This table of dialectic forms, which was originally based mainly upon the information of Schmidt[567] and my own observations and has now been enlarged with the aid of Polites’ new work[568], is even so probably far from complete; nor have I included in it, for reasons to be stated, the following forms: καλκάνια[569] (τὰ) which is apparently an abbreviated diminutive formed from the first two syllables of καλκάν-τζαρος with a neuter termination, and is therefore a nickname rather than a strict derivative: καλκαγάροι which Bent[570] represents to be the usual form in Naxos and Paros, but I hesitate to accept without confirmation from some other source: σκατσάντζαροι[571], a Macedonian form, and καλκατζόνια, a diminutive form from the district of Cynouria, both so extraordinarily corrupt that I can find no place for them in the table: λυκοκάντζαροι, which has been thought to be κολλικάντζαρος with the first two syllables reversed in order--a change to which I can find no parallel--but is, as I shall show later, a distinct and very important compound of the word κάντζαρος: and lastly καλι̯οντζῆδες[572] which has nothing at all to do with καλλικάντζαροι etymologically, but is an euphemistic and not particularly good pun upon it, really meaning the ‘sailors of a galleon[573]’ (Turkish _qālioundji_), and humorously substituted for the dreaded name of the Callicantzari.

To conclude this compilation, it must be added that the wives of Callicantzari are denoted by feminine forms with the termination -ίνα or -οῦ, and their children by neuter forms ending in -άκι or -οῦδι in place of the masculine -ος.

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion — Part 174

From a careful analysis of this material two main facts seem to emerge. First, the form καλλικάντζαρος, the commonest in use, is also the centre from which the other dialectic forms diverge in many directions; and therefore if one of the rarer dialectic forms be selected as the parent-form and the basis of any etymological explanation, the advocate of the particular etymology not only assumes the burden of showing how his original form came to be so generally superseded by the form καλλικάντζαρος, but also will require many more steps in his genealogical table of existing varieties of the word. Secondly, the words καλλικάντζαρος and λυκοκάντζαρος (if, as I hold, they cannot be connected through the mediation of the form κολλικάντζαρος) show that we have to deal with a compound word of which the second half is κάντζαρος: and corroboration of this view is afforded by the existence of a form of the uncompounded word in the dialect of Cynouria, where σκατζάρια[574] (τὰ)--i.e. a diminutive form of κάντζαρος with σ prefixed and ν lost--is used side by side with the words καλλικάντζαροι and λυκοκάντζαροι to denote the same beings.

Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion — Part 174