Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

174 Zeus superseded by Saint Elias

114 years old and -was certainly a centenarian, told him the tale here summarised
(id. id. i. 399 ff. n.):— ■

' St Dhimitra was a charitable old woman, who lived at Athens. She had a
daughter of wondrous beauty : none so fair had been seen since mistress Aphrodite
(Kvpa ^podirrj). One day as the girl was combing her hair, which was golden in
colour and reached to the ground, a Turkish aga from the neighbourhood of Souli
saw her and fell in love with her. He was a wicked man and a magician. When
she rejected his advances, he resolved to carry her off to his harem. So one Christmas
night, while Dhimitra was at church, the aga burst open the house-door, seized the
maiden, and despite her cries of distress rode off with her on his horse. The horse
was a marvellous creature : it was black with fiery nostrils, and could in a single
bound spring from east to west. In a few moments it carried the ravisher and his
victim into the mountains of Epeiros. Dhimitra on her return from church was broken-
hearted at the loss of her daughter. She asked the neighbours, who, dreading Turkish
vengeance, dared not tell what they knew. She questioned the Tree that grew in front
of the house, but the Tree could give no information. She enquired of the Sun, the
Moon, the Stars, but all in vain. At last the Stork that nested on the roof of her
house said: " We have long been living side by side. You are as old as I am, and
have always been kind to me. Once you helped me to drive off a bird of prey, which
wanted to steal my little ones. So I will tell you what has happened. A Turk on
a black horse has carried off your daughter towards the west. Come, I will help you
look for her." They set out together over the snowy mountains. But those whom
they met by the way either mocked at them or gave no answer to their questions.
Dhimitra wept and wailed, and men—since they do not care for sorrow—closed their
doors against her. On reaching Lepsina (Eleusis) she fell, overcome with fatigue ;
indeed she would have died, had not Marigo, wife of Nicolas the khodja-bachi or
headman of the village, seen her by the road-side and taken her in. In return for
the hospitality of Nicolas and Marigo, Dhimitra blessed their fields and made them
fruitful. Nicolas' son, the smartest pallikar in the district, pursued the quest, on con-
dition that he might wed the stolen girl. Accompanied by the faithful Stork, he walked
for many days, and one night in the heart of the mountains found forty dragons watching
a great cauldron, which was boiling on a fire. He lifted the cauldron with one hand,
lighted a torch at the fire, and replaced the pot. The dragons, astonished at his strength,
took him with them to help in getting possession of a maiden kept by a magician in a
very high tower. Nicolas' son drove nails into the tower, climbed up withdrawing
the nails after him lest the dragons should follow, and squeezed through a narrow
window at the top. He then told the dragons to do the same. This gave him time
to kill them one by one as they entered and to throw their bodies down on the other
side of the tower, where there was a large court-yard and a magnificent garden and
castle. He afterwards went down into the tower and found Dhimitra's daughter.
While he was making love to her, the aga fell upon him, and they wrestled together.
The aga transformed himself into a lion, a serpent, a bird of prey, a flame, and in
these various disguises struggled for three days, till at last he slew and quartered the
young pallikar. He then forced the daughter of Dhimitra to yield to his desires,
though he had hitherto respected her virginity. But in the night the Stork flew off,
fetched a magic herb, and rubbed it on the lips of the dead youth; whereupon he
came to life again, and attacked the aga with greater fury than before. He invoked
the aid of the Panaghia, vowing that, if successful, he would become a monk in the
monastery of Phaneromeni (in Salamis). He thus prevailed and overthrew his adversary.
The Stork pecked out the aga's eyes and also a white hair from his black top-knot—the
hair on which the magician's life depended. The pallikar brought the girl back to
Lepsina just at the beginning of spring, when the flowers first appear : he then became
a monk in accordance with his vow. St Dhimitra with her daughter quitted the place,
and no one knows where they have gone: but ever since, thanks to her benediction,
the fields of Lepsina have been fertile.'