It is believed that
kallikantzaroi stay underground, sawing the trunk of
the tree that holds the Earth, so that it will collapse, along with the
Earth. However, according to folklore, when the final part of the trunk is about to be sawed,
Christmas dawns and
kallikantzaroi are able to come to the surface. They forget the tree and come to bring trouble to mortals, by playing pranks.
Appearance There is no standard description of the appearance of
kallikantzaroi; there are regional variations as to how their appearance is described (cf. below). Sometimes they are said to be enormous, and sometimes diminutive. They may be black and hairy, with burning red eyes, goats' or donkeys' ears, tongues that hang out, beastly limbs and paws (monkeys' arms, horse or donkey-like feet or
cleft hooves). It is almost always male, often with prominent sexual organs. Alternate descriptions depict it as
squint-eyed or even one-eyed, or blind. It is also said to be
lame-legged,
knock-kneed, or reverse-footed. Nonetheless, the most common belief is that they are ugly goblins with horns and a long black tails, or small, black creature resembling little black devils.
Lore According to the old lore on
Chios (as described by
Leo Allatius, mid-17th century), the shaggy-looking
kallikantzaroi roamed around during the 12-day Christmas season, slashing victims with sharp claws. It also sat down on the victim and asked the question "
Tow (clump of
hemp fiber) or
lead?", and if the first answer is given the person is spared and released, but if the latter answer is given, the person is crushed down by tremendous weight and beaten half to death. One way to protect against it, according to superstition already established back at that time, is to leave a
sieve (
colander) to distract the
kallikantzaros into counting the holes. It would start one, two, but he cannot pronounce three, "as if it were an evil omen" (i.e., three is a holy number) and it would have to start counting from one again and never complete its task. The
apotropaic lore was similarly told (c. mid to late 19th century) on
Zakynthos. An alternate version is to leave out a clump of tangled hemp, and the
kallikantzaros becomes engrossed with counting the threads until the
cock crows, and the dawn light supposedly destroys it. In Zakynthos, it is said that a child born on Christmas Eve eventually becomes a
skalikántzaros, due to having been from a sinful woman who dared to conceive a child on the same day as
Mary, mother of Jesus. Such a child develops the ability to
transform into a
kallikantzaros during the Christmas season, in its adulthood. Superstitious parents in
Chios used to force a child born in the wrong season to have its feet exposed to fire at the point of fusing off their toenails. It also came to be believed that the antidote for preventing this transformation was to bind the baby with tresses (
bouquets) of garlic or straw. But in other parts of Greece, the creature is not regarded as a transformed human, but rather as a class of
demons that are shaggy, with goat or donkey-like feet and goat ears, loving to dance and lusting after women, hence akin to
satyr or
Pan. The kallikantzaroi are said feed on frogs, worms, snakes, and other small creatures. It is also said that
pork is their favorite food. Bribes of desserts and
honey cakes may be placed to lure the spirit away from people. In
Samos, dessert is put out on New Year's Eve to appease these spirits. In
Cyprus, eggs and sausages used to be customarily put out on
Epiphany, but in later years,
pancakes became the standard fare to be scattered on the rooftop on this last day of the season, when the
kallikantzaroi are ready to leave. Also “
Lokma” (donut-like dessert soaked in syrup) on the rooftop is said to keep goblins away from home. Since the favorite means of
kallikantzaroi to enter the home is through the
chimney, keeping the fire burning in the
fireplace throughout the night will foil them from entering. Some people would burn the
Yule log () for the duration of the twelve days, or people would throw foul-smelling shoes into the fire, as the stench was believed to repel the
kallikantzaroi, forcing them to stay away. Salt as well as old shoes are thrown into the fireplace to repel the
kallikantzaroi. Additional ways to keep them away included marking one's door with a black cross on Christmas Eve and burning
incense. Or a pig's
lower jaw (subscribed to have
apotropaic powers) is hung behind the front door or inside the chimney to ward them off.
Origin theories One theory ties the origin of the goblin lore to the
masquerades of the ancient winter festival of
Dionysus (
Dionysia, cf. Roman
Bacchanalia), whose practice has been carried on into the modern age, involving masked parties, wearing such masks as grotesque as can be, loudly jingling bells, and visiting door to door. Their possibly fright-causing antics may have inspired the lore of the seasonal goblin. Another view, subscribed to by Allatius, is that
kallikantzaros is nothing more than the folkloric
nightmare, a monstrosity that presses or rides people, except that the period is constrained to yuletide. ==Serbian folklore==