Cor7'espondence. 123
friend Mr. F. W. Hasluck I am indebted for tracing the published versions. Two are given by Polites in his Ila/jaSocrcts/ and Mr. Hasluck has himself found the legend localised at a church of St. Elias in Bithynia.'- Of the second of Polites' versions I will give a rough translation : —
- ' St. Elias was once upon a time a sailor. What with pulling
and pulling at the oar, (there was no spare time for meals in those days ; they ate as they rowed), the poor man was tired of it. He took his oar on his shoulder and went off to go and find a place where they didn't even know the name of the thing. He goes to the village and asks, — "What do they call this?" "An oar," they say to him. He goes to the other village and asks,— "What do they call this?" "An oar." Och ! The devil ! He was in despair ! Here, there, and everywhere he asks his question until he comes to a village on the top of the mountain. "What do they call this?" he asks. "A bit of wood." Glory be to God ! He sticks the oar upright, he builds a hut, and determines to remain there for the rest of his life. And that is why they place St. Elias on all the mountain tops."
Polites naturally refers to the prophecy about Odysseus' end, in which the hero is told to put his oar on his shoulder and travel until he comes to a land where the natives are ignorant of the sea. A wayfarer will meet him who mistakes his oar for a winnowing shovel. That will be the sign. There he is to stick his oar upright in the ground, perform sacrifices to Poseidon, and thence return home and offer hecatombs to the immortal gods.^
In this case the most hardened sceptic will find it difficult to dispute the genealogy of the story. And the natural presumption that the incident is directly derived from ancient Greek tradition is strengthened by the fact that the incident is apparently unknown elsewhere. I ventured to take advantage of M. Cosquin's vast knowledge of the contents of folk-tales, and he kindly informs me that neither in East or West can he remember seeing this incident
^ Polites, MeXe'rat Trept rov ^iov Kal Trjs yXwacrris tou EWrjviKoO \aoO, vol. i. , No. 207 and notes. One version is from Aegion (Vostitza). The other was told by a sailor ; the locality is not given.
-Hasluck, Cyzicus, p. 65. ^ Odyssey, xi. , 125 and xxiii., 267.
