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Visitors to Alonnisos will have the opportunity to witness the traditional religious celebration, with the revival of the traditional wedding and all its expected customs, every 15^th of August.

The programme as announced consists of the following:

On the morning there will be the service of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Christ in the village. This will be followed by wreath-laying, by members of the resistance and island authorities at the memorial to the fallen heroes of the second World War in the village square. (Time 11 a.m.; there will be free traditional sweets and ouzo.)

In the early evening, starting at 7 p.m., there will be the representation of the traditional wedding, in which, wearing traditional island costume, volunteers of the Cultural Association of Alonnisos will be ‘married’. The presentation will not of course include the actual service in the church, but will include all the traditional features, as follows: The Best Man, with musicians and relatives, sets out from home and goes to the Groom’s house to greet him. The Groom must tip the musicians, and give the guests traditional sweets and tsipouro or wine. Then they all set off together for the Bride’s house. There the Groom must present his gifts (traditional sweets, known as ‘Hamalia’, and ‘satisfy’ the mother-in-law with some gift. When she accepts, she opens the door and the Groom may take his Bride to the church.

All this will take place on the afternoon in the village. The role of the relatives belongs to visitors to Alonnisos, who will have the opportunity to try among other things the traditional sweets of the place, skilfully prepared by island women. Certainly the best of all is what follows: the party, with specially decorative dances, in which everyone will have the opportunity to try the traditional wedding feast; the well-known dish of goat cooked with pasta, prepared by local cooks, following tradition. Dancing continues until the last one falls, while the free wine will raise everyone’s spirits and the party will continue until the morning.

Translated by Simon Darragh from Jimmy’s text.

The translator adds: The wreath-laying ceremony takes place not at the general war memorial in ‘Christos’, the square occupied in Summer by ‘Aerides’ café, but in the upper square, lately re-named ‘Square of the Heroes’ but always popularly known as ‘Kopria’ or ‘Dung’. There is a memorial there to the event of the 15^th of August 1944: men of the resistance held a meeting in Kopria, but a local man had betrayed them and German soldiers with machine guns were lying in wait. Nine men were simply ‘Mown down’ as the terrible cliché puts it. The blood ran down the stone slope as far as Christos. A local woman whom I shall not name told me how she, as a child, returning to the village that day unaware of what had happened, in her innocence dabbled her hands in the blood and made prints on the walls.

As far as I know no direct action was taken against the betrayer, who lived on, an outcast, on the edge of Patitiri, where I met and talked with him shortly before his death in about 1980. After his death the tin hut in which he had lived was destroyed and no trace of it remains.

It is a tribute to the tolerance and forgiveness of the Alonnisos people that German visitors are welcome.

Simon Darragh.