Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Rain-magic in modern Greece 285

Better known is the rain-magic of northern Greece and the
Balkans. In times of prolonged drought a girl is dressed up in
flowers and, with a troop of children at her heels, is sent round to
all the wells and springs of the district. At every halting-place she
is drenched with water by her comrades, who sing this invocation1:

Perperia, all fresh bedewed,
Freshen all the neighbourhood ;
By the woods, on the highway,
As thou goest, to God now pray:
O my God, upon the plain,
Send thou us a still, small rain;
That the fields may fruitful be,
And vines in blossom we may see;
That the grain be full and sound,
And wealthy grow the folks around;
Wheat and barley
Ripen early,

Maize and cotton now take root;
Rye and rice and currant shoot;
Gladness be in gardens all;
For the drought may fresh dews fall;
Water, water, by the pail;
Grain in heaps beneath the flail;
Bushels grow from every ear ; #
Each vine-stem a burden bear.
Out with drought and poverty,
Dew and blessings would we see.

At Shatista in south-west Makedonia the song is alliterative2:

Perperuna perambulates
And to God prays:
' My God, send a rain,
A right royal rain,

That as many (as are the) ears of corn in the fields,
So many stems (may spring) on the vines,' etc.
Similarly on the island of Imbros a girl dressed up with leaves and

L MTeXt 'n T- Kind N«*gri«hi"he Anthologie Leipzig 1844 '• Translation in
cit it 'J' Garne»—J- S. Stuart-Glennie Greek Folk Poesy London 1896 i. 60 f. (in part

eel by Frazer Golden Bough': The Magic Art i. 272 t). For variants see A. Passow
«a carmina Graeciae recentioris Lipsiae i860 nos. 311 Ilepireptd, 312 YleprepoOva,

Ca3 x¥?*flth* <al1 from Thessaly and Makedonia), G. F. Abbott Songs of Modem Greece
W m dge 1900 p- J9°f-' id- Macedonian Folklore Cambridge 1903 pp. n8—'20'

• Mannhardt Wald- und Feldkulle"- Berlin 1904 L 3»8f., J- C. Lawson Modern Greet
j< and Ancient Greek Religion Cambridge .9.0 pp. «3-»5- Cp. O. Schrader in

^astings Encyclopedia oj Religion and Ethics Edinburgh 1909 ii. 4ob-
r l«tt and translation in G. F. Abbott Macedonian Folklore Cambridge I9°3 P- 1'?

"")> I 0<r ioT&xva s to. xapi(pia, \ T6<ra Koirraovpa's t d/nrAio,' ic.t.X-