When we speak of "the halcyon days of childhood," we recall an ancient myth, telling how, in an age when even more than now "all Nature loved a lover," even the gods watched over the loves of Ceyx and Halcyone. Ever since the kingfisher has been regarded as the emblem, of lasting fidelity in love. As Ebers aptly puts it: "Is there anywhere a sweeter legend than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds who love each other so tenderly that, when the male becomes enfeebled by age, his mate carries him on her outspread wings whithersoever he wills; and the gods desiring to reward such faithful love cause the sun to shine more kindly, and still the winds and waves on the 'Halcyon Days' during which these birds are building their nests and brooding over their young" (390. II. 269). Of a special paradise for infants, something has been said elsewhere. Of Srahmanadzi, the other world, the natives of Ashanti say: "There an old man becomes young, a young man a boy, and a boy an infant. They grow and become old. But age does not carry with it any diminution of strength or wasting of body. When they reach the prime of life, they remain so, and never change more" (438. 157). The Kalmucks believe that some time in the future "each child will speak immediately after its birth, and the next day be capable of undertaking its own management" (518. I. 427). But that blissful day is far off, and the infant human still needs the overshadowing of the gods to usher him into the real world of life. _Guardian Angels and Deities._ Christ, speaking his memorable words about little children to those who had inquired who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven, uttered the warning: "See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." In the hagiology of the Christian churches, and in the folk-lore of modern Europe, the idea contained in our familiar expression "guardian angel" has a firm hold; by celestial watchers and protectors the steps of the infant are upheld, and his mind guided, until he reaches maturity, and even then the guardian spirit often lingers to guide the favoured being through all the years of his life (191. 8). The natives of Ashanti believe that special spirits watch over girls until they are married, and in China there is a special mother-goddess who guards and protects childhood. Walter Savage Landor has said:-- "Around the child bend all the three Sweet Graces,--Faith, Hope, Charity," and the "three Fates" of classic antiquity, the three Norns of Scandinavian mythology, the three Sudiêicky or fate-goddesses of the Czechs of Bohemia, the three fate- and birth-goddesses of the other Slavonic peoples, the three [Greek: _Moirai_] of Modern Greece, the three Phatite of Albania, the three white ladies, three virgins, three Mary's, etc., of German legend of to-day, have woven about them a wealth of quaint and curious lore (326. I. 42-47).