Some Greek Folk Songs of the Lower World

Abstract

WHAT is written here is really I begin to see now only the beginning, one very small scratch at the surface, of a much larger investigation of the meanings of folk song and folktale and that is why this journey to the World of the Dead, as it appears in some Greek Folk Songs, begins in a hesitating and roundabout manner. Well then how did I come to make this journey into the twilight realm of Gloomie Hades? I had been reading Professor Dawkins' 45 Folktalesfrom the Dodekanese, and had been impressed by part of the Introduction in which he explains how 'ideas and feelings about life', ideas and feelings which cannot be directly expressed and often remain unconscious or not consciously formulated, may be 'conveyed in the concrete external shape of a story', and after that I began to think that any work of art, if it is good enough to survive at all, must express more than the maker's conscious beliefs and must include some serious statement about