οὐκ ἄξω τυ, τέκνον· Μορμώ, δάκνει ἵππος· δάκρυε, ὅσσα θέλεις· χωλὸν δ’ οὐ δεῖ σε γένεσθαι.[246] Another instance is given by Callimachus in the Hymn to Artemis, where he tells that when a mother in Olympus cannot get her daughter to obey her, she calls one of the Cyclopes, and the indefatigable Hermes appears immediately with his face smeared with soot to personate the Cyclops. Then the child hastens in fright to her mother and puts her head on her bosom: ἀλλ’ ὅτε κουράων τις ἀπειθέα μητέρι τεύχε, μήτηρ μὲν Κύκλωπας ἑῇ ἐπὶ παιδὶ καλιστρεῖ, Ἄργην, ἢ Στερόπην· ὁ δὲ δώματος ἐκ μυχάτοιο, ἔρχεται Ἑρμείης σποδίῃ κεχρημένος αἴθῃ. αὐτίκα τὴν κούρην μορμύσσεται.[247] The Scholion on this passage says: καταπληκτικὰ φοβερά. ἐκ μεταφορᾶς τῆς μορμοῦς τὰ βρέφη φοβούσης.[248] The μορμώ here spoken of was a woman of horrible and monstrous aspect which Hesychius calls τὸ φόβητρον τοῖς παιδίοις. Xenophon likens the fear of the allies to that which young children have for μορμώ: οἱ μὲν Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐπισκώπτειν ἐτόλμων ὡς οἱ σύμμαχοι φοβοῖντο τοὺς πελταστὰς, ὥσπερ μορμόνας παιδάρια.[249] Aristophanes also makes use of this word: οὐδὲν δέομεθ’, ὦνθρωπε, τῆς σῆς μόρμονος.[250] ὀφρῦς ἔχοντα καὶ λόφους, δείν’ ἄττα μορμορωπὰ.[251] ὡς δὴ καταπιόμενός με. μορμὼ τοῦ θράσους.[252] Such were the tales told by nurses to frighten children into good behavior. We cannot but think that these stories, although they secured obedience for the time being, must have had a deleterious effect on the children. This view is substantiated by a passage of Lucian: “If you do not want to fill these boys’ heads with ghosts and hobgoblins, postpone your grotesque horrors for a more suitable occasion. Have some mercy on the lads: do not accustom them to listen to a tangle of superstitious stuff that will cling to them for the rest of their lives and make them start at their own shadow.”[253] What the children naturally preferred to these threats were the stories told to put them to sleep or to amuse them—the protreptic tales. The nurses had a store of such tales, and γραῶν or τιτθῶν μῦθοι have grown into a proverb.[254]