Kallikantzaros

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The kallikantzaros (Template:Transl,Template:Langx) is a malevolent creature in modern Greek folklore.

Kallikantzaroi are believed to dwell underground spending most of the time trying to saw down the giant tree that supports the earth,[1][2] but come to the surface during the twelve days of Christmas, from 25 December to 6 January (to Theophany/Epiphany).[3][4][5][6]

Its equivalents occur in Bulgarian (Template:Transl, Script error: No such module "Lang".), Serbian (Template:Transl, Script error: No such module "Lang".)),[1] Bosnian,[7] Albanian (Script error: No such module "Lang".), Cypriot,[8] and Turkish folklore (Script error: No such module "Lang".).

Nomenclature

Forms

Alternate spellings in Greek include Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang"., Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang"., Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang"..[4]

Locally Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". on Zakynthos island, Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". on Lesbos, Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". in Cyprus,[9]Template:Efn Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". on Cythera,[10]Template:Efn and other forms as well.Template:Efn[4]

Etymology

The Greek term Template:Translit breaks down into Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". "good, beautiful" and Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". possibly derived from Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". "centaur",[3] but this "beautiful centaur" speculation has been met with many objections.[11][4]

The theory that kántzaros may derive from Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". "scarab beetle", proposed by Adamantios Koraïs[12] has also been rejected by Template:Interlanguage link (1910)Template:Sfnp[3]Template:Refn who favored the centaur explanation.[13]Template:Refn But Franz Boll (1909) supported it, noting that the "holy kantharos" had entered mystical literature, so that it has been invoked in a magic papyrus as "the lord of all".Template:Efn[14] It has been noted that this construct is also justifiable under a different meaning, as kantharoscan mean a type of vase used strictly in Dionysian festivities, and in Rhodes, the subtype of kallintzaros is in fact called "kantharos".[15]

Template:Interlanguage link (1873) concluded that the word defies explanation in Greek. The form Template:Translit Script error: No such module "Lang". attested among the Greek population of Stenimachos (Asenovgrad, Bulgaria) and glossed as "mischievous demon",Template:Refn suggests the Albanian term Script error: No such module "Lang".,Template:Refn meaning "gypsy ghost", borrowed from Turkish kara-kondjolos ("werewolf, vampire",[4] from Script error: No such module "Lang". "black" and Script error: No such module "Lang". "bloodsucker, werewolf").[16] This Turkish etymology had not found favor with Boll (1909), who backed the kantharos derivation tied to ancient Greek-Egyptian cults,[14][17] but this orientalist origin is endorsed by Albanologists such as Maximilian Lambertz (1973).[16][18]

Greek folklore

It is believed that kallikantzaroi stay underground, sawing the trunk of the tree that holds the Earth, so that it will collapse, along with the Earth. However, according to folklore, when the final part of the trunk is about to be sawed, Christmas dawns and kallikantzaroi are able to come to the surface. They forget the tree and come to bring trouble to mortals, by playing pranks.[11][2] They come down the chimney, urinate on the fireplace, befoul the food, water, or wine, spoil the milk, break furniture, devour the Christmas pork, and terrorize people.[2][5][1]

Finally, on the Epiphany (6 January), the sun starts moving again, and they must return underground to continue their sawing. They see that during their absence the world tree has healed itself, so they must start working all over again. This is believed to occur annually.[15][19][2]

Appearance

File:Illustration of a kallikantzaros.jpg
Pencil illustration from 2020 depicting a hairy kallikantzaros with goat legs, donkey ears, burning red eyes, and a long tail

There is no standard description of the appearance of kallikantzaroi; there are regional variations as to how their appearance is described (cf. Template:Section link below). Sometimes they are said to be enormous, and sometimes diminutive.[11]Template:Refn They may be black and hairy, with burning red eyes, goats' or donkeys' ears, tongues that hang out, beastly limbs and paws (monkeys' arms,[5][20] horse or donkey-likeTemplate:Refn feet[11][5] or cleft hooves).[20] It is almost always male, often with prominent sexual organs.[11] Alternate descriptions depict it as squint-eyed[20] or even one-eyed,[21] or blind.[22][11] It is also said to be lame-legged,[20][11] knock-kneed,Template:Refn or reverse-footed.[2]

Nonetheless, the most common belief is that they are ugly goblins with horns and a long black tails,[4] or small, black creature resembling little black devils.[22]

Lore

According to the old lore on Chios (as described by Leo Allatius, mid-17th century), the shaggy-looking kallikantzaroiTemplate:Refn roamed around during the 12-day Christmas season, slashing victims with sharp claws. It also sat down on the victim and asked the question "Tow (clump of hemp fiber[11]) or lead?",Template:Efn and if the first answer is given the person is spared and released, but if the latter answer is given, the person is crushed down by tremendous weight and beaten half to death. One way to protect against it, according to superstition already established back at that time, is to leave a sieve (colander)Template:Efn to distract the kallikantzaros into counting the holes. It would start one, two, but he cannot pronounce three, "as if it were an evil omen"Template:Efn (i.e., three is a holy numberTemplate:Refn[1]) and it would have to start counting from one again and never complete its task.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn The apotropaic lore was similarly told (c. mid to late 19th century) on Zakynthos.Template:Sfnp[6] An alternate version is to leave out a clump of tangled hemp, and the kallikantzaros becomes engrossed with counting the threads until the cock crows, and the dawn light supposedly destroys it.Template:Sfnp

In Zakynthos, it is said that a child born on Christmas Eve eventually becomes a skalikántzaros, due to having been from a sinful woman who dared to conceive a child on the same day as Mary, mother of Jesus.Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn[6] Such a child develops the ability to transform into a kallikantzaros during the Christmas season, in its adulthood. Superstitious parents in Chios used to force a child born in the wrong season to have its feet exposed to fire at the point of fusing off their toenails.Template:RefnTemplate:RefnTemplate:Refn It also came to be believed that the antidote for preventing this transformation was to bind the baby with tresses (bouquets) of garlic or straw.[20]Template:Sfnp

But in other parts of Greece, the creature is not regarded as a transformed human, but rather as a class of demons that are shaggy, with goat or donkey-like feet and goat ears, loving to dance and lusting after women,Template:Refn hence akin to satyr or Pan.Template:Sfnp

The kallikantzaroi are said feed on frogs, worms, snakes, and other small creatures.[20][22] It is also said that pork is their favorite food.Template:Sfnp

Bribes of desserts and honey cakes may be placed to lure the spirit away from people.Template:Sfnp In Samos, dessert is put out on New Year's Eve to appease these spirits. In Cyprus, eggs and sausages used to be customarily put out on Epiphany,Template:Refn but in later years, pancakes became the standard fare to be scattered on the rooftop on this last day of the season, when the kallikantzaroi are ready to leave.Template:Sfnp Also “Lokma” (donut-like dessert soaked in syrup) on the rooftop is said to keep goblins away from home.[23]

Since the favorite means of kallikantzaroi to enter the home is through the chimney,Template:Sfnp[5][20] keeping the fire burning in the fireplace throughout the night will foil them from entering. Some people would burn the Yule log (Template:Translit[24]) for the duration of the twelve days,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp or people would throw foul-smelling shoes into the fire, as the stench was believed to repel the kallikantzaroi, forcing them to stay away.[24]Template:Refn Salt as well as old shoes are thrown into the fireplace to repel the kallikantzaroi.Template:Sfnp Additional ways to keep them away included marking one's door with a black cross on Christmas EveTemplate:Sfnp and burning incense.Template:Sfnp Or a pig's lower jaw (subscribed to have apotropaic powers) is hung behind the front door or inside the chimney to ward them off.Template:Sfnp

Origin theories

One theory ties the origin of the goblin lore to the masquerades of the ancient winter festival of Dionysus (Dionysia, cf. Roman Bacchanalia), whose practice has been carried on into the modern age, involving masked parties, wearing such masks as grotesque as can be, loudly jingling bells, and visiting door to door. Their possibly fright-causing antics may have inspired the lore of the seasonal goblin.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Another view, subscribed to by Allatius, is that kallikantzaros is nothing more than the folkloric nightmare, a monstrosity that presses or rides people, except that the period is constrained to yuletide.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Serbian folklore

In Serbian Christmas traditions, the Twelve Days of Christmas were previously called the "unbaptized days"[25] or "unchristened days"[26] (Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang".) when it was considered dangerous to be loitering outside the house after dark when diabolical forces of all kinds gained power and people were vulnerable. Especially mythical demons called Script error: No such module "Lang".[26][25] (Script error: No such module "lang".;Template:Sfnp[25] also Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang"., Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang". or Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang".[27][28]) could ride people each night for the duration of the unbaptized days, until the crowing of the rooster announcing the dawn, and straightaway the karakondžula or other witches or ghosts tormenting victims would disperse and begone.[29][25]

The roaming karakondžula would find disobedient children, and beat them or devour them.Template:Sfnp In the Zaječar District, belief in karakondžula tend to concentrate among the (olderTemplate:Efn) Timok populace, and the groups (arrived from) Zagorje or Kosovo, as they were under greater influence of oriental culture. The lore is less known among the Vlach who were latecomers to the area from across the Danube. The picture of the creature is rather vague, but it is regarded as a female, black in color, with long outstretching arms grabbing women and children, entering from the chimney.Template:Sfnp

In the villages of Vratarnica and Zagrađe in Zaječar District, the karakondžula is sometimes regarded as a water she-devil, of black color, and presumably ugly and untidy, as the common pejorative is to call a woman a karakondžula if she fit that sort of description. The karakondžula appears by night and rides people wandering about, but disappears when the first roosters crow.Template:Sfnp

In the Leskovac-Morava area the karakondžula are said to dwell in the crossroads or above the thresholdTemplate:Efn and lie in wait for the victim, calling out the resident's name, not so much to attack directly, but to cause the person to leave the house and wander aimlessly, eventually to drown in some ravine. A countermeasure for this is the incantation invoking thunderbolt and millstone to strike it down,Template:Efn which causes the haunter to flee.Template:Sfnp

