Only in one particular is the beauty of the Nereids ever thought to be marred; in some localities they are said to have the feet of goats or of asses[304]; as for instance the three Nereids who are believed to dance together without pause on the heights of Taÿgetus. But this is a somewhat rare and local trait, and must have been transferred to them, it would seem, from Pan and his attendant satyrs, with whom of old they were wont to consort; in general they are held to be of beauty unblemished.
Their accomplishments include, besides singing and dancing, the humbler arts of the good housewife. ‘She cooks like a Nereid’ (μαγειρεύει σὰ νεράϊδα) and ‘she does house-cleaning like a Nereid’ (παστρεύει σὰν ἀνεράϊδα) are phrases of commendation[305] occasionally heard. But chiefly do they excel in the art of spinning[306]; and so well known is their dexterity therein that a delicate kind of creeper with which trees are often festooned is known in the vulgar tongue under the pretty name of νεραϊδογνέματα, ‘Nereid-spinnings.’ The attribute indeed is natural and obvious; for the popular conception of the nymphs is but an idealisation of the peasant-women, to whom, whether sitting in the sunlight at their cottage-door or tending their sheep and goats afield, the distaff is an ever constant companion. But, easy though it is to account for the trait, some interest, if no great measure of importance, attaches to its consonance with the ancient characterisation of Nymphs. To the Nereids proper[307] a golden spindle was specially assigned; and in the cave of the Naiads in Ithaca might be seen, in Odysseus’ day, the kindred occupation of weaving, for ‘therein were great looms of stone whereon the nymphs wove sea-purple robes, a wonder to behold[308].’
As might be expected of beings so divinely feminine, their relations with men and with women are very different; in the one case there is the possibility of love; in the other the certainty of spite. It is necessary therefore to examine their attitude towards either sex separately.
The marriage of men with Nereids not only forms the theme of many folk-stories current in Greece, but in the more remote districts is still regarded as a credible occurrence. Even at the present day the traveller may hear of families in whose ancestry of more or less remote date is numbered a Nereid. A Thessalian peasant whom I once met claimed a Nereid-grandmother, and little as his looks warranted the assumption of any grace or beauty in so near an ancestor—he happened to have a squint—his claim appeared to be admitted by his fellow-villagers, and a certain prestige attached to him. Hence the epithet ‘Nereid-born’ (νεραϊδογεννημένος or νεραϊδοκαμωμένος) frequently heard in amatory distichs[309] may formerly have been not merely an exaggerated compliment to the lady’s beauty, but a recognition of high birth calculated to conciliate the future mother-in-law.
Nor is it men only whose susceptibilities are stirred by the beauty of the Nereids; even animals may fall under their spell. A shepherd of Scopelos told me that in the neighbouring island of Ioura, which he frequented with his flocks for pasturage, he once tamed a wild goat, which after a time began to behave very oddly. All night long it would remain with the rest of his flock, but in the daytime it persistently strayed away from the pasture to the neighbourhood of a Nereid-haunted cave on the bare and rocky hillside, and from want of food became very thin. The goat, he believed, was enamoured of a Nereid and pining away from unrequited love.
But it is from the old folk-stories rather than from the records of contemporary or recent experience that the character of the Nereids as lovers or wives is best learnt. And herein they are not models of womanhood; passion indeed they feel and inspire; they suffer, they even seek the caresses of the young and brave; but true wives they will not long remain. Constancy and care are not for them; the longing for freedom and the breezes of heaven, the memory of rapid tuneful dance, are hot within them; they leave the men whose strength and valour snared their hearts, they forsake their homes and children, and on the wings of the wind are gone, seeking again their etherial unwearied fellows. Yet they do not altogether forget their children; for motherhood is presently more to them than mirth; ever and anon they steal back to visit their homes and bless their children with the gifts of beauty and wealth which their touch can bestow, and even stay to mend their husbands’ clothes and clean the house, vanishing again however before the man’s return. Only in one case have I heard of a nymph’s continued intimacy with a man throughout his life, and that strangely enough not in a folk-story but in recent experience. Their relations, it must be acknowledged, were illicit, for he had a human wife and family; but it was commonly reported that his rise from penury to affluence and the mayoralty of his native village was the work of a Nereid in a cave near by, who of her love for him enriched the produce of his land and shielded his flocks from pestilence.
In the popular stories which deal with the marriages of Nereids, the bridal fashion of their dress, which has already been noticed, is often an essential feature of the plot. In one tale it is said explicitly that the supernatural quality of the Nereids lies not in their persons but in their raiment[310]; and for this reason a prince, smitten with love of the youngest of three sister Nereids but knowing not how to win her, is counselled by a wise woman, to whom he confides his perplexity, to lie in wait when they go to bathe in their accustomed pool and to steal the clothes of his inamorata, who would then follow him to recover her loss and so be in his power to take to wife. But there is greater delicacy and, as we shall see, more certain antiquity also in the commoner version of the episode, in which a kerchief alone is possessed of the magic powers ascribed above to the whole dress. And in this detail of costume the resemblance of bride and Nereid still holds good; for no wedding-dress would be complete without a kerchief either wrapped about the bride’s head or pinned upon her breast or carried in her hand to form a link with her neighbour in the chain of dancers[311].
Of the stories which have for their motif the theft of such a kerchief from a Nereid[312] the following Messenian tale is a good example.
‘Once upon a time there was a young shepherd who played the pipes so beautifully that the Nereids one night carried him off to the threshing-floor where they danced and bade him play to them. At first he was much afraid and thought that some evil would overtake him from being in their company and speaking with them. But gradually, as he grew accustomed to his strange surroundings and the Nereids showed themselves kind to him and grateful for his piping, he took courage again and night after night made his way to the spot which they haunted and made music till cock-crow.
Now it so happened that one of the Nereids was beautiful beyond the rest, and the shepherd loved her and determined to make her his wife. But inasmuch as the Nereids danced all night long without pause while he piped, and at dawn vanished to be seen no more until the next night’s dance began, he knew not what to do.