Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/168

 only at midday. How should the devils their husbands let such beautiful women be abroad at night?

It is on the mountain-nymphs also that the peasants most frequently lay the responsibility for whirlwinds, by which children or even adults are said to be caught up and carried from one place to another, or to their death. Some such fate, we must suppose, in ancient times also was held to have befallen a seven-year-old boy on whose tomb was written, 'Tearful Hades with the help of Oreads made away with me, and this mournful tomb that has been builded nigh unto the Nymphs contains me .' The habit of travelling on a whirlwind, or more correctly perhaps of stirring up a whirlwind by rapid passage, has gained for the nymphs in some districts secondary names—in Macedonia [Greek: anemikais], in Gortynia [Greek: anemogazoudes] —which might almost seem to constitute a new class of wind-nymphs. But so far as I know the faculty of raising whirlwinds, though most frequently exercised by Oreads, is common to all nymphs.

In Athens whirlwinds are said to occur most frequently near the old Hill of the Nymphs : and women of the lower classes, as they see the spinning spiral of dust approach, fall to crossing themselves busily and to repeating [Greek: meli kai gala stê strata sas] (or [Greek: sto dromo sas]), 'Honey and milk in your path!' This incantation is widely known as an effective safeguard against the Nereids in their rapid flight, and must in origin, it would seem, have been a vow. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that in Corfu a few decades ago the peasantry used to make actual offerings of both milk and honey to the Nereids, and that Theocritus also associates these two gifts in vows made to the nymphs and to Pan. 'I will set,' sings Lacon, 'a great bowl of white milk for the nymphs, and another will I set full of sweet oil'; to which Comatas in rivalry rejoins, 'Eight pails of milk will I set for Pan, and eight dishes of honey in the honeycomb .' The gift of honey is of special significance. In every recorded case which, p. 509. Hahn, ''Griech. Märchen'', vol. no. 81.], p. 765. The origin of the second part of the compound is unknown.], 1852, p. 647.], p. 156.]