Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/167

 narrated to Pashley, and his informant's words are recorded by him in the original dialect. 'Once upon a time a man told me that two men had once gone up to the highest mountain-ridges, where wild goats live, and sat by moonlight in a grassy hollow ([Greek: diaseli]), in the hopes of shooting the goats. And there they heard a great noise, and supposed that there were men come to get loads of snow to carry to Canea. But when they drew nearer, they heard violins and cithers and all kinds of music, and such music they had never heard. So they knew at once that these were no men but an assemblage of divine beings ([Greek: daimoniko synedrion]). And they watched them and saw them pass at a short distance from where they were sitting, clothed in all manner of raiment, and mounted some on grey horses and some on horses of other colours, and they could make out that there were men and women, afoot or riding, a very host. And the men were white as doves, and the women very beautiful like the rays of the sun. They saw too that they were carrying something in the way that a dead body is carried out. Forthwith the mountaineers determined to have a shot at them as they passed before them. They had heard also a song of which the words were

"Go we to fetch a bride, a lady bride, From the steep rock, a bride that is alone."

And they made up their minds and fired a shot at them. Thereupon those that were in front cried out with one voice, "What is it?" and those behind answered, "Our bridegroom is slain, our bridegroom is slain." And they wept and cried aloud and fled.'

In regard to this story it may be noted that a male form of Nereid ([Greek: Neraidês]) is sometimes mentioned, and here such are undoubtedly implied. The necessity of finding husbands for the Nereids naturally presents itself to the minds of the old women who are the chief story-tellers, and the demand is met by an assorted supply of young men, male Nereids, and devils. As consorts of the last-mentioned, the Nereids enjoy in many places the title of [Greek: diabolissais], 'she-devils'; and it was on the ground of such unions that a peasant-woman of Acarnania once explained to me the belief, held in her own village, that Nereids were seen