Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/175

 deep-bosomed nymphs of the mountains, even those that dwell upon this high and holy mount. These verily are neither of mortal men nor of immortal gods. Long indeed they live and feed on food divine, and they have strength too for fair dance amid immortals; yea, and with them have the watchful Slayer of Argus and such as Silenus been joined in love within the depths of pleasant grots. But at the moment of their birth, there spring up upon the nurturing earth pines, may be, or oaks rearing high their heads, good trees and luxuriant, upon the mountain-heights. Far aloft they tower; sanctuaries of immortals they are called, and men hew them not with axe. But so soon as the doom of death stands beside them, first the good trees are dried up at the root and then their bark withers about them and their branches fall away, and therewith the soul of the nymphs too leaves the light of the sun.'

So my Arcadian friend was true to ancient tradition both in his estimate of the life of Nereids and in his belief, thereby implied, that they are mortal. Nor is other modern testimony wanting. There are popular stories still current concerning Nereids' deaths. One has been recorded in which a Nereid is struck by God with lightning and slain as a punishment for stealing a boy from his father, and her sister nymphs in terror restore the child. A pertinent confession of faith has also been heard from the lips of a Cretan peasant. In explanation of the name [Greek: Neraïdospêlos], 'Nereid-grot,' attached to a cave near his village, he had related a story of a Nereid who was carried off from that spot and taken to wife by a young man, to whom she bore a son; but as she would never open her lips in his presence, he went in despair to an old woman who advised him to heat an oven hot and then taking the child in his arms to say to the Nereid, 'Speak to me; or I will burn your

These two lines (267-8) have fallen under suspicion because, it is urged, the word [Greek: athanatôn] is in direct contradiction of what has been said as to the intermediate position of nymphs between mortals and immortals. This criticism is due to careless reading. The lines do not mean that each tree is called the [Greek: temenos] of an immortal nymph, but that a number of trees, each inhabited by a nymph, often form together the [Greek: temenos] of an immortal god. A sanctuary of Artemis, for example, might well be surrounded by trees which each harboured one of her attendant nymphs.]