38 Hntton Webster 



How ancient superstition invested many of the Greek festivals 

 has been already illustrated by the Anthesteria (supra). 

 Among the other unlucky days (a.7ro<t)pd8e<; rjixepai) observed by 

 the Athenians were those devoted to the celebration of the 

 Plyntheria, the washing festival of their patron goddess. On 

 this occasion Athena's image was borne in procession to the sea, 

 divested of its adornments, and laved in the purifying waters. 

 Plutarch's biography of Alcibiades contains a significant refer- 

 ence to the ceremony. At the time when that brilliant though 

 shifty Greek returned from exile to his native city, the people 

 were holding the Plyntheria, in Athena's honor. On that day 

 " the Praxiergidae solemnize their secret rites : they take off all 

 the ornaments from her image and cover it up. Hence the 

 Athenians account this day as most unlucky of all, and do no 

 work on it. And it seemed as though the Goddess were receiving 

 him in no friendly or kindly fashion, as she hid her face from 



Folk-Lore of the Northern Comities of England and the Borders^ London, 

 1879, p. 18) runs as follows : 



" Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn, 

 Better hadst thou ne'er been born !" 



In certain parts of Ireland the people will not shave on Sunday 

 (Kinahan, in Folk-Lore Record, 1881, iv. 105). Among the modern 

 Egyptians, however, Saturday is held to be the unluckiest day, particularly 

 unfavorable for shaving and cutting the nails (E. W. Lane, Modern 

 Egyptians,^ London, 1871, i. 331). Are these similarities to be explained 

 by any hypothesis of the diffusion of culture (or superstition) ? 



In some parts of the modern Greek world we have what may be reason- 

 ably taken as direct survivals of the taboos formerly investing the festal 

 days of classical divinities. Thus in Cyprus and certain Aegean islands 

 the first three or six days of August are times when no trees are cut or 

 peeled to obtain resin, when the use of water for washing either clothes 

 or the body is forbidden, and when no one travels by water. In Cyprus 

 the severity of the regulations has led to the days being called the " evil 

 days of August." The careful observer who reports these facts argues 

 most plausibly that the periods thus marked l)y special forms of abstinence 

 were originally sacred to tree-nymphs and water-nymphs, whose festivals 

 were observed in pagan antiquity (J. C. Lawson. Modern Greek Folklore 

 and Ancient Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1910. pp. 152 sq.). 



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