Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/177

 moments between each bout of hewing at any suspected tree (unfortunately the finest timber on which he plies his axe is also the most likely to harbour a Nereid) and finally as the upper branches sway and the tree trembles to its fall, he runs back and throws himself down with his face to the ground, in silence which not even a prayer must break, lest a Nereid, passing out from her violated abode, hear and espy and punish. For, as has been said before, nothing is more sure than that he who speaks in the hearing of a Nereid loses from thenceforth the power of speech; while the practice of hiding the face in the ground is not a foolish imitation of the ostrich, but is prompted by the belief that a Nereid is most prone to injure those who by look, word, or touch have of their own act, though not always of their own will, placed themselves in communication or contact with her.

These precautions appertaining to the lore of modern Greek forestry indicate a belief that, when a tree is hewn down, its death does not involve the death of the Nereid within it, but that she escapes alive and vengeful. And herein once more there is agreement between the beliefs of modern and of ancient Greece. Apollonius Rhodius tells the story of the want and penury which befell Paraebius for all his labours. 'Verily he was paying a cruel requital for the sin of his father; who once when he was felling trees, alone upon the mountains, made light of the prayers of an Hamadryad. For she with tears and passionate speech strove to soften his heart, that he should not hew the trunk of her coeval oak, wherein she lived continuously her whole long life; but he right foolishly did fell the tree, in pride of his young strength. Wherefore the Nymph set a doom of fruitless toil thereafter on him and on his children .'

The Naiads, of whose ancient name, so far as I know, no trace remains in the dialects of to-day, are not less numerous than other nymphs and as much to be feared. The peasants speak of them usually as 'Nereids of the river' or 'of the spring' [Greek: neraïdes tou potamiou] or [Greek: tês brysês]); and only in one place, Kephalóvryso ('Fountain-head') in Aetolia, did I find a distinctive by-name for