DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0216
XXXVI.]
A CRETAN VAMPIRE-STORY.
197
I subjoin1 one of these stories in the very words
in which it was communicated to me. The account is
peculiarly worthy of credit, since I heard it in many
places, and all the relations given to me agreed in every
material point. The following is a translation, and,
even without comparing it with the original, the reader
will see, from its very style, that it is a close, though
somewhat condensed, version of the words of the Sfakian
peasants.
" Once on a time the village of Kalikrati, in the
district of Sfakia, was haunted by a Katakhanas, and
people did not know what man he was or from what
part. This Katakhanas destroyed both children and
many full-grown men ; and desolated both that village
and many others. They had buried him at the church
of Saint George at Kalikrati, and in those times he was
a man of note, and they had built an arch over his
grave. Now a certain shepherd, his mutual Synteknos2,
' See the original Sfakian Greek in Note A, at the end of the Chapter.
2 1 believe I first heard this word in Crete : it is always used to denote the
relation of a person to his god-child's father. The one is the spiritual, the
other the natural father of the same child: hence they are well called 26v-
TtKVoi. Here as in many other instances the simple word (tskvov) has gone
out of use, although the compound is still retained. See Vol. I. p. B3. Syn-
teknos is more common, among the Cretans, than compare (Kovfnrdpiis), the
word generally used elsewhere to express this relation. On compater and
uommater see Du Cange, Glossarium med. et inf. Lat. under Commater,
Commaternitas, Compater, Compalernitas, and Compateratus. The mother
°f a man's god-child is also his trvvreicvos or Kov/xTrdpiacra (the diminutive
of which latter word is xovp-n-apuyadKi). Our Cretan word SYNTEKNOS
occurs, in its present sense, in a sepulchral inscription which was dug up
"ear the Savoy in London, three or four years ago, and seems to have belonged
to the collection formed by the Earl of Arundel, in the early part of the seven-
teenth century. See the Transactions or the Royal Society of
I'ITehatube, Vol. ii. Part ii. Appendix i. pp. 463-4. The expression,
mutual Synteknos, is used, as my Sfakian companion explained it, for per-
sons (Ittov efye TraiSi o y/;s rou appov $tnrTiap.ivov, where anrov stands for
o ottoios, 6 yijt for 6 i/was, and appov for dWov. On this gossipred, see
Vol. i. pp. 10-11. where I promised to recur to the subject. The relation is
considered, in the Greek Church, as complete a bar to marriage as the closest
consanguinity. A man could never wed a widow, if he had been sponsor for
a'iy of her children at the baptismal font; and a Greek would almost as soon
think of marrying the daughter of his own father as the daughter of his god-
father.
A CRETAN VAMPIRE-STORY.
197
I subjoin1 one of these stories in the very words
in which it was communicated to me. The account is
peculiarly worthy of credit, since I heard it in many
places, and all the relations given to me agreed in every
material point. The following is a translation, and,
even without comparing it with the original, the reader
will see, from its very style, that it is a close, though
somewhat condensed, version of the words of the Sfakian
peasants.
" Once on a time the village of Kalikrati, in the
district of Sfakia, was haunted by a Katakhanas, and
people did not know what man he was or from what
part. This Katakhanas destroyed both children and
many full-grown men ; and desolated both that village
and many others. They had buried him at the church
of Saint George at Kalikrati, and in those times he was
a man of note, and they had built an arch over his
grave. Now a certain shepherd, his mutual Synteknos2,
' See the original Sfakian Greek in Note A, at the end of the Chapter.
2 1 believe I first heard this word in Crete : it is always used to denote the
relation of a person to his god-child's father. The one is the spiritual, the
other the natural father of the same child: hence they are well called 26v-
TtKVoi. Here as in many other instances the simple word (tskvov) has gone
out of use, although the compound is still retained. See Vol. I. p. B3. Syn-
teknos is more common, among the Cretans, than compare (Kovfnrdpiis), the
word generally used elsewhere to express this relation. On compater and
uommater see Du Cange, Glossarium med. et inf. Lat. under Commater,
Commaternitas, Compater, Compalernitas, and Compateratus. The mother
°f a man's god-child is also his trvvreicvos or Kov/xTrdpiacra (the diminutive
of which latter word is xovp-n-apuyadKi). Our Cretan word SYNTEKNOS
occurs, in its present sense, in a sepulchral inscription which was dug up
"ear the Savoy in London, three or four years ago, and seems to have belonged
to the collection formed by the Earl of Arundel, in the early part of the seven-
teenth century. See the Transactions or the Royal Society of
I'ITehatube, Vol. ii. Part ii. Appendix i. pp. 463-4. The expression,
mutual Synteknos, is used, as my Sfakian companion explained it, for per-
sons (Ittov efye TraiSi o y/;s rou appov $tnrTiap.ivov, where anrov stands for
o ottoios, 6 yijt for 6 i/was, and appov for dWov. On this gossipred, see
Vol. i. pp. 10-11. where I promised to recur to the subject. The relation is
considered, in the Greek Church, as complete a bar to marriage as the closest
consanguinity. A man could never wed a widow, if he had been sponsor for
a'iy of her children at the baptismal font; and a Greek would almost as soon
think of marrying the daughter of his own father as the daughter of his god-
father.