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The existence of this deity among the survivals of the old religion has never, I think, been observed by any writer on the subject of Greek folk-lore. But in Bernhard Schmidt’s collection of popular stories and songs there is evidence, whose value he himself did not recognise, to corroborate it. One of the songs[159] from Zacynthos contains the lines:

Ἔκαμ’ ὁ Θεὸς κι’ ἡ Παναγι̯ὰ κι’ ἡ Δέσποινα τοῦ κόσμου,

καὶ ἐπολέμησα με Τούρκους, μ’ Ἀρβανίταις·

χίλιους ἔκοψα, χίλιους καὶ δυ̯ὸ χιλιάδες.

‘They wrought in me, even God and the Virgin and the Mistress of the world, and I fought with Turks and with Albanians: a thousand I slew, a thousand yea and two thousand.’

The editor of this song omits from his translation and does not even mention in his notes the last phrase of the first line, assuming, I suppose, that the Virgin is mentioned twice over under two different titles; but it is at least possible that three persons are intended. God and the Virgin belong to the category of Christian deities; the third may be the pagan goddess already discovered in Messenia, Arcadia, and Aetolia; if so, the collocation of her name along with those of the highest Christian powers is strong testimony to the reverence with which the people of Zacynthos too were wont, and perhaps still continue, to regard her.