The Fates are in some places supposed to write on the forehead of a man his destiny. Pimples on the nose and forehead are called γραψίματα τῶν Μοίρων. The decrees of the Fates are unalterable. According to various legends, attempts have been made to change them, but without avail. Only once, a girl of Naxos, so I was told, up in a mountain village, who was excessively ugly, managed to learn from a magician where the Fates lived, and that if she could get them to eat salt they would go blind and change her fate. She contrived to bring this about, and became lovely, married a prince, but had no children; “showing,” continued the legend by way of moral, “that the Fates never consent to a person being altogether happy.” This changing from ugliness to beauty is a common subject for legends and beliefs. The first woman to see a child after birth must be lovely, so as to impart to it her beauty, and the first man must be of great strength, so as to impart his vigor. This reminds one of one of Herodotus’s stories (vi. 61), when he seriously tells us of the change of an ugly child into the fairest woman of Sparta by her nurse taking her daily to the temple of the heroine Helen to pray. One day the heroine met the nurse and predicted that the child would become fair, which accordingly, says Herodotus, came to pass. In Melos the Fates are greatly consulted in matrimonial concerns. The 25th of November, St. Catharine’s day, is considered the most suitable, and St. Catharine is accordingly prayed to by unmarried maidens to intercede on their behalf. On the vigil of her feast they make cakes with a good deal of salt in, which they eat before going to bed. As a natural result of eating so much salt and thinking about matrimony their dreams often take the turn of water and a kindly man offering them to drink. If this is so they are sure to marry that man.