A Folk Song from Epirus: Big John (Yiannis/Yiannaros) and the Dragon; Their Struggle on the Marble Threshing-Floor (Το μαρμαρένιο αλώνι)

Στο μαρμαρένιο αλώνι

An Epirot variant of songs deriving from the Akritic Cycle, about the struggle between the Byzantine hero, Dighenis Akritas, and Haros, or the Dragon. In Epirus the hero is called Yianni (Aravantinos, 1880, pp 270-271, speculates in a footnote whether the name Yianni is a simple transformation of Digheni).

From P. Aravantinos, Dimotika Tragoudia tis Ipeirou, Athens, 1880.

See also, my posting "The Eternal Struggle on the Threshing-Floor"

and

Greece: In Memory of the Lost Alonia (All the Abandoned Threshing Floors) - and of Demeter and Digenis


An extract from "Death and the Shepherd", a Greek folk poem, translated by Carrie C. Dulakis, "Freedom Plays the Flute", 1982: