, who, if he exercised his magical powers chiefly in mercy and healing, shared doubtless with the other Centaurs the miraculous faculty of metamorphosis.

Our first conclusion then concerning the Callicantzari, namely that they were originally men capable of turning into beasts, was no less correct than the second conclusion which showed them as the modern representatives of Dionysus’ attendant Satyrs and Sileni. Where the beliefs in their human origin and in their power of metamorphosis still prevail, Greek tradition has preserved not only the name but the essential character of the ancient Centaurs.