"Flee away, that we may flee:
Priest with pot-belly, here is he.
With his holy water brush.
With the sprinkler too for us;
He will sprinkle us about,
And defile us without doubt."[1]
Until these twelve days are past, the monsters leave in their cradles the semblance of babes, and assuming the form of Kalikazari, wander about, living in deserts and dark caves, feeding on snakes and lizards. Sometimes, it is said, they eat women, whom they love very much. By the light of the moon they dance at night, in company with any handsome women they can get hold of, or any inquisitive person. Women that lose their way, if not pretty enough to dance with, serve them for supper. They dance till the black cock crows, and then they must stop. Some enter the houses by the chimney, and there sit at table and eat and make merry, especially in the kitchen; and they take delight to insult[2] the sleepers of the house. When they hear a black cock crow, they evanish like smoke through the keyhole. To prevent their mischief, these keyholes or boltholes[3] are stopped up with a skein of flax. Before the exit is free the Kalikazari have to count all the threads in the skein; and as they always take care to look at the
^ (pev-yare 7'a (pevycifie,
yjarl e'Lcprarr' 6 rpuvXoTraTras (") ^f r/)r ayiacrrovpa rov, Kal fie T))v fipeyrovpu rov, Kai da /.ids eppavTitxT] Kal da fias fxayapirrjj.
The holy water would be thought defiling by these monsters.
Schmidt, who gives a variant of these lines (p. 151), explains this word as a gibe, "pot-belly priest." My informant took it as referring to the priest's tall hat ((
Greek characters) or (Greek characters) "dome, apex").
