The case of the angels : the relevance of the research by classical scholar John Cuthbert Lawson (1874-1919) on modern Greek culture

In my paper I focus on the well-known John Cuthbert Lawson study about Modern Greek folklore (1910) and I venture to verify if it may be regarded as a reliable source of information about Greek folk beliefs. I base my argument on the eschatological remarks Lawson made concerning the personification of Death - Charos and his relationship to the Christian Angels. Confronting Lawson’s views and his source material with other similar demotic songs, mainly from the collections he had had access to, I try to show in what way the older collections of folk-songs might have distorted or falsified the eschatological images of Charos and the Angels, and what he overlooked while analyzing the sources. I also shed some light on possible influences of Byzantine orthodoxy on Modern Greek folk tradition to which Greek demotic songs belong.