Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/159

 Nereids who have wed with mortal men, though faithless to their husbands, are yet drawn home now and again by love of their children. And such of them too as have never yielded to human embrace are yet instinct with a strange yearning to possess a mortal woman's prettiest little ones; on one child they exert a fascination which unhappily proves fatal to it; another they seize with open violence; or again they set stealthily in some cradle a babe of pure Nereid birth—a changeling that by some weird fatality is weakly and doomed to die—and carry off to the woods and hills the human infant, in whom they delight, to be their playmate and their fosterling. In a history of the island of Pholegandros, the writer, a native of the place, accounts for the multitude of small chapels in the island on the ground of the peasants' anxiety each to have a saint close to his property to defend him from such raids by Nereids and other kindred beings.

The wife of a priest at Chalandri in Attica related to Ross a story in point. 'I had a daughter,' she said, 'a little girl between twelve and thirteen years old, who showed a very strange disposition. Though we all treated her kindly, her mood was always melancholy, and whenever she got the chance she ran off from the village up the wooded spurs of the mountain (Brilessos). There she would roam about alone all day long, from early morning till late evening; often she would take off some of her clothes and wear but one light garment, so as to be less hindered in running and jumping. We dared not stop her, for we saw quite well that the Nereids had allured her, but we were much distressed. It was in vain that my husband took her time after time to the church and read prayers over her. The Panagia (the Virgin) was powerless to help. After the child had been thus afflicted a considerable while, she fell into yet deeper despondency, and at last died—a short time ago. When we buried her, the neighbours said, "Do not wonder at her death; the Nereids wanted her; it is but two days since we saw her dancing with them."'

Such was the view taken by a Greek priest and his wife concerning the cause of their daughter's death about two generations ago; and at the present day the traveller may hear of similar, p. 29.]