Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study...

The custom of taking or sending offerings to a cave haunted by the Fates, of which we have just seen two examples, is widely extended among the women of Greece. In Athens, besides the ‘hollow hill,’ two or three of the old rock-dwellings round about the Hill of the Muses were formerly a common resort for the same purpose, and the practice though rarer now is not yet extinct[272]. Among the best-known of these resorts is the so-called Prison of Socrates. Dodwell, in his account of his travels in Greece at the beginning of last century, states that he found there ‘in the inner chamber, a small feast consisting of a cup of honey and white almonds, a cake on a little napkin, and a vase of aromatic herbs burning and exhaling an agreeable perfume[273]’; and the observance of the custom is known to have continued in that place down to recent years[274]. The same practice, I was informed at Sparta, is known at the present day to the peasant-women of the surrounding plain, who will undertake even a long and wearisome journey to lay a honey-cake in a certain cave on one of the eastern spurs of Taÿgetus. Other places in which to my own knowledge the custom still continues are Agrinion in Aetolia and neighbouring districts, the villages of Mt Pelion in Thessaly, and the island of Scyros; and from the testimony of many other observers I conclude that it is, or was till recently, universal in Greek lands.

Nor does there seem to be much variety in the subjects on which the peasant-women consult the Fates: with the girls matrimony, with the married women maternity, is the perpetually recurring theme. Everywhere also honey in some form is an essential part of the offering by which the Fates’ favour is to be won. The acceptance of this offering, and therefore also the success of the prayers which accompany it, are occasionally, as in the cave near Sparta which I have mentioned, inferred from omens provided by the dripping of water from the roof of the cave; but more usually the realisation of the conjugal aspirations is not assured, unless a second visit to the sanctuary, three days or a month later, proves that the sweetmeats have been accepted by the Fates and are gone. This, I am told, occurs with some frequency. Dodwell mentions that his donkey ate some[275]; and considering the character of the offerings—cakes and honey for the most part, for only in the ‘hollow hill’ at Athens was salt added thereto—it is not surprising if the Fates find many willing proxies, human and canine as well as asinine.

The words which I have quoted, it must be admitted, give clear expression to the hope that the Fates may revise the decrees which they have already pronounced on the fortunes of the suppliant. Nevertheless that such a hope should be fulfilled is contrary to the general beliefs of the people. The Fates, they know, are inexorable so far as concerns the changing of any of their purposes once set; for, as their proverb runs, ὅτι γράφουν ᾑ Μοίραις, δὲν ξεγράφουν, ‘what the Fates write, that they make not unwritten[277].’ They are not, it would appear, subordinate, as Charon is sometimes deemed to be, even to the supreme God; I can find no song or story that would so present them. They are absolute and irresponsible in the fashioning of human destiny. But the Greek peasants are not the first who have at the same time believed both in predestination and in the efficacy of prayer. Perhaps all unconsciously they reconcile the ideas as did Aeschylus of old:

But even without any intuition of so hard a doctrine the peasant-women may justify their prayers and offerings by the hope that, though the Fates will detract nothing from the fulfilment of whatsoever they have spoken or written, they may be willing to add thereto such supplement as shall modify in large measure the issue. For the Fates are as Greek in character as their worshippers, and stories are not wanting to illustrate the shifts to which they have stooped in order practically to invalidate without formally cancelling their whilom purpose.

‘Once upon a time a poor woman gave birth to a daughter, and on the third night after the birth the Fates came to ordain the child’s lot. As they entered the cottage they saw prepared for them a table with a clean cloth and all manner of sweetmeats thereon. So when they had partaken thereof and were content, they were kindly disposed toward the child. And the first Fate gave to her long life, and the second beauty, and the third chastity. But as they went forth from the cottage, the first of them tripped against the threshold, and turning in wrath towards the infant pronounced that she should be always an idler.

Now when she was grown up, she was so beautiful that the king’s son would have her to wife. As the wedding-day drew near, her mother and her friends chided her because she delayed to make her wedding dress; but she was idle and heeded not. Soon came the eve of the wedding, and she wept because the prince would learn of her idleness and refuse to take her to wife. Now the Fates loved her, and saw her tears and pitied her. Therefore they came suddenly before her, and asked why she wept; and she told them all. Then sat they down there and spun and weaved and embroidered all that night, and in the morning they arrayed her in a bridal dress decked with gold and pearls such as had never been seen.

Presently came the prince, and there was much feasting and dancing, and she was far the most beautiful of all the company. And because he saw her lovely dress and knew how much toil it must have cost her to array herself thus for him, he granted her the favour of doing no more work all her days[279].’

