In my paper I focus on the well-known John Cuthbert Lawson’s 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.
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