Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/180

 still dreaded by the inhabitants of the district as an abode of Nereids. The latter is thought to be the ancient sanctuary of the Pierian Muses, and the peasants of the last generation held the place in such awe that they refused to conduct anyone thither for fear of being seized with madness. It is right to add that the tenants of this cavern were called by the vague name [Greek: exôtikais], which would comprise not only Nereids, but presumably the Muses also, if any remembrance of them survives in the district; but the fear of being seized with madness suggests the ordinary conception of nymphs. In neither of these instances of course can it be claimed that Naiads rather than Oreads are the possessors of the cave; but as I have said the peasants generally employ the wide appellation 'Nereids' or some yet vaguer name, and do not discriminate between the looks and the qualities of the several orders of nymphs. It is only by observing local and occasional distinctions that I have been able to trace some survivals of the four main ancient classes. In general the 'Nereid' of to-day is simply the 'Nymph' of antiquity.

§ 10.

Travelling once in a small sailing-boat from the island of Scyros to Scopelos I overheard an instructive conversation between one of my two boatmen and a shepherd whom we had taken off from the small island of Skánzoura. The occasion of our touching there, namely pursuit by pirates (from whom the North Aegean is not yet wholly free, though their piracies are seldom of a worse nature than cattle-lifting from the coasts and islands), had certainly had an exciting effect upon my boatman's nerves, and, as darkness fell, the shepherd responded to his companion's mood, and their talk ranged over many strange experiences. Very soon they were exchanging confidences about the supernatural beings with whom they had come into contact; and among these figured two who are the queens respectively of the nymphs of land and of sea. Of these deities one only was known to each of the speakers, but on comparing notes they agreed that the two personalities were distinct.