The modern Greeks also believe in the Fates or Moiræ, either as three dread sisters or as a hierarchy of twelve who delegate the care of a specified number of men to a smaller committee. At Arachova three fates appear within three days of an infant’s birth, two known as the bearers of good and of ill fortune, who fight the matter out and agree upon a destiny, and the third called the Spinner, who will weave the strands into the web of life. Thus under the very eyes of St. George pagan spirits make common cause with the angels and demons of Christianity. A hoof print on the edge of a crag may betray the presence of the lord of hares and goats or of the unmentionable Devil. An infant who dies unbaptised may claim to be the victim of the ruthless Spinner, or may go to join in the air the imps who war with the angels for the souls of men. Mountains and ether, springs and tree-trunks, are filled with the divine forces created, under the influence of two religions, by a people always sensitive to the intimacy between the physical and spiritual worlds. The Cleft Way lies two hours beyond Arachova, and six hours beyond that is Chæronea, battlefield and railroad station. On a morning in March the moon may be bright at six o’clock when the mules beat their way out of the rough streets of Arachova to the open. The road descends from the village and skirts the southern sides of Parnassus, leading through vineyards and gorges and winding over a bare and rocky valley. The amber moon grows white, and between the opening hills to the east the rising sun sets the sky aflame. Gradually the gold and rose give way to intense, brilliant blue. The twin peaks of Parnassus glisten in their covering of snow. A pastoral charm, reminiscent of Theocritus’s Sicilian uplands, mingles with the rugged impressiveness of mountain scenery. Steep hillsides alternate with pastures, and here and there cool streams curl about the heedless feet of mules and muleteers. Gradually the severity of the landscape predominates. The road from Delphi along which Œdipus, like ourselves, was coming, descends through a wild pass enclosed by the mighty precipices of Parnassus and Cirphis, and in a scene of impressive loneliness meets the roads from Daulis and Thebes.[29] The spot is now called “Stavrodromi tou Mega,” or Cross-Roads of Megas, in memory of a hero who was killed here in the middle of the nineteenth century while destroying a band of brigands. The story of the ancient deed of violence is put by Sophocles into the mouth of Œdipus himself. The Delphic oracle had declared that Thebes could be healed of its pestilence only by the punishment of the murderer of Laius, the former king, and Œdipus had proclaimed the requisite sentence against the unknown. Now he has begun to realize that he was the slayer:—