His functions are clearly defined. He visits this upper world to carry off those whose allotted time has run, and guards them in the lower world as in a prison whose keys they vainly essay to steal and to escape therefrom. But the spirit in which he performs those duties varies according as he is conceived to be a free agent responsible to none or merely a minister of the supreme God. Which of these is the true conception is a question to which the common-folk as a whole have given no final answer; and the character of Charos consequently depends upon the view locally preferred.
Those who regard him as simply the servant and messenger of God, find no difficulty in accommodating him to his Christian surroundings; for, as I have said, the peasant does not distinguish between the Christian and the pagan elements in his faith which together make his polytheism so luxuriant. We have already seen Charos' name with the prefix of 'saint[1]'; and though this Christian title is not often accorded him, yet his name appears commonly on tomb-stones in Christian churchyards. At Leonídi, on the east coast of the Peloponnese, I noted the couplet:
[Greek: kai mena den lypêthêke ho Charos na me parê,
pou eimouna tou oikou mou monakribo blastari.]
'Me too Charos pitied not but took, even me the fondly-cherished flower
of my home.'
So too in popular story and song he is represented as
working in concord with the Angels and Archangels, to whom
sometimes falls the task of carrying children to his realm[2].
Indeed one of the archangels, Michael, who as we saw above has
ousted Hermes, the escorter of souls, and assumed his functions,
is charged with exactly the same duties as Charos in the conveyance
of men's souls to the nether world, so that in popular
parlance the phrases 'he is wrestling with Charos' ([Greek: paleuei me
to Charo][3] and 'he is struggling with an angel' ([Greek: angelomachei])[4]
are both alike used of a man in his death-agony., 'he is being stricken by an angel,'
and other phrases meaning to see, to fear, to be carried away by, an angel, all
in the same sense. See Schmidt, op. cit. 181, and [Greek: Politês, Meletê, k.t.l.] 308.]