This story, besides illustrating well the finality of every word pronounced by the Fates and the means which they may employ to mitigate their own severity, is typical too of the ideas generally accepted concerning the Fates. Their number is three[280], and they are seen in the shape of old women, one of whom at least is always engaged in spinning. Of the remaining two, one is sometimes seen bearing a book wherein to record in writing the decrees which the three jointly utter, while the other carries a pair of scissors wherewith to cut the thread of life at the appointed time; or again sometimes these two also are spinning, one of them carrying a basket of wool or a distaff and the other fashioning the thread. This association of the Fates with spinning operations is commemorated in certain popular phrases by the comparison of man’s life to a thread. ‘His thread is cut’ or ‘is finished’ (κόπηκε or σώθηκε ἡ κλωστή του) is a familiar euphemism for ‘he is dead’: and again, with the same ultimate meaning but a somewhat different metaphor, the people of Arachova use the phrase μαζώθηκε τὸ κουβάρ’ του[281], ‘his spindle is wound full,’—an expression which seems to imply the idea that the Fates apportion to each man at birth a mass of rough wool from which they go on spinning day by day till the thread of life is completed.

According to Fauriel[282], a reminiscence of the Fates is also to be found in a personification of the plague (ἡ πανοῦκλα), which in the tradition of some districts is not represented as a single demon but has been multiplied into a trio of terrible women who pass through the towns and devastate them, one of them carrying a roll on which to write the names of the victims, another a pair of scissors wherewith to cut them off from the living, and the third a broom with which to sweep them away. He assigns however no reason for identifying the deadly trio with the Fates, and it is more natural, if any link with antiquity here exists, to connect them with the Erinyes[283] or other similar deities. In fact their resemblance to the Fates, save for some superficial details, is small. The Fates, though inexorable when once their decree is pronounced, are never wantonly cruel. Their displeasure may indeed be aroused by neglect, as we shall shortly see, to such an extent that they will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. But, when men treat them with the consideration and the reverence due to deities, they are unfailingly kindly, and deserve the title by which they are sometimes known, ᾑ καλοκυράδες, ‘the good ladies.’ For this name is not an euphemism concealing dread and hatred, but an expression of genuine reverence; such at any rate is my judgement, based on many conversations with the common-folk in all parts of Greece—for on this topic for some reason there is far less reticence than on many others.

And indeed if the character of the Fates were believed to be cruel, their aspect also would be represented as grim and menacing; whereas they are actually pourtrayed as deserving almost of pity rather than awe by reason of their age and their infirmity.

The occasion on which the Fates have most often been seen by human eyes and on which, even though invisible, they never fail to be present, is the third night (or as some say the fifth night[284]) after the birth of a child. Provision for their arrival is then scrupulously made. The dog is chained up. Any obstacles over which the visitors might trip in the darkness are removed. The house-door is left open or at any rate unlatched. Inside a light is kept burning, and in the middle of the room is set a low table with three cushions or low stools placed round it—religious conservatism apparently forbidding the use of so modern an invention as chairs, for at the lying-in-state before a funeral also cushions or low stools are provided for the mourners. On the table are set out such dainties as the Fates love, including always honey; in Athens formerly the essentials were a dish of honey, three white almonds, a loaf of bread, and a glass of water[285]; and ready to hand, as presents from which the goddesses may choose what they will, may be laid all the most costly treasures of the family, such as jewellery and even money, in token that nothing has been spared to give them welcome. These preparations made, their visit is awaited in solemn silence; for none must speak when the Fates draw near.

Most often they are neither seen nor heard; but sometimes, it is said, a wakeful mother has seen their forms as they bent over her child and wrote their decrees on its brow—for which reason moles and other marks on the forehead or the nose are in some places called γραψίματα τῶν Μοιρῶν[286], ‘writings of the Fates’; sometimes she has heard the low sound of their voices as they consulted together over the future of the child; nay more, she has even caught and understood their speech; yet even so her foreknowledge of the infant’s fate is unavailing; she may be aware of the dangers which await its ripening years, but though forewarned she is powerless to forearm; against destiny once pronounced all weapons, all wiles, are futile.

Neglect of any of the due preparations for the visit of the Fates may excite their wrath and cause them to decree an evil lot for the child. This idea is the motif of many fables current in Greece. A typical example is furnished by the following extract from a popular poem in which a man whose life has brought him nothing but misery sees in a vision one of the Fates and appeals to her thus: