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The disguise of the ancient god is thin indeed. His name is changed by an iota, but his character not a jot. S. Dionysius is god of the vine, and even retains his predecessor’s connexion with Naxos. It is perhaps noteworthy too that in Athens the road which skirts the south side of the Acropolis and the theatre of Dionysus is now called the street of S. Dionysius the Areopagite. I was once corrected by a Greek of average education for speaking of the theatre of Dionysus instead of ascribing it to his saintly namesake.

Demeter again, although as we shall see later she still survives as a distinct personality, has been for the most part dispossessed by S. Demetrius. His festival, which falls in October and is therefore remote from harvest-time, is none the less celebrated with special enthusiasm among the agricultural classes; marriages too are especially frequent on that day[69].

Similarly Artemis, though she too is still known to the common-folk in some districts, has in the main handed over her functions to a saint of the other sex, Artemidos. Theodore Bent has recorded a good instance of this from the island of Keos (modern Zea). There is a belief throughout Greece that weakly children who show signs of wasting have been ‘struck by the Nereids,’—by nymphs, that is, of any kind, whether terrestrial or marine. ‘In Keos,’ says Bent, ‘S. Artemidos is the patron of these weaklings, and the church dedicated to him is some little way from the town on the hill-slopes; thither a mother will take a child afflicted by any mysterious wasting, “struck by the Nereids,” as they say. She then strips off its clothes and puts on new ones, blessed by the priest, leaving the old ones as a perquisite to the Church; and then if perchance the child grows strong, she will thank S. Artemidos for the blessing he has vouchsafed, unconscious that by so doing she is perpetuating the archaic worship of Artemis, to whom in classical times were attached the epithets παιδοτρόφος, κουροτρόφος, φιλομείραξ; and now the Ionian idea of the fructifying and nourishing properties of the Ephesian Artemis has been transferred to her Christian namesake[70].’ It might have been added that in this custom are reflected not only those general attributes of the tendance of children which Artemis shared with many other deities, but possibly also her power to undo any mischief wrought by her handmaidens, the nymphs[71].