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"As hard as marble, copper, iron,
The threshing floor
Where Charon waits"
(JP)
A concept for a bilingual performance on an aloni (threshing floor) in Epirus.
I started developing this idea more than thirty years ago. It's still a draft, which I revisit from time to time. Much of the source material is Ancient Greek, Hellenic or Pan-Hellenic rather than specifically Epirot. Most of the quotations relate to threshing floors, and to life in the mountains and distant border districts of Hellenism. I originally had one of the Kato Vitsa threshing floors in mind for the performance space.
Around the
Threshing Floor - Γύρω από το αλώνι - An Evening in Epirus
Kostas Krystallis (Ta
Marmora):
Ακούστε, χωριανοί! Ταχιά, που θα σημάνουν η
καμπάνες, να σκωθήτε όλ' σας, για να πάμε για μάρμαρα! Όποιος δε σκωθή και δεν
πάη, νάχη τ' Άι-Νικόλα την κατάρα
( “Akouste, horianoi!
Tachia, pou tha simanoun i kambanes, na skothite ol’ sas, yia na pame yia
marmara! Opoios dhe skothi kai dhen pai, vachi t’ Ai-Nikola tin katara!)
CHURCH BELLS RING.
Ήταν θεού χαρά. Μέρα η νύχτα. Τα καλτερίμια των ανηφορικών δρόμων του χωριού, η πέτρινες ρούγες, τα μαρμαρένια πεζούλια, η αφρόπλακες και τ' ασπρολίθια των σπιτιών γιάλιζαν, λαμπύριζαν στο σεληνόφωτο
(Itan Theou
hara. Mera i nichta. Ta kalterimia ton aniforikon dromon tou horiou, i petrines
rouges, ta marmorenia pezoulia, i afroplakes kai t’ asprolithia ton spition
yializan, lambririzan sto selinofoto…)
Οι χωριανοί ροβόλαγαν τον κατήφορο φορτωμένοι με τα θεόρατα μάρμαρα.
(I horianoi
rovolagan ton katiforo fortomenoi me ta theorata marmara…)
Μπροστά τα βιολιά πάντα κ' οι δημογέροντες κ' οι παπάδες, φορτωμένοι κι' αυτοί, και πίσω το πλήθος.
(Brosta ta violia panda
k’ oi demoyerontes kai
oi papades, fortomenoi kai aftoi, kai piso to plithos.”)
VIOLINS PLAY.
Yannis Ritsos (Romiosyni, III):
“All the footpaths
lead to the High Threshing Floors.
The air is sharp up
there.”
Ὅλα τὰ μονοπάτια βγάζουνε στὰ Ψηλαλώνια. O
ἀγέρας εἶναι ἁψὺς κεῖ πάνου.
(“Ola ta
monopatia vgazoune sta Psilalonia.
O ayeras einai
apsis kei panou”)
Dionysios Solomos
"My eyes have never seen a more glorious spot than this small threshing-floor"
Dimitris Tsaloumas, from The Threshing-Floor
Down the slope of the declining year
In light of resined wine and crystal glass
I reached, not far above the setting sun,
A threshing-floor and a humble house
In shuttered loneliness. This is, I thought,
How bread begins, and I sat on a stone
To watch the blindfold horse that wound
About a cruel spool the unending thread
Of its darkness…
The threshing-floor below was full of moon.
Three girls I loved, hems stitched to slender
Waists, black kerchiefs chin-fast, hummed low,
Pitchforking moondust into the air. A wind
And a cypress moaned gently all night.
A Greek version (TO ALONI), translated (or a second writing, rather) by the poet from his original English version, can be found in the book DIFOROS KARPOS, 2006
Extract:
Extract:
Eleni Oikonomidou-Douvli:
(“Stin eisodo kathe
horiou stis akres dexia ki aristera, ekei pou o aeras to pianei perissotero,
s’ola ta Zagorohoria tha vreis kalives ki alonia…Alonia plakostromena me meraki
kai techni, m’ena hamilo pezouli oloyira, kai to ‘stouira’ sti mesi.” )
Detail
"To the left Demeter, goddess of the earth and fertility, is shown giving corn to the young Triptolemos, who will pass on the knowledge of agriculture to humankind. On the right stands Persephone with her torch, who having returned from the underworld symbolises the turning of the seasons that enables agriculture to flourish". Museum of Classic Archaeology, Cambridge.
