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A Visit to Skyros

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

R. M. Dawkins
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Extract

In March 1905 I went to Skyros for a week, primarily to see and photograph the Carnival masquerade described in B.S.A. vi. p. 125, by Mr. Lawson. I was there for the last of the three Sundays of Carnival, and the following Monday, when, to the scandal of the Hegoumenos of St. George of Skyros, it being the first day of Lent, the festival is at its height. Although the village sounds with the clatter of the bells of these strange figures all through Carnival, on this last Sunday the masqueraders, of whom Mr. Lawson has given an account, appear in the greatest numbers. A full set consists of three young men, disguised, one as an Old Man (γέρος) one as a Maid (κορέλλα) and one as a Frank (Φράγκος). The Frank's attire differs, but his distinctive features are a sheep-bell tied on at the waist behind, and a conch-shell to blow. He either has a cloth tied over his face, or wears a modern pasteboard mask. The κορέλλα is a boy dressed as a girl, generally with a modern mask, in the festal attire of a Skyrian bride.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 11 , November 1905 , pp. 72 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1905

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References

page 72 note 1 Owing to their remote life, shepherds often preserve customs and ways lost by the classes who are in closer contact with modern life.

page 73 note 1 This answers to the third variety of cape and mask noted by Mr. Lawson.

page 73 note 2 Mr. Lawson speaks of goatskin capes. I could learn nothing of these.

page 74 note 1 This is the dialect form for καλός

page 75 note 1 Mr. Bosanquet reminds me of the church of the Drunken St. George in Paros, mentioned by Bent, The Cyclades, p. 373. In Pontus also we have ὁ τρελλὸς ἄγιος Γεώργιος see ᾿Αθηνᾶ ii. 1890, p. 237, footnote 4.

page 75 note 2 Passow, Carmina Popularia, lxxxvii gives one of the many versions that have been published.

page 77 note 1 For a plan and description of the Protaton see Brockhaus, Die Kunst in den Athosklöstcrn, pp. 23, ff. The plan here given of the Skyros church should no doubt have two side-apses, one on each side of the main apse. I did not mark them, because outside, the earth rises so high as to cover them, supposing them to be of the same height as the side apses of the Protaton, and the side chapels in which they would be visible inside I found locked. Of their existence there can be no doubt.

page 78 note 1 Rogers, Baptism, p. 327, quotes this church as of the sixth century.