Читать книгу Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals онлайн

150 страница из 204

Once only, from a fellow-traveller in the Cyclades, did I obtain any explanation at all of the use of the coin, εἶναι καλὸ γιὰ τἀερικά[218], ‘it is useful because of the aërial ones.’ This sounds vague enough, but nothing more save gestures of uncertainty could I elicit. Was the coin useful, in his view, as a fee to be paid to ‘the aërial ones’ on the soul’s journey from this world to the next, or as a charm against the assaults of such beings? That was the question to which I sought an answer from him, but in vain. For myself I cannot determine in which sense the dark saying was actually meant. The former would accord well with one local belief of the present day, if only my informant had specified one particular kind of aërial beings who are believed to take toll of departing souls; but to this I shall return in a later section of this chapter[219]. The second interpretation of the words, however, whether they were intended in that sense by the speaker or not, furnishes what will be shown by other evidence to be the key to the origin of the custom.