But in his latest publication[587] he relinquishes this position and falls back once more on a dialectic form καλιτσάγγαρος which is reported to be in use at the village of Pyrgos in Tenos and at some places on the western shores of the Black Sea. This word he believes to be a compound, of which the second half is connected with a Byzantine word τσαγγίον, meaning a kind of boot, and the still existing, if somewhat rare, word, τσαγγάρης, ‘a boot-maker,’ while the first half is to be either καλός, ‘fine,’ or καλίκι, ‘a hoof[588].’ The former alternative provides easily the form καλοτσάγγαρος or, as would be almost more likely, καλλιτσάγγαρος, meaning ‘one who wears fine boots’; while in the other alternative there results a supposed original form καλικοτσάγγαρος, meaning ‘one who has hoofs instead of boots,’ whence, by suppression of the third syllable, comes the existing word καλιτσάγγαρος, or again, by loss of the first syllable, a supposed form λικοτσάγγαρος which developed into λυκοκάντζαρος.
On the score of formation the former alternative is unassailable; but the latter, with its supposed loss of syllables, is more questionable. The loss of a first syllable is common enough in modern Greek, where it consists of a vowel only (e.g. βρίσκω[589] for εὑρίσκω, μέρα for ἡμέρα, etc.), but the supposed loss of the syllable κα would, I think, be hard to parallel. Again the loss of a syllable in the middle of a word is fairly common either through the suppression of the vowel ι (or η, which is not distinguished from ι in sound) as in καλκάντζαρος for καλλικάντζαρος, ἔρμος for ἔρημος, etc., or else when two concurrent syllables begin with the same consonant, as in ἀστροπελέκι, ‘a thunderbolt,’ for ἀστραποπελέκι, but the loss of the syllable κο from the form καλικοτσάγγαρος is a bold hypothesis.
But on the score of meaning both alternatives are alike unconvincing. Polites indeed cites one or two popular traditions in which the Callicantzari are represented as wearing wooden or iron shoes--wherewith no doubt the better to kick and to trample their victims; and such footgear might, I suppose, be described ironically as ‘nice boots.’ But to find in this occasional trait the origin of the word Callicantzaros[590] appears to me a counsel of despair. Nor does the other alternative commend itself to me any more. It is of course a widely accepted belief--and one by the way which contradicts the traditions just mentioned--that the Callicantzari have feet like those of an ass or a goat. But in describing such a creature no one surely would be likely to say that it had hoofs ‘instead of boots’--‘instead of feet’ would be the natural and reasonable expression. To suppose that the Callicantzari (or rather, to use the hypothetical form, the καλικοτσάγγαροι) are so named because their boot-maker provides them with hoofs instead of detachable foot-gear, is little short of ludicrous.