“Go we to fetch a bride, a lady bride, From the steep rock, a bride that is alone.” And they made up their minds and fired a shot at them. Thereupon those that were in front cried out with one voice, “What is it?” and those behind answered, “Our bridegroom is slain, our bridegroom is slain.” And they wept and cried aloud and fled.’ In regard to this story it may be noted that a male form of Nereid (Νεραΐδης) is sometimes mentioned, and here such are undoubtedly implied. The necessity of finding husbands for the Nereids naturally presents itself to the minds of the old women who are the chief story-tellers, and the demand is met by an assorted supply of young men, male Nereids, and devils. As consorts of the last-mentioned, the Nereids enjoy in many places the title of διαβόλισσαις, ‘she-devils’; and it was on the ground of such unions that a peasant-woman of Acarnania once explained to me the belief, held in her own village, that Nereids were seen only at midday. How should the devils their husbands let such beautiful women be abroad at night? It is on the mountain-nymphs also that the peasants most frequently lay the responsibility for whirlwinds[357], by which children or even adults are said to be caught up and carried from one place to another[358], or to their death. Some such fate, we must suppose, in ancient times also was held to have befallen a seven-year-old boy on whose tomb was written, ‘Tearful Hades with the help of Oreads made away with me, and this mournful tomb that has been builded nigh unto the Nymphs contains me[359].’ The habit of travelling on a whirlwind, or more correctly perhaps of stirring up a whirlwind by rapid passage, has gained for the nymphs in some districts secondary names--in Macedonia ἀνεμικαίς, in Gortynia ἀνεμογαζοῦδες[360]--which might almost seem to constitute a new class of wind-nymphs. But so far as I know the faculty of raising whirlwinds, though most frequently exercised by Oreads, is common to all nymphs.