THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

12 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
of the Pindus had a priest attached to the band, whose
cell was a huge hollow oak. When they made a captive
they would lead him up to the tree, and the chief
would say
:
'
Speak, holy oak, which our fathers reverenced,
what shall we do with our prisoner?
'
'
Is he a
Christian,' asked the tree/ or an unbelieving heathen?'
'
'
Thou knowest, sacred tree, that he is a Christian !
'
Then let our brother go on his way rejoicing, after
receiving the kiss of fraternal peace, and dedicating his
purse for the relief of the needs of his poor brethren! '
If the prisoner was a Mussulman the answer was simply
'
Hang the infidel on my holy boughs,
and confiscate
all he has for the use of the true Church and her
faithful children. 7
A religious sanction, then, was not lacking to this
patriotic brigandage. The Orthodox Church gladly
forgave
fatherland;
crimes committed in the cause of faith and
and the klepht could pray, in all sincerity
of heart, to '
Panagia Klephtrina,' the Mother of God,
who protects all robbery by sea and land.
Such were the Klephts who played so important a
part, for good and evil,1 in the war of Greek indepeni
Gordon, i. 400, says 4 the Greeks had cause to repent
their early predilection for the Klephts or predatory chiefs,
who were almost all ... infamous for the sordid perversity
of their dispositions.*
Certainly the wretched peas-