The marbles obtained by Clarke and his pupil John Marten Cripps were presented to the Library in 1803. "They include the huge marble caryatid–then thought to be a statue of Ceres–taken despite local protest from the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis"*.
Narrator, standing in front of a large image of
Demeter, in the centre of the threshing-floor:
“The circular
orchestra of the ancient theatre began its life as a threshing floor where
people danced for Dionysus and worshipped the bountiful Demeter…The Corn
Goddess Demeter, the protecting deity, is standing on the threshing floor,
dispensing corn to her worshippers, as in the days of Theocritus”. The abundant
and rich harvests were the result of her bounty”. (cf J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough,
chapter 44, Demeter and Persephone).
“With time, as the seasons change, as the olives are shaken from the trees, gathered and pressed, as the soil is ploughed and sown, as much later the fruit begins to ripen and fall, as the grain is winnowed on the high circular threshing floor which must be the origin of the orchestra in which the tragic chorus danced, the scholar who has had the good fortune to spend a whole year in Greece can learn to feel the rhythm of the Greek seasons, of the Greek earth, a rhythm unlike that of his own country and one which has not changed since Hesiod wrote his rulebook and its praise”.
See also Dodwell on colossal 'Demeter' standing on the threshing floor of Eleusis (J.G.Frazer)
and on 'Clarke's Demeter' at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
“With time, as the seasons change, as the olives are shaken from the trees, gathered and pressed, as the soil is ploughed and sown, as much later the fruit begins to ripen and fall, as the grain is winnowed on the high circular threshing floor which must be the origin of the orchestra in which the tragic chorus danced, the scholar who has had the good fortune to spend a whole year in Greece can learn to feel the rhythm of the Greek seasons, of the Greek earth, a rhythm unlike that of his own country and one which has not changed since Hesiod wrote his rulebook and its praise”.
The Continuity of Greek Culture, Bernard M.W.Knox,
The Journal of Modern Hellenism.
p.145
journals.sfu.ca/jmh/Index.php/jmh/article/download/91/92
See also Dodwell on colossal 'Demeter' standing on the threshing floor of Eleusis (J.G.Frazer)
and on 'Clarke's Demeter' at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Turns to image: “Noble Demeter, mistress of fruits in their
season, of bright gifts the bestower” (The Homeric Hymns, tr. Thelma Sargent, p.
3)…
“Awesome divinity,
bright-haired Demeter” (p. 62)…to you we sing.”
Villager 1:
“When Orion appears,
Demeter’s gift has to be brought to the well-smoothed threshing floor” (Hesiod,
Work and Days)
Villager 2:
“Here to thee by the
threshing floor, O toiling worker ant, I rear a memorial to thee of a thirsty
clod, that even in death the ear-nurturing furrow of Demeter may lull thee as
thou liest in the rustic cell” (The Ant, by Antipater of Sidon, from Selected Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, J.W. Mackail, Longmans Green, 1890)
Villager 3:
“Eudemus dedicates
this shrine in the fields to Zephyrus, most bountiful of the winds, who came to
aid him at his prayer, that he might quickly winnow the grain from the ripe
ears”. (“To the West Wind”, Bacchylides, Selected Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, J.W. Mackail, Longmans Green, 1890)).
Villager 4:
“This journey is to a
harvest festival, for friends of mine are celebrating a feast for beautifully
robed Demeter, giving the first fruits of their wealth; for in fullest measure
has the goddess piled their threshing floor with barley”. (Theokritos, Harvest
Time in Cos, Idyll VII, tr. Constantine Trypanis, p. 296, Penguin Book of Greek
Verse.)