In Gruža, the karakondžule (aka Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang".) are also considered aquatic, living in streams or deep forests,Template:Sfnp emerging in the unbaptized days.Template:Efn Large and fat, it rides people, targeting especially the drunkards.Template:Refn

More generally, karakondžula may dwell in the doorframe /doorjamb,Template:Efn the threshold and doorframe being the place traditionally inhabited by ancestral spirits or ghosts.Template:Sfnp

The karakondžula also come after sinful adulterers. In one version, the karakondžula would come back every night and remain on the door lintel until the adulterers confessed their sins to their significant other.[30]

The "koledari" carol performers are specifically tasked with driving away the karakondžule according to the lore of Leskovac and Vranje.Template:Refn

The karakondžula haunting in the doorframe, together with its ties to the chimney and rooftop, appears to point to its origin as a chthonic demon. Aquatic habitat (as in the Gruža lore) also bolsters the chthonic characterization. But ultimately the karakondžula is foreign introduced and lore "not ours" (non-Slavic, non-Serbian), according to ethnographer Slobodan Zečević.Template:Sfnp

Bulgarian folklore

The Bulgarian name of the demon is Template:Transl (Template:Langx), Template:Transl (Template:Langx) Template:Transl (Template:Langx),[31] Template:Transl (Template:Langx),[32] or Template:Transl (Template:Langx),[32]

This bogy of the unbaptized nights was called by other names such as Template:Transl "little pagans", Template:Transl "bugbears", or Template:Transl "hobgoblins".[31]

Etymology from Turkish Script error: No such module "Lang". "frightening" (as opposed to the "black werewolf" derivation above) has been suggested by Template:Interlanguage link.[32]

They may be conceived of variously: as being human-like except for having a hairy body, a tail, and a large head with horns on it, or a one-eyed being standing on a single leg,[31] or a horse-headed man.[31]Template:Sfnp It is considered a shape-shifter which may appear as a dog, a man, a sheep, or a calf.[31] It is reputed to dwell in caves, or rivers, or abandoned water mill,[31] and come out at night.[31]

It would pounce on a traveler during the unbaptized days, and mount its victim ("they got astride people"[31]), not leaving until the rooster's crow.Template:Sfnp When ridden by them, the victim is made to run through fields, or even fall off tall tree or cliffs.[31] When called by them it is crucial not to respond.[31]

It was said to grow out of the head of a pig slaughtered on Christmas.[31] It was also said to drink the blood of the Christmas roast.Template:Sfnp On the other hand, in Lovech Province, leaving the slaughtered pig (or just its head) next to the Template:Transl (<Template:Transl "chimney"[33]) is supposed to frighten and drive away the karakončo.Template:Refn

Albanian folklore

In Albanian folklore, there is the Script error: No such module "Lang". (definite form: Script error: No such module "Lang"., related to Greek Script error: No such module "Lang".,[18] var. Script error: No such module "Lang".[16]).

In one version, it is a werewolf-like mysterious creature, of small stature, wearing iron clothes, with which it performs miracles. Also known as Script error: No such module "Lang"., lit. "Saint Andrew".[18]

In another version, the karkanxholl is a ghost of a gypsy which roams around during the twelve days of Christmas, jangling its chains, and effusing a deadly breath,[18][16] whose legend is known especially among Calabrian Albanians.[16] According to this lore, the Script error: No such module "Lang". (definite form: Script error: No such module "Lang".[34]) or Script error: No such module "Lang"., which is another type of undead corpse, also becomes animated and active during the same Christmas cycle.[16]

A coat of mail or chainmail armor is called Script error: No such module "Lang". (var.Script error: No such module "Lang".).[18][16]

See also

Explanatory notes

Template:Notelist

References

Citations

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  1. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Cf. Template:Section link, language is closely akin, and dictionary forms are cited.
  8. ↑ Cf. Template:Section link
  9. ↑ Citing Sakellarios III, p. 127
  10. ↑ Citing Pandora XII, φ. 288, p. 598
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ "Ατακτα ΙΙΙΙ, 1, p. 211
  13. ↑ Template:Harvp et passim.
  14. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ a b c d e f g Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Template:Harvp, endnote 71 to p. 169
  18. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".@ HathiTrust
  25. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ "караконџа, f. караконџула, караконџул". Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ "Script error: No such module "Lang"." cross-referenced to "{{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOtQDbFrr2wC&pg=PA142%7C2=Script error: No such module "Lang"." s.vv. Nusret Mulasmajic ed. (2011)Bosnian-English Dictionary, glossed synonymously as 'witch'.
  29. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". excerpted in Template:Harvp
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Словарь болгарскаго языка (1889) 1: 48, s.v. "Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".".
  34. ↑ Template:Harvp A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture ,s.v. "Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".", p, 153

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Bibliography

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  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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Sources

External links

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