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In the popular stories which deal with the marriages of Nereids, the bridal fashion of their dress, which has already been noticed, is often an essential feature of the plot. In one tale it is said explicitly that the supernatural quality of the Nereids lies not in their persons but in their raiment[310]; and for this reason a prince, smitten with love of the youngest of three sister Nereids but knowing not how to win her, is counselled by a wise woman, to whom he confides his perplexity, to lie in wait when they go to bathe in their accustomed pool and to steal the clothes of his inamorata, who would then follow him to recover her loss and so be in his power to take to wife. But there is greater delicacy and, as we shall see, more certain antiquity also in the commoner version of the episode, in which a kerchief alone is possessed of the magic powers ascribed above to the whole dress. And in this detail of costume the resemblance of bride and Nereid still holds good; for no wedding-dress would be complete without a kerchief either wrapped about the bride’s head or pinned upon her breast or carried in her hand to form a link with her neighbour in the chain of dancers[311].