Chapter V

THE DEMONOLOGY OF GHOSTS, SPRITES AND BOGEYS.

Primitive demonology constantly in flux. Various connotations
of the word Ker. The Ker as evil sprite, the Ker as bacillus of
disease. The Keres of Old Age and Death. The Ker as Harpy and
Wind-Daimon. The Ker as Fate in Homer and Hesiod. The Ker as
Gorgon. Origin of the Gorgoneion. Apotropaic masks. The Gorgon
developed from the Gorgoneion. The Graiae. The Evil Eye. The
Ker as Siren. The Sirens of Homer. Problem of the bird-form
in art. The Siren as midday daimon. The Siren on funeral
monuments. The bird-form of the soul in Greece and Egypt.
Plato’s Sirens. The Ker as Sphinx. Mantic aspect of Sphinx.
The Sphinx as Man-slaying Ker, as Funeral Monument. The Ker
as Erinys. The Erinyes as angry Keres. Erinys an adjectival
epithet. The Erinyes primarily the ghosts of slain men crying
for vengeance. The Erinyes developed by Homer and Herakleitos
into abstract ministers of vengeance. The Erinyes of Aeschylus
more primitive than the Erinyes of Homer. The blood-curse
in the _Choephoroi_. The Erinyes of the stage. The Erinyes
analogous to Gorgons and Harpies, but not identical. The
wingless Erinyes of Aeschylus. The winged Erinyes of later art.
The Poinae. The Erinys as snake. The _Semnai Theai_. New cult
at Athens. New underworld ritual. The transformation of Erinyes
into Semnai Theai. The Eumenides at Colonos, at Megalopolis,
at Argos, pp. 163-256.