Harvest. —When the corn begins to grow, husband and wife go to opposite sides of the field, and says she to him, (
Greek characters), "This year I see you, next year I hope I shan't," i.e. for the high corn or the heaps of sheaves.
The first ears are plaited into a curious shape; they call it (Greek characters), or "mat," and no one could (or would) tell me any more about it. But its shape strikes me as very odd, and it bears no small resemblance to a human figure in a cloak, with arms outstretched. I send a specimen herewith, which is to go to the Society's museum. In some of them the neck is adorned with a necklace of beads. I saw these in all parts of Lesbos, always with the same shape; and also on the mainland of Greece, where they called it (Greek characters) ("corn").[1] Is it fanciful to imagine that this is really a corn-baby? It ought, however, to be made of the last sheaf, not the first.
Sacrifice: Gilding the Horns of Victim.—Mr. Stavros saw this done within the last five years at an (Greek characters). They often kill a victim, cook it, and distribute the flesh at one of these "out-churches," or deserted shrines. In Ayassos, at the great Panegyris, or religious assembly, I saw the meat in the. butchers' stalls adorned with large patches of gold leaf, which may perhaps be also a reminiscence of the classical custom.
Disease.—St. John is the favourite saint for those who suffer from fever, "because when his head was cut off, he trembled all over."
Mothers with sick children and sick folks generally go to some monastery and stay there for days, the priest saying prayers over them every day. If there they get no better, off they go to another. The monasteries have spare rooms for them; and sometimes, as at the holy place
- ↑ Plate I. The Society is indebted for the photograph to Dr. Oscar Clark. A similar object, from Syria, may be seen in the Biblical Museum, Sergeants' Inn, Fleet Street.
