56 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



tliat earthquakes originate from huge giants or monsters of 

 superhuman power who live in the interiör of the earth ^). 



Earthquakes may, therefore. to a certain extent liave 

 contributed to the rise of a belief iu supernatural beings 

 holding sway in the nether regions, just as the chasms whicli 

 appeared in the earth after such cataclysms were often looked 

 upon as direct entrauces to this unseen world ^). — But iu 

 speaking of the underworld deities and the places where they 

 entered into communication with the external world, we may 

 pay some attention to one place more of this kind which 

 seems to have been of no small religious importance — the 

 crossroads. There has been a diversitj^^ of opinion as to the 

 origin of the awe with which the Greeks, like most primitive 

 peoples, regarded such places. That they were looked upon 

 as haunted by some uncanny spirits seems evident. But what 

 was the origin of this belief? Dr. Steudling's explanation that 

 primitive man, arriving in the darkness at a crossroad, felt 

 himself at a loss as to the right way and hence believed 

 himself to be under the influenco of unseen spirits ^), is too 

 far-fetched to be taken as the true oue and besides it does 

 not explain the fact that these spirits always seem to have 

 been the ghosts of the dead. Nor can we accept the ex- 

 planation, brought forward by other Avriters *), that the cross- 

 roads were feared because the early Indo-Clerman peoples used 

 them as burial-places. Provided that this was so, how shall 

 we account for the fact that such ver}' different peoples have 

 come to hit upon this peculiar custom? 



If the ancients sometimes used to bury mighty kings ^) 

 or to execute criminals at the crossroads ^), this custom was. 



^) Schmidt, op. cit p. 201. 



2) Such was probably also the nature of the xånna x&ovös in the Areopa- 

 gus at Athens which M-as supposed to be haunted by hypochtonic Semnai. 

 or ghosts of the dead (Eurip. El. 1266j. 



') Eoscher, Lexikon der Griechischen u. Römischen Mythologie, p. 1890. 

 Cf. Wuttke, Deutsche Volksahcrglauhe, p 89- 



*) Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 267. AVinternitz, Das altindische 

 Hochzeitsrituell, in Denkschriften der Kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. Wien 1892, 

 Bd 40, p. 68. 



«) Cf. Paus. VIII, 36, 8. 



*) Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie u. Beligionsgeschichte, p. 760, n 9. 



