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.