Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/107

 the revival of vegetation needed larger symbolism for its due expression, but because in the tie of mother and daughter and all that it connotes was fitly represented that by which the life-spirit works among the higher orders of created things, that which goes before life's manifestations and outlasts its vanishings, the spirit of love.

Of all such ideas as these the modern peasant, needless to say, is wholly innocent. He has learnt from his ancestors of a woman beautiful, reverend, deathless, who dwells within a mountain of his land, and who by her dealings with mankind has proved her real and divine puissance. Her name is no more uttered, perchance because it is too holy for men of impure lips; they speak only of 'the Mistress.' She is a real person, not the personification of any natural force. The tiller of the land foresees his yearly gain from cornfield and vineyard; the shepherd on the mountain-side expects the yearly increase of his flock; but by neither is any principle inferred therefrom, much less is such a principle personified; the blessing which rests on field and fold is the work of a living goddess' hands. Flesh and blood she is, even as they themselves, but immortal and very mighty, nobler than many of whom the priests preach, stronger to help the good and to punish the wicked. Simple people they are, who still believe such things, and ignorant; yet less truly ignorant than some half-educated pedants of the towns who vaunt their learning in chattering of 'Ceres' rather than of 'Demeter' and, misled by Roman versifiers who at least had an excuse in the exigencies of metre, misinterpret the name as a mere synonym for corn. Happily however the influence of the schools—for it is amongst the schoolmasters that the worst offenders in this respect are to be found—is not yet all-reaching, and in the remoter villages tradition is still untainted. There without fear of ridicule men may still confess their faith in the great compassionate goddess.

It was in Aetolia that I first recognised the popular belief in this deity. There I heard tell of one who was called [Greek: hê kyra tou kosmou], 'the mistress of the world.' Her dwelling was in the heart of a mountain, the means of access to it a cave, but where situated, the peasants either did not know or feared to tell. Her character indeed was ever gracious and kindly, but it may be they thought she would resent a foreigner's approach. In