Villager 5:
“Was it such
nectar…such nectar as you, Nymphs, mixed for us to drink that day by the altar
of Demeter of the Threshing-Floor? May I again plant the great winnowing-shovel
on her heap of corn, while she smiles on us with sheaves and poppies in both
hands” (Theokritos, PBGV, p. 302)
Villager 6:
“Even as from a broad
shovel in a great threshing-floor, fly the black-skinned beans and pulse,
before the whistling wind; even as when one yoketh wide-browed bulls to tread
white barley in a stablished threshing-floor, and quickly is it trodden out
beneath the feet of the loud-lowing bulls…” (Homer, Iliad, Book V, XIII
and XX)
Villager 7:
“The Trojans turned
about and faced the Achaeans. But these too held their ground. They closed
their ranks and were by no means put to flight. Indeed, as the infantry came to
grips again and the chariots wheeled to withdraw, the dust that the horses’
hooves kicked up among them into the copper sky settled down on the Achaeans
and whitened them, like chaff-heaps whitened by the falling dust when men are winnowing
and the chaff is blown across the sacred threshing-floor by the wind that
auburn-haired Demeter sends to separate it from the grain.” (Homer, Iliad, Book V).
Re-enactment of
ancient Greek village festival drama/dance. Autumn. High pitched voices of
women singing polyphonic songs as they strip corn. The sound of the whistling
wind. Soon the image of Dionysus (also a deity of grain and agriculture,
as well as wine and ecstasy) replaces the image of Demeter, and bacchic revels
begin. The music changes, becomes more Dionysian, frenzied and ecstatic.
Maenads dance wildly, in an abandoned and promiscuous way, carrying torches and
thyrsoi.
The sound of thunder.
Nikos Kazantzakis:
ΠΙΣΤΕΥΩ ΣΤΗΝ ΚΑΡΔΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ, ΤΟ ΧΩΜΑΤΕΝΙΟ
ΑΛΩΝΙ, ΟΠΟΥ ΜΕΡΑ ΚΑΙ ΝΥΧΤΑ ΠΑΛΕΥΕΙ Ο ΑΚΡΙΤΑΣ ΜΕ ΤΟ ΘΑΝΑΤΟ.
Η ΣΙΓΗ from Ασκητική
“I believe in Man’s
Heart, that earthen threshing-floor where night and day the defender of the
borders fights with death.”
(from Kazantzakis’ The
Saviour of God- Askitiki- Spiritual Exercises, The Silence).
SOLO SHEPHERD’S FLUTE,
then KLARINO IMPROVISATION, slow, dirge-like, mournful miroloi, becoming
a duel-duet with a violin.
Stylised balletic
wrestling match on the aloni. Masked actors, Digenis (the Akritic
border-guard, Mavroeidis, or the shepherd) versus Charon/Charos. Charos
(Death, the black knight, transformed into the Drakos, or dragon)
performs a bravado zeibekiko dance at end.
Κι επήγαν κι επαλέψανε στα μαρμαρένια αλώνια,
Κι όθε χτυπάει ο Διγενής, το αίμα αυλάκι κάνει,
κι όθε χτυπάει ο χάροντας, το αίμα τράφο κάνει.
Narrator introduces recitations after setting the
context:
“The earthen circle,
set with marble flagstones, where Digenis and Charos wrestled in mortal combat
for each other’s souls. Digenis, the undying border-guard and frontiersman,
defends our borders and our peaceful villages, even here in Epirus . Tonight
he’s here to lead the dance, on stones as smooth as iron or copper, where
resistance fighters once broke their bread”.
Pios na serni to
horo (Who will lead the
dance):
“Three birds sang high
up in the sky:
Whoever wants and
loves to lead the dance,
He must be a fine
fellow, and good-looking,
He must have black
eyes, and be tall,
And sinuous and supple
like a sprig of basil.”
(Tr. Hilary Pym, Songs
of Greece, p. 23)
Andartis, with
beard, ammunition and rifle
(from Yannis Ritsos, Romiosyni II):
Μπῆκαν στὰ σίδερα καὶ στὴ φωτιά, κουβέντιασαν
μὲ τὰ λιθάρια,
κεράσανε ρακὶ τὸ θάνατο στὸ καύκαλο τοῦ παππουλῆ τους,
στ᾿ Ἁλώνια τὰ ἴδια ἀντάμωσαν τὸ Διγενῆ καὶ στρώθηκαν στὸ δεῖπνο
κόβοντας τὸν καημὸ στὰ δυὸ ἔτσι ποὺ κόβανε στὸ γόνατο τὸ κριθαρένιο τους
καρβέλι.
“They have been
through fire and steel,
they have conversed with stones
They have treated
Death to wine served in the skull-bones of their grandpas,
And they have met with
Dighenes on those same threshing-floors
And sat themselves to
feast there,
Slicing their anguish
in two just as they broke their barley-loaves across their knees.”
(“Bikan sta
sidera kai sti fotia, koventiasan me ta litharia,
kerasane raki to
thanato sto kafkalo tou pappouli tous,
st’ alonia ta idia
antamosan to Diyeni kai strothikan sto deipno
kovontas ton kaimo
sta dio etsi pou kovane sto gonato to kriarenio tous karveli.”)
Euripides Makris on the Sarakatsani Skaros (from Zoi kai Paradosi ton Sarakatsanaion, Ioannina, 1997):
P. 164 “Oi tsomnanarioi anavan foties, ta skilia
efernan yiro ap’ ta kopadia alichtontas yia na prostatepsoun ap’ tous likous ki
o tsombanos yia na xagripnisei epairne me ti flogera tou kanena argosirto
poimeniko skopo. Oi palioi pou thimountai san oneiro aftes tis nichtiatikes ikones,
nostalgoun n’akousoun afton ton gliko poimeniko skopo tis flogeras. Merikoi
kaloi kai meraklides tragoudistes epairnan kai kana tragoudi kleftiko.”
Charos and Mavroeidis
(the Dark-formed; epithet of Dighenis Akritas) - from Deep Into Mani, Peter Greenalgh and Edward Eliopoulos, pp 89-90:
“Come Charos, if you
have the strength,
If you are really
brave,
Come let us show our
worth
Upon my
threshing-floor,
This floor whose base
is solid iron
Whose walls are steel
all round.”
With seven blows
Mavroeidis
Beat Charos as they
fought,
And seven times great
Charos reeled,
But then, in anger
roused,
He summoned all his
mighty strength
And smashed the young
man’s sword,
And seizing then his
flowing locks
He flung him helpless
down…
Then Charos mocked him
cruelly
And taunted him with
scorn-
“Your sword of steel,
your belt of iron,
Your chest of marble
strong,
They lie, it seems,
with all your boasts,
Upon the
threshing-floor.”
Folk-song “Eteron” (P. Aravantinos, No. 448):
“Ekatevaina apo ton Ai
Yiorgi,,
Kai foni akousa, foni
apo Drakou stoma,
-E! more Yanni, more,
kontokarterei,
-kai poios eis esi pou
les more to Yanni?
-Eim’ o Drakontas ton
evdominta vrison.
-‘go eim o Yannaros
ton evdominta pente,
ki as palaipsoume sto
marmarenio aloni.
K’epalaipsane treis
merais kai treis nichtes,
Ki-out o Drakontas to
Yannaro nikaei,
Out’ o Yannaros to
Drako vanei katou.
Na ti k’erchetai ton
Yannarou I yinaika,
-E, more Yanni, more
yinaikokardhi,
pias’ ton an ombros
kai rix’ ton apo piso”.
NB Roderick Beaton, Folk Poetry of Modern Greece, p. 80:
“This Diyenis, who is
at once the borderer of the epic and the shepherd or brave young man
(pallikari) who challenges Death to single combat in the folk songs.”
From Ellinikos Laikos Politismos, Athens, 1982
From Ellinikos Laikos Politismos, Athens, 1982
Kostis Palamas,
Digenis Akritas:
Καβάλα πάει ο Χάροντας
το Διγενή στον Άδη,
— Ο Ακρίτας είμαι, Χάροντα,
δεν περνώ με τα χρόνια.
Μ' άγγιξες και δε μ' ένιωσες
στα μαρμαρένια αλώνια;
(Kavala paei o
Charontas
To Digeni ston Adi…
Sta marmorenia
alonia…)
The Death of Dhiyenis,
tr. Martin Johnston:
“I crossed mountains
and plains, mountains and gorges,
Nights without
starblaze, nights without moonlight.
And all these years
I’ve lived in the upper world
I’ve never feared a
man among the brave.
But here I saw one barefoot and
brightly clothed
Who had the peacock’s
plumage and the lightning’s eyes
And he challenged me to wrestle him
on the marble threshing-floor
And whichever should
win would take the loser’s soul”.
And they went and
wrestled on the marble threshing-floor
And where Dhiyenis
struck the blood filled a trench
But where Death struck
the blood filled a river.
From Death and the Shepherd, Freedom Plays the Flute, Carrie C. Dukakis, Smithtown, New York, 1982:
From Death and the Shepherd, Freedom Plays the Flute, Carrie C. Dukakis, Smithtown, New York, 1982:
The full dialogue:
Odysseus Elytis:
"Below, on the Daisy’s Small Threshing Floor"
Κάτω στης μαργαρίτας τ' αλωνάκι, στήσαν χορό τρελό τα μελισσόπουλα.
"Below, on the daisy’s small threshing floor
The young honeybees have struck up a crazy dance"
Yannis Ritsos
We do not love our distant cousins that arrive from the capitol and wear double vests and who always have colds...
Upon the threshing floor the haystacks shine like naked breasts and the horses race at midday, trampling the ears of grain and getting lost in the woods.
from Midday Summer Dream (1938) [Collected Poems: Alpha ---pg 347-348].
George Seferis
"He tells me of the sharp pain you feel...
Being alone, dark in the night, and helpless as chaff on the threshing-floor"
(Reflections on a Foreign Line of Verse, for Elli, Christmas 1931, tr. Keeley and Sherrard)
from LOGBOOK II,
Η μορφή της μοίρας (1η Οχτώβρη ‘41)
ποιος είναι εκείνος που προστάζει και σκοτώνει πίσω
από μας;
Άφησε μη ρωτάς∙ τρία κόκκινα άλογα στ’ αλώνι
γυρίζουν πάνω σ’ ανθρώπινα κόκαλα κι έχουν τα μάτια
δεμένα,
άφησε μη ρωτάς, περίμενε∙ το αίμα, το αίμα
ένα πρωί θα σηκωθεί σαν τον Αι-Γιώργη τον καβαλάρη
για να καρφώσει με το κοντάρι πάνω στο χώμα το
δράκοντα.
"Who is he who commands and murders behind our backs?
Don't ask; three red horses on the threshing floor
circle on human bones, their eyes blindfolded..." (tr. Keeley and Sherrard)
circle on human bones, their eyes blindfolded..." (tr. Keeley and Sherrard)
Όντως, τα κόκκινα άλογα του θανάτου μέσα στο αλώνι της φρίκης και της καταστροφής, που γυρίζουν πάνω στ' ανθρώπινα κόκκαλα, πού τα έχω δει αυτά;
Μοῦ λέει τὸ δύσκολο πόνο νὰ νιώθεις τὰ πανιὰ τοῦ καρα-
βιοῦ σου φουσκωμένα ἀπὸ τὴ θύμηση καὶ τὴν ψυχή
σου νὰ γίνεται τιμόνι.
Καὶ νἄ ῾σαι μόνος, σκοτεινὸς μέσα στὴ νύχτα καὶ ἀκυβέρ-
νητος σὰν τ᾿ ἄχερο στ᾿ ἁλώνι.
Γιῶργος Σεφέρης, «Πάνω σ᾿ ἕναν ξένο στίχο», Ποιήματα, Ἀθήνα, ἔκδ. Ἴκαρος, 1985, σσ. 87-89
Two photos by Kostas Balafas (Κώστας Μπαλάφας)
Nelly's, Threshing, Crete, 1927-1930, Benaki Museum (above)
Threshing the wheat, from Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village,
Juliet du Boulay, 1974
From Aristi kai Dhitiko Zagori, Fotios M. Petsas, Athens, 1982
From Mani: Travels in the Southern
Peloponnese, Patrick Leigh Fermor:
"Through another gap our host’s second daughter, wide-hatted
and perched on the back of a wooden sledge and grasping three reins, was
sliding round and round a threshing floor behind a horse, a mule and a cow –
the first cow I had seen in the Mani – all of them linked in a triple yoke. On
a bank above this busy stone disc, the rest of the family were flinging wooden
shovelfuls of wheat in the air for the grain to fall on outstretched coloured
blankets while the husks drifted away. Others shook large sieves. The sun which climbed behind them outlined this group with a
rim of gold and each time a winnower sent up his great fan, for long seconds
the floating chaff embowered him in a gold mist".
On the Sarakatsani
shepherds; beyond Vitsa and Monodendri, where they grazed their flocks in
summer
"All their eyes lit up like those of the children of
Israel at the thought of Canaan...You didn't need wine there- the air made you
drunk; and as for the shade, the grass, the trees and the water- why the water came gushing out of the living rock as cold as
ice, you couldn't drink it, it was so cold, and you could drink it by the oka, and feel like a giant. Words failed
them".
Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli.
Demetrios Capetanakis, from "An Introduction to Modern Greek Poetry" (New Writing and Dayloght, Autumn 1944):
Demetrios Capetanakis, from "An Introduction to Modern Greek Poetry" (New Writing and Dayloght, Autumn 1944):
Songs to consider:
Mariza Koch, Elytis: Μαρίζα Κωχ - Ελύτης - Κάτω στης μαργαρίτας τ΄ αλωνάκι
Some Biblical references
The Threshing Floor of Ornan (Araunah)
The threshing floor which King David bought,
and where Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem,
according to Chronicles.
See also: Threshing floors in Ancient Israel (pdf)
Two Old Testament Prophets:
"But they do not
know the thoughts of the LORD, And they do not understand His purpose; For He
has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor".
αὐτοὶ δὲ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν τὸν λογισμὸν Κυρίου καὶ οὐ συνῆκαν τὴν
βουλὴν αὐτοῦ, ὅτι συνήγαγεν αὐτοὺς ὡς δράγματα ἅλωνος
Hosea 13:3
"Therefore they will be like the morning cloud And like dew which soon disappears, Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor And like smoke from a chimney".
or
"Therefore shall they be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, as chaff blown away from the threshing-floor, and as a vapor from tears".
διὰ τοῦτο ἔσονται ὡς νεφέλη πρωϊνὴ καὶ ὡς δρόσος ὀρθρινὴ πορευομένη, ὥσπερ χνοῦς ἀποφυσώμενος ἀφ᾿ ἅλωνος καὶ ὡς ἀτμὶς ἀπό δακρύων
Two New Testament Apostles
Matthew 3:12
"His winnowing
fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He
will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire."
οὗ τὸ πτύον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ διακαθαριεῖ τὴν ἅλωνα
αὐτοῦ, καὶ συνάξει τὸν σῖτον αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν ἀποθήκην, τὸ δὲ ἄχυρον κατακαύσει πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ.
Luke 3:17
"His winnowing
fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the
wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire."
οὗ τὸ πτύον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ διακαθαριεῖ τὴν ἅλωνα
αὐτοῦ, καὶ συνάξει τὸν σῖτον εἰς τὴν ἀποθήκην αὐτοῦ, τὸ δὲ ἄχυρον κατακαύσει
πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ
General
MUSIC, POEMS AND DANCE
Possible selections for an expanded performance:
Death and the Shepherd, tr. Carrie C. Dulakis, Freedom Plays the Flute (O Haros ki o Tsopanos: “Upon the marble threshing-floor/They fight like beasts at bay”).
O Charos ki O Tsopanos: “Leventis erovolagen apo psili Rachoila…”
Reflections on a Foreign Line of Verse, George Seferis ("being alone, dark in the night, and helpless as chaff on the threshing-floor")
Reflections on a Foreign Line of Verse, George Seferis ("being alone, dark in the night, and helpless as chaff on the threshing-floor")
The Death of Dhiyenis (tr Martin Johnston)
Forrest Reid, Poems from the Greek Anthology
Forrest Reid, Poems from the Greek Anthology
E. Legrand, Recueil de chansons populaires Grecques, 1904, Troisième Partie, (Cycle de Digenis Akritas), Akritas Mourant, LXXXIX, pp 195-196 (Ela, Char’, as palainomen sto chalkinon to alonen)
Kostas Palamas, Digenis Akritas (PBGV p 536-537)
Lord Byron, Child Harold Canto II, XII-LIV
Kostas Kristallis, O Skaros (poem); Ta Marmora (story); Easter in Pindus; O Horismos; First of May In Ioannina; Ithela namoun Tselingas.
Eteron, from Ipeirotika Tragoudia, P. Aravantinos, 1880 (no 448: “as palaipsoume sto marmarenio aloni”, the Drakos kai o Giannis)
Ioannis Nikolaides, Aslan Pasha and his mother from Vitsa (Zagori, pp 57-61)
Eleni Oikonomidou-Douvli (from Elafotopos), on Zagori threshing floors (Tin Erasmian kai mian kalivin”, 1998 (Paskalomansis, Ioannina 2005)
Ioannis Vilaras, Spring (Anoixis)
Dimitrius Sarras, Dream etc
Sikelianos, Akritika (1942), Akritan Songs
George Zalokostas: To Filima; To dentro mou
O. Elytis, On the Daisy’s Small Theshing-Floor (Sun the First; also Markopoulos, Kato stis margaritas to alonaki)
I. Kadare, Chronicle in Stone, introduction and chapter I
D. Hatzis, Sklithras, the Notary, from The Teacher’s Will, Section 3
K. Karyotakis: Preveza, plus prose piece, “Our Flag in Ioannina”
L. Mavilis, Lethe, and Harris
C. Milionis, Story, excerpt from ‘Phryne’
Euripides Makris, O Skaros pp 164-165 (Sarakatsanoi)
Ioannis Lambrides, women dancing on the threshing-floor and the men sitting round (D. Dallas for ref)
Frixos Tziovas, The Miroloi of the Gypsy and other stories
Evterpi Sarrou (from Trilogia), Dhoste ta Heria; O kainourios chronos; Epistrofi
M. Ganas, Yialina Iannena II
Terzis, Hymn and Lament
K. Palamas, The East (Anatoli)
P. Leigh Fermor, Zagori; Threshing floor in Mani
Juliet du Boulay: Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village
Juliet du Boulay: Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village
Kostas Pasagianis, In Epirus (Sherrard p 168-169)
Homer, Hesiod, Theokritos, Bacchylides, Antipater of Sidon .
Jim Potts, Zagori and Vitsa poems.
Folk Song; Sto Tsevari (Sto horio stin Kato Vitsa/Agapo mia kopelitsa)
Fauriel and Passow collections
Matthew, Chapter 3, 11-12, New Testament in Greek, John the Baptist “cleanse the threshing-floor”- “diakaqariei thn alwna”
Palies Fotografies, Ipeiros-Makedonia, Athens, 1977
Excerpts from "Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village", Juliet du Boulay (1994 edition, Denise Harvey):
The Threshing Floors in Ambeli, Evia
Palies Fotografies, Ipeiros-Makedonia, Athens, 1977
Excerpts from "Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village", Juliet du Boulay (1994 edition, Denise Harvey):
The Threshing Floors in Ambeli, Evia
* From J.G.Frazer, The Golden Bough:
Photos from Zagorision Vios/Zagori: The Life of a Community,
Rizareios Foundation, Athens, 2003:
Final photo above, Konstantinos Manos
References to Vitsa threshing floors in Ioannis Nikolaidis,
"Istoriki Monografia peri tis en Ipeiro Horas Vezitsis", 1939:
"The plain of Kato Soudena used to be the granary of Zagoria. In “Anilia”, just opposite Anemi, we find concentrated in the same area the largest number of threshing areas and stone huts in the Balkans, about 46, built with the technique of “xerolithias” (from Anemi Guesthouse website, Kato Pedina).
Charmian Clift, from Honour’s Mimic, 1964
“There’s to be a dance at Paul’s on Sunday night. And I
expect we shall go out to the threshing floor on Clean Monday…”
“Threshing floor?” she said.
“Oh yes. Didn’t you know? Everybody in the town simply packs
up and goes out to the village threshing floor on Clean Monday – that’s the
beginning of Lent, you see, and the last day for feasting – and they all dance
on the old threshing floor…They sing a lot. And they all bring food –
unleavened bread and olives and things, special sorts of food for Lent and
masses of wine – and it’s sort of one great huge picnic out under the trees,
and visits from family to family, and it goes on all day long and goodness
knows how long through the night”.
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