Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/181

 The landsman told of one whom he named 'the queen of the mountains' ([Greek: hê basilissa tôn bounôn]) who with a retinue of Nereids was ever roaming over the hills or dancing in some wooded dell. In form she was as a Nereid, but taller and more glistening-white than they; and as she surpassed her comrades in beauty, so did she also excel in cruelty towards those who heedlessly crossed her path. The sailor on the other hand had both seen and heard one whom he called 'the queen of the shore' ([Greek: hê basilissa tou gialou]). Most often she stands in the sea with the water waist-high about her, and sings passionate love-songs to those who pass by on the shore. Then must men close fast their eyes and stop their ears; for, if they yield to her seductions, the bridal bed is in the depths of the sea and she alone rises up again to tempt yet others with her fatal love.

The former is without question she of whom Homer sang, 'In company with her do mirthful nymphs range o'er the land High above them all she carries her head and brow, and full easily is she known, though they all be beautiful'.

Nigh on three thousand years ago was composed this graceful epitome of beliefs still current to-day; for, though the name of Artemis is no longer heard, her personality remains. The peasants in general describe rather than name her. In Zacynthos she is called 'the great lady' ([Greek: hê megalê kyra]) ; in Cephalonia and in the villages of Parnassus she is distinguished simply as 'the chief' or 'the greatest' of the Nereids ; in either Chios or Scopelos (I cannot say which, for my shepherd had been born in the former but was then living in the latter) her title is 'Queen of the mountains.' In Aetolia however I was fortunate enough to hear an actual name assigned, [Greek: hê kyra Kalô], 'the lady Beautiful,' where the shift of the accent in [Greek: Kalô] as compared with the adjective [Greek: kalos] is natural to the formation of a proper name, and the feminine termination in [Greek: -ô], almost obsolete now, argues an early origin. The name therefore in its present form may have come down unchanged from classical times; but, whatever its age, we may at least hear in it an echo of the ancient cult-title ofmust not be confused with the title [Greek: hê kyra tou kosmou] (see above p. 89), which belongs to Demeter.]