These precautions appertaining to the lore of modern Greek forestry indicate a belief that, when a tree is hewn down, its death does not involve the death of the Nereid within it, but that she escapes alive and vengeful. And herein once more there is agreement between the beliefs of modern and of ancient Greece. Apollonius Rhodius tells the story of the want and penury which befell Paraebius for all his labours. ‘Verily he was paying a cruel requital for the sin of his father; who once when he was felling trees, alone upon the mountains, made light of the prayers of an Hamadryad. For she with tears and passionate speech strove to soften his heart, that he should not hew the trunk of her coeval oak, wherein she lived continuously her whole long life; but he right foolishly did fell the tree, in pride of his young strength. Wherefore the Nymph set a doom of fruitless toil thereafter on him and on his children[402].’ * * * * * The Naiads, of whose ancient name, so far as I know, no trace remains in the dialects of to-day, are not less numerous than other nymphs and as much to be feared. The peasants speak of them usually as ‘Nereids of the river’ or ‘of the spring’ (νεράϊδες τοῦ ποταμίου or τῆς βρύσης); and only in one place, Kephalóvryso (‘Fountain-head’) in Aetolia, did I find a distinctive by-name for them. This was the word ξεραμμέναις[403], which I take to be a half-humorous euphemism meaning ‘the Parched Ones’; but, so far as sound is concerned, it would be equally permissible to write ’ξεραμέναις (past participle of ’ξερνῶ = Latin _respuo_) and to interpret therefore in the sense of ‘the Abominable Ones.’ The latter appellation however seems to me too outspoken in view of the awe in which the Naiads are everywhere held. Wherever fresh water is, whether in mountain-torrent or reservoir, in river or village-well, there is peril to be feared; no careful mother will send her children at noontide to fetch water from the spring, or, if they are sent, they must at least spit thrice into it before they dip their pitchers, nor will she suffer them to loiter beside a stream when dusk has fallen; no cautious man will ford a river without crossing himself first on the brink. The actual dwelling-place of these nymphs may be either the depths of the water itself or some cave beside the stream. Homer gave to the Naiads of Ithaca for their habitation a grotto, wherein were everflowing waters[404]; and though in some cases the nymphs who haunt the mountain caves may as well be Oreads as Naiads, I have preferred to deal with them in this place; for usually it is river-gods who have hollowed out these rocky homes for their daughters, and in many such caves may be seen the everflowing waters that attest the Naiads’ birthright.