Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/150

 doubtless have corroborated the highly-coloured story which he told when we reached the light and safety of the next village; and the ready acceptance of the story by those who heard it proved to me that a personal encounter with Nereids was really reckoned among the possible incidents of every-day life.

The awe in which the Nereids are held is partially responsible, without doubt, for the many adulatory by-names by which they are known. Now and again indeed a peasant, when he is suffering from some imagined injury at their hands, may so far speak his mind concerning them as to call them 'evil women' ([Greek: kakais] or [Greek: aschêmais gynaikes]): but in general his references are more diplomatic and conciliatory in tone. He adopts the same attitude towards them as did his forefathers towards the Furies; and, though the actual word 'Eumenides' is lost to his vocabulary, the spirit of his address is unchanged. 'The Ladies' ([Greek: hê kyrades]), 'Our Maidens' ([Greek: ta kourits[i(]a mas]), 'Our good Queens' ([Greek: hê kalais archontissais]), 'The kind-hearted ones' ([Greek: hê kalokardais]), 'The ladies to whom we wish joy' ([Greek: hê chairamenais]), or most commonly of all 'Our good Ladies' ([Greek: hê kalokyrades] or [Greek: kallikyrades]) ,—such is the wonted style of his adulation, in which the frequent use of the word [Greek: kyrades] (the plural of [Greek: kyra], i.e. [Greek: kyria]) is a heritage from his ancestors who made dedications 'to the lady nymphs' ([Greek: kyriais nymphais]). Yet it may be questioned whether these by-names are wholly euphemistic; for mingled with the awe which the Nereids inspire there is certainly an element of admiration and, I had almost said, of affection in the feelings of the common-folk toward them.

The Nereids are conceived as women half-divine yet not immortal, always young, always beautiful, capricious at best, and at, pp. 218 and 222), to distinguish [Greek: kalokyrades] from [Greek: neraïdes]. He maintains that in Athens the latter were never regarded as maleficent beings, and must therefore be distinguished from the dread [Greek: kalokyrades], whom he seeks to identify, on no better ground than the euphemistic name, with the Eumenides. A folk-story, however, which he himself records (ibid. p. 319), how a [Greek: kalokyra] was married to a prince, whose eyes she had blinded to all other women, and how after living with him for a while she disappeared finally in a whirlwind, reveals in her all the usual traits of a Nereid, and thus defeats the writer's previous contention. But apart from this a little enquiry on the subject outside the limits of Athens would have set at rest his doubts as to the identity of the two. It is quite possible that formerly in Athens, as now elsewhere, it was usual to employ the euphemism [Greek: kalokyrades] in referring to the Nereids in their more mischievous moods; only in that way can I explain his idea that the Nereids were never maleficent.]