Mani Read Free

mountains and the islands in relationship to their habitat and their history; to seek them out in those regions where bad communications and remoteness have left this ancient relationship, comparatively speaking, undisturbed. In the towns and the more accessibleplains many sides of life which had remained intact for centuries are being destroyed apace—indeed, a great deal has vanished since my own first visits to Greece. Ancient and celebrated sites are carefully preserved, but, between the butt of a Coca-cola bottle and the Iron Curtain, much that is precious and venerable, many living mementoes of Greece’s past are being ham-mered to powder. It seems worth while to observe and record some of these less famous aspects before the process is complete.
    These private invasions of Greece, then, are directed at the least frequented regions, often the hardest of access and the least inviting to most travellers, for it is here that what I am in search of is to be found. This is in a way the opposite of a guide book, for many of the best-known parts of ancient Greece, many of the world’s marvels, will be, perforce and most unwillingly—unless their link with some aspect of modern Greek life is especially compelling—left out. There are two thoughts which make this exclusion seem less unjust. Firstly, the famous shrines and temples of antiquity usually occupy so much space in books on Greece that all subsequent history is ignored; and, secondly, hundreds of deft pens are forever at work on them, while in this century, scarcely a word has been written on the remote and barren but astonishing region of the Mani. [1] Even with this thinning of the material it was impossible to prevent the theme from ballooning from a chapter into a fair-sized book; and there are many omissions. The most noticeable of these is the belief in vampires, their various nature and their origins, to which many pages should have been devoted. I left them out because so much space is already used up on Maniot superstitions. But fortunately, or unfortunately, vampires exist in other regions, though they are less prevalent than in the Mani; so I will be able to drag them in elsewhere as a red herring.

    It only remains to thank the enormous number of Greek friends and acquaintances whose hospitality and kindness over many years has been of such help to me. I would like especially to thank Amy and Walter Smart for their kind hospitality in Normandy, and Niko and Tiggie Hadjikyriakou-Ghika for lending me the beautiful house in Hydra where most of this book was written.
    â€”P.M.L.F.
    Hydra, 1958  
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    [1] A notable exception to this is the admirable chapter ( MaÄ«na ) in Mr. Robert Liddell’s excellent book The Morea (Cape) which has recently appeared.

1. SOUTH FROM SPARTA
    â€œYOU HAD better look out if you are going up to Anavryti,” said the young barber ominously as he snapped his scissors. He plunged them into another handful of dust-clogged hair. There was a crunch of amputation and another tuft joined the ring of colourless débris on the floor. The reflected head, emerging from a shroud in the looking-glass opposite, seemed to be shrinking visibly. It already felt pounds lighter. “They are a queer lot.”
    â€œWhy must I look out?” The nature of the threat sounded ambiguous. The reflected Spartan faces along the back of the shop were bisected with happy grins of anticipation.
    â€œWhy?” The policeman leant forward. “They’ll have the coat off your back!”
    An old Arcadian in a kilt went even further. “They’ll skin you alive, my child,” he said. A child, beaming at the barber’s elbow said, “They’ll eat you!”
    Their tone made it impossible to treat their warnings with too much concern. I asked why they were so much to be feared.
    â€œBecause they are Jews,” the policeman said.
    â€œSo they say,” one of the Spartans added.
    â€œOf