Once upon a time, there was a young, very talented lyre player. One night, he was walking on a path in the gorge when suddenly he heard a song coming through a cave. Out of curiosity, he entered the cave carefully, and he couldn’t believe his eyes at what he saw. Fairies!, with untidy hair, clothed in splendor, bathed under the moonlight in the waters of an eternal spring. Others were dancing around. Their glow broke the darkness, their song caressed his ears, and his eyes could not get enough of seeing their “airy” dance. Carried away by all these unprecedented things unfolding before his eyes, he unknowingly grabbed his lyre and joined them in the dance. The fairies followed his playing, and the young man was maddened by what happened in front of him.
The following night, driven by some invisible force, he found himself in the cave again, and with his lyre, he played non-stop for the fairies who were dancing. Little by little, his gaze stopped on one of them, and he couldn’t get enough of looking at her. He was in love with her.
When he realized this, he went to an old woman who knew many things and asked for her help. The old woman, after listening to him, told him that when the time for the roosters to crow is approaching (when the fairies disappear), he should grab the one he loved by the hair and not let her go in any way.
The evening came, and the youth took his lyre and went into the cave, where he began to play as sweetly as he could. Before long, the fairies started singing and dancing, following the sound of the lyre. Just before the roosters crowed, the young man put down his lyre and did as the old woman had advised him. The fairy resisted, became furious, and started screaming; he didn’t let her go. The young man held her tightly. She then began to transform, sometimes into a dog, sometimes into fire, sometimes into a snake, sometimes into a camel, but the lyre held her firmly by the hair and wouldn’t let go.
Suddenly, the roosters crowed, and the other fairies disappeared. Then she, which the young man held, became as beautiful again as she was before and followed him home. She lived with him for a year and bore him a son, but he never heard her speak. Unhappy as he was with his mute fairywife, he tried all means to get her to talk, but to no avail.
So he went back to the old woman and asked for her advice. She instructed him to heat the oven well and then take the child from his wife’s hands, pretend to throw it into the oven, and say, “You’re not talking to me? Then I’ll throw your child into the oven.” He faithfully followed her advice, but the moment he was about to throw the child into the fire, the fairy became furious and rushed at him in a teriffyingly loud voice: “Let go of my child, dog.”. She grabbed it from his hands, and they disappeared—mother and child together.
Desperately he searched for them with shouts, pleas and cries, but in vain. The Fairy – mother and child, were never seen again. She went to her sisters, but they did not accept her. They did not forgive her for letting a man touch her and defile her.
So she went a little further to a fountain called Loutra, since she had no place to go. There they see her two or three times a year holding her child in her arms and crying. The rest fairies still dance and sing, but without a lyre to accompany them and without their sister.The Fairy-mother sits sadly and cries. Her tears fall on the water and cloud it. That is why the waters of Neraidospilios appear cloudy now and then.
Kostas Korob
Location of unparalleled beauty. Crete is a blessed island so big and rich of experiences you tend to forget you’re surrounded by water