The Abbé considered this possession by the devil to be a proof of the truth of the Greek persuasion, alleging that no Mohammedan or Roman Catholic ever became a vrykolakas[1]. This however is not strictly accurate, for in Santorini a Roman priest, who had apostatized and turned Mohammedan and who for his many crimes was finally hanged, appeared after death and was only disposed of by burning.
Another case was that of Iannetis Anapliotis of the same island, an usurer who about a year before his death repented of his mis-*deeds and made what amends he could; he also left his wife an order to pay anything else justly reclaimed from him. She however though giving much in charity did not pay his debts. It was just six weeks after his death when she refused to satisfy some just claim for repayment, and immediately he began to appear in the streets and to molest above all his own wife and relatives. Also he woke up priests early in the morning, telling them it was time for matins, pulled coverlets off people as they slept, shook their beds, left the taps of wine-barrels running, and so on. One woman was so frightened in broad day-light as to lose the power of speech for three days, and another whose bed he shook suffered a miscarriage. Then at length his name was published—for as a man of some position he had till then been spared. Exorcism was tried in vain by the Greek priests. Then by my advice the widow paid off all her husband's debts and made due restitution. Also she had the body exhumed and exorcised a second time. On this occasion I saw it, but it did not look like a real vrykolakas; for, though the hands were whole and parchment-like, the head and the entrails were to some extent decomposed. At the end of the ceremony of exorcism the priests hacked the body to pieces and buried it in a new grave. From this time the vrykolakas never re-appeared, but this was due, in my opinion, to the restitution made, not to the treatment of the body.
There are in Greek cemeteries dead bodies of another kind which after fifteen or sixteen years—sometimes even twenty or thirty—are found inflated like balloons, and when they are thrown
- ↑ Some modern authorities state that Turks are believed to be more subject to become vrykolakes than Christians. Schmidt (Das Volksleben, p. 162) appears to me to overstate this point of view, which I should judge to be rarer and more local than its contrary. Even where found, it is unimportant, being a mere invention of priestcraft for purposes of intimidation. See below, pp. 400 and 409.
