Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/185

 Burcolacas, or Nereid, occur in the open country and public road-*ways And Psellus himself knew quite well that the 'fair lady of the mountains' was nothing other than those who are commonly called the 'fair mistresses' (i.e. Nereids), who have nothing on earth to do with Barychnas and Ephialtes.'

The argument of this strangely confused passage is happily beside our mark, and we need not puzzle, with Psellus, over the demonology of dyspepsia. His interpretation of the phrase [Greek: kalê tôn oreôn] I have even ventured to omit, for a devious path of wilful reasoning leads only to the conclusion that it means the tree on which Christ was crucified. The only method in his mad medley of medicine and theology is the intention to refute the popular belief in a beautiful goddess who haunted the mountains.

Some details of the belief may be gathered from Allatius' criticism of the argument. Psellus mentions only the title [Greek: hê kalê tôn oreôn], but Allatius amplifies it in the phrase pulcram nemorum sive montium, implying thereby that in his own time Artemis—for it can be none other—was associated as much with woodland as with mountain; while her intimate connexion with the Nereids is adduced as a matter of common knowledge. The somewhat loose phrase by which Allatius indicates this fact—pulcram montium nihil aliud esse quam eas quas vulgus vocat pulcras dominas—must not be read in any strict and narrow sense. The beautiful lady of the mountains is, he means, just such as are the Nereids; but she is a definite person, distinguished as of old among her comrades by supreme grace and loveliness.

The statements of Leo Allatius, based as they are in the main upon his own recollections of his native Chios, find remarkable corroboration in a history of the same island written a little earlier by one Jerosme Justinian. In the main the history is purely, ibid. cap. ]*