Other safeguards are also mentioned; you are recommended for instance to keep a black cock in the house, or you may render the Callicantzaros harmless by binding him with a red thread or a straw rope[548]; but the latter method would in most cases be like putting salt on a bird’s tail.
Such, on a general view, are the monsters whose origin I now propose to examine; and the first step in the investigation must be to account for the extraordinary variations in shape exhibited by the Callicantzari in different districts.
I have already observed that the Callicantzari are sometimes conceived to be of ordinary human form, but that more commonly there is an admixture of something beast-like. Among the animals which are laid under contribution, first comes the he-goat, from which the Callicantzari borrow ears, horns, and legs. Almost equally common is a presentment of Callicantzari with the ears and the legs of an ass combined with a body in other respects human; or again the head of an ass, according to Pouqueville[549], may be combined with the body and legs of a man. In other districts again the wolf has once been a factor in the conception of Callicantzari. Thus in Messenia, in Cynouria (a district in the east of Laconia), and in parts of Crete[550] the Callicantzari are called also Λυκοκάντζαροι, in which the first half of the compound name is undoubtedly λύκος, ‘wolf.’ Similarly in some parts of Macedonia Callicantzari are often called simply ‘wolves’ (λύκοι), and both names are also applied metaphorically to any particularly ill-favoured man[551]. Resemblances to apes are also mentioned, particularly in the long, lean, hairy arms of the Callicantzari; and Pouqueville speaks also of their monkey-like tails[552]. Next from Phoeniciá in Epirus comes the suggestion that Callicantzari may resemble squirrels; for there they have the two by-names σκιορίσματα and καψιούρηδες[553], in which it is not hard to recognise the two ancient Greek names for the squirrel, σκίουρος and καμψίουρος. Concerning the local character of these I have no information; but it is fairly safe to surmise that they possess the power, commonly ascribed to the smaller sort of Callicantzari, of climbing with great dexterity the walls and roofs of houses in order to gain access by the chimney. Finally in Myconos, as noted above, the Callicantzari are described as ‘savage four-footed things’--a description which need not exclude some human attributes any more than it does in the savage four-footed Centaurs of ancient art, but implies it would seem at least a predominance of the bestial over the human element.