As may easily be imagined, the history of rock-chapels has frequently been embellished with legendary tales. The chapel of Agios Niketas (St. Nicholas) in Crete, is at present merely a smoky-looking cave beneath a large detached mass of rock, lying on the slope of an abrupt mountain; but there are still the remains of a building which once extended far beyond the present limits. The roof of the cavern, although very uneven, is also elaborately ornamented with paintings, representing the remarkable events in the life of the Saviour and of St. Nicholas, and showing that considerable cost and artistic care have been bestowed upon it. Though it is now abandoned, an event that is said to have happened about four or five centuries ago gives this cave a special interest with the natives. The church was crowded with Christians from the adjacent villages on the eve of the festival of their patron saint Agios Niketas, so as to be ready (as is usual with the Greeks) for the matin service at daybreak. But the fires which the assembled party had lighted near it had been observed at sea by a Barbary corsair then cruising off the island, and guided him to the spot, where, under the darkness of the night, he landed his crew in a neighbouring cove. Thus unobserved, they stole up to the church, and, finding it full of the natives, closed the door and windows upon them, and waited for day, the better to secure their captives for embarkation. In this dreadful plight the unfortunate Cretans raised their voices in a general prayer to Saint Niketas. Their supplications were heard, for the priest soon after informed them that the saint had shown him a way of escape—through the back part of the cavern, by opening a small aperture communicating with another cavern that led finally out upon the mountain slope over the rock. Through this aperture they all silently crept unseen and unheard by the corsairs. Another interesting legend is attached to a small rock-chapel situated beneath the ruins of the ancient Castle of Oberstein, on the Nahe. The Baron of Oberstein, having, in a fit of jealousy, hurled his younger brother from the balcony of the castle, fled from the scene of his crime. For years he wandered, a wretched outcast, from land to land; but wherever he went the curse of Cain was upon him, and left him no rest by night or day. At length he came to Rome, to confess his fratricide at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, who comforted him with the assurance that he would recover his lost peace by returning to Oberstein and excavating with his own hands a rock-chapel for the interment of his brother on the spot where he fell.