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A story of incest necessarily ends at the present day among the highly moral countryfolk of Greece with punishment inflicted by some Christian deity: but for the rest the story is practically the same as that which Pausanias heard concerning Poseidon and his sister Demeter in the same district[153]. In the old version, which Pausanias gives very briefly, there is only one transformation mentioned, that of Demeter into a mare and of Poseidon into a horse; but it is at least noteworthy that the statue of horse-headed Demeter which commemorated this incident is said to have had ‘figures of snakes and other wild animals’ fixed on its head; and possibly, if Pausanias had given a fuller version of the myth, we should find that these figures related to other transformations which Demeter had tried in vain before in equine form she was finally forced to yield. The mention of the cave in the modern story is also significant; for though the cave in the ancient version is not the scene of the rape, it was there that Demeter hid herself in her anger afterwards and there too that the statue of horse-headed Demeter was set up. It would be interesting to know whether the horse is one of the forms assumed in the modern story; perhaps some other traveller will be fortunate enough to hear the tale in full.

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