Kallikantzaros

The kallikantzaros is a malevolent creature in modern Greek folklore.
Kallikantzaroi are believed to dwell underground spending most of the time trying to saw down the giant tree that supports the earth, but come to the surface during the twelve days of Christmas, from 25 December to 6 January.
Its equivalents occur in Bulgarian, Serbian ), Bosnian, Albanian, Cypriot, and Turkish folklore.

Nomenclature

Forms

Alternate spellings in Greek include καλικάντζαρος, καληκάντζαρος, καλλικάντζαρος.
Locally σκαλικάντζαρoc on Zakynthos island, καλκάντζαρος on Lesbos, καλικάτταρος in Cyprus, καλικάνζαρος, σκαλικάντζαροc on Cythera, and other forms as well.

Etymology

The Greek term breaks down into "good, beautiful" and κάντζαρος possibly derived from κένταυρος "centaur", but this "beautiful centaur" speculation has been met with many objections.
The theory that kántzaros may derive from "scarab beetle", proposed by Adamantios Koraïs has also been rejected by who favored the centaur explanation. But Franz Boll supported it, noting that the "holy kantharos" had entered mystical literature, so that it has been invoked in a magic papyrus as "the lord of all". It has been noted that this construct is also justifiable under a different meaning, as kantharoscan mean a type of vase used strictly in Dionysian festivities, and in Rhodes, the subtype of kallintzaros is in fact called "kantharos".
concluded that the word defies explanation in Greek. The form καρκάνταλος attested among the Greek population of Stenimachos and glossed as "mischievous demon", suggests the Albanian term karkantšolji, meaning "gypsy ghost", borrowed from Turkish kara-kondjolos. This Turkish etymology had not found favor with Boll, who backed the kantharos derivation tied to ancient Greek-Egyptian cults, but this orientalist origin is endorsed by Albanologists such as Maximilian Lambertz.

Greek folklore

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. They come down the chimney, urinate on the fireplace, befoul the food, water, or wine, spoil the milk, break furniture, devour the Christmas pork, and terrorize people.
Finally, on the Epiphany, the sun starts moving again, and they must return underground to continue their sawing. They see that during their absence the world tree has healed itself, so they must start working all over again. This is believed to occur annually.

Appearance

There is no standard description of the appearance of kallikantzaroi; there are regional variations as to how their appearance is described. 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. 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, 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 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 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" and it would have to start counting from one again and never complete its task. The apotropaic lore was similarly told 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 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” 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 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, 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

In Serbian Christmas traditions, the Twelve Days of Christmas were previously called the "unbaptized days" or "unchristened days" when it was considered dangerous to be loitering outside the house after dark when diabolical forces of all kinds gained power and people were vulnerable. Especially mythical demons called karakondžula could ride people each night for the duration of the unbaptized days, until the crowing of the rooster announcing the dawn, and straightaway the karakondžula or other witches or ghosts tormenting victims would disperse and begone.
The roaming karakondžula would find disobedient children, and beat them or devour them. In the Zaječar District, belief in karakondžula tend to concentrate among the Timok populace, and the groups Zagorje or Kosovo, as they were under greater influence of oriental culture. The lore is less known among the Vlach who were latecomers to the area from across the Danube. The picture of the creature is rather vague, but it is regarded as a female, black in color, with long outstretching arms grabbing women and children, entering from the chimney.
In the villages of Vratarnica and Zagrađe in Zaječar District, the karakondžula is sometimes regarded as a water she-devil, of black color, and presumably ugly and untidy, as the common pejorative is to call a woman a karakondžula if she fit that sort of description. The karakondžula appears by night and rides people wandering about, but disappears when the first roosters crow.
In the Leskovac-Morava area the karakondžula are said to dwell in the crossroads or above the threshold and lie in wait for the victim, calling out the resident's name, not so much to attack directly, but to cause the person to leave the house and wander aimlessly, eventually to drown in some ravine. A countermeasure for this is the incantation invoking thunderbolt and millstone to strike it down, which causes the haunter to flee.
In Gruža, the karakondžule are also considered aquatic, living in streams or deep forests, emerging in the unbaptized days. Large and fat, it rides people, targeting especially the drunkards.
More generally, karakondžula may dwell in the doorframe /doorjamb, the threshold and doorframe being the place traditionally inhabited by ancestral spirits or ghosts.
The karakondžula also come after sinful adulterers. In one version, the karakondžula would come back every night and remain on the door lintel until the adulterers confessed their sins to their significant other.
The "koledari" carol performers are specifically tasked with driving away the karakondžule according to the lore of Leskovac and Vranje.
The karakondžula haunting in the doorframe, together with its ties to the chimney and rooftop, appears to point to its origin as a chthonic demon. Aquatic habitat also bolsters the chthonic characterization. But ultimately the karakondžula is foreign introduced and lore "not ours", according to ethnographer Slobodan Zečević.