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

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Closely bound up with these miraculous cures is the old pagan practice of ἐγκοίμησις, sleeping in the sanctuary of the god whose healing touch is sought. At Tenos the majority of the pilgrims who come for the festival of Lady-day can only afford to stop for the one night which precedes it. The sight then is strange indeed. The whole floor of the church and a great part of the courtyard outside is covered with recumbent worshippers. With them they have brought mattresses and blankets for those of the sick for whom a stone floor is too hard; by their side is piled baggage of all descriptions, cooking utensils, loaves of bread, jars of wine or water, everything in fact necessary for a long night’s watch or slumber. And on this mass of close-packed suffering worshippers the doors of the church are locked from nine in the evening till early next morning. Shortly before the closing-hour I picked my way with difficulty in the dim light over prostrate forms from the south to the north door. The atmosphere was suffocating and reeked with the smoke of wax tapers which all day long the pilgrims had been burning before the icon. Every malady and affliction seemed to be represented; the moaning and coughing never stopped: and I wondered, not whether there would be any miraculous cures, but how many deaths there would be in the six or seven hours of confinement before even the doors were again opened.