It would be superfluous to point out the numerous details of this legend which accord explicitly with the account of the rape of Persephone in the Homeric hymn. The interspersion of Christian ideas and reminiscences of Turkish domination and stories of fabulous monsters may strike oddly on the ear unacquainted with the vagaries of Greek folk-stories. Yet the most sceptical could not doubt that the tradition which forms the groundwork of the legend is none other than the old myth, or that the four chief actors in the drama are none other than Demeter and Core, Pluto and Triptolemus. Pluto, masked as a Turkish _agha_, is perhaps the least readily recognisable; yet in one way as a relic of ancient tradition the part he plays is the most remarkable in the whole legend. It is to Souli in Epirus that he carries off the maiden. Now this is the district of the ancient Cocytus and Acheron; here was one of the descents to the lower world; here Aidoneus held sway; and here, in one version of the myth[148], was laid the scene of the rape of Persephone by that god. Hence the claims of two separate localities to the same mythological distinction seem by some means to have become incorporated in the single modern legend. In the same part of Epirus, according to Lenormant, a similar story to that which he heard at Eleusis concerning S. Demetra’s daughter, is told, _mutatis mutandis_, of S. Demetrius: but since either a sense of propriety or a want of knowledge prevented him from publishing the details of it, the mere statement that it existed is of no great value. But the legend which he narrates in full may I think be accepted as genuine without corroboration on the grounds of its own structure. Lenormant has indeed been accused of _mala fides_ in his own department of archaeology and of tampering with some of the inscriptions which he published; but even if this charge could be substantiated, I should doubt whether he had either the inclination to invent a legend which he only mentions in a cumbrous foot-note, or the ability to fuse ancient and modern ideas into so good an imitation of the genuine folk-story. In my judgement the construction of the legend is practically proof of its genuinely popular origin. Thus Eleusis and, in a lesser degree, the many places where S. Demetrius has succeeded to the chief functions of Demeter have hardly yet lost touch with the ancient worship of the goddess, Christianised in form though it may be. But Arcadia too, where alone of all the Peloponnese the indigenous population were secure from the Achaean and Dorian immigrations and maintained in seclusion the holiest of Pelasgian cults, preserves to the present day in story and in custom some vestiges of the old religion; and here they are less tinged with Christian colour.