The myth of Neraidospilios

The myth of Neraidospilios

Neraidospilios is 20km south of Heraklion, in the green gorge of Astraki. According to the legend, in the Fairy Cave of Astrakas located in the gorge of Karteros, the Fairies went and danced. Until one night, a young, good lyricist heard their song and out of curiosity entered the cave. And there he saw them! The Fairies, with disheveled hair, dressed in veils, bathed in the light of an eternal spring, danced !. Excited, he grabbed his lyre without realizing it and accompanied them to the dance. The Fairies followed his playing and the young man went crazy from what happened in front of him…. The next and the following night, led by some invisible force, he found himself again in the cave and with his lyre he played non-stop for the Dancing Fairies. Slowly, his gaze stopped on one of them and he could not get enough of looking at her! He was in love with her! When she realized this, she went to an old woman with a lot of love and asked for her help. The old woman, after listening to him carefully, told him that when the time was approaching for the roosters to crow (so the Fairies are lost), to grab the one he loved by the hair and not to leave it in any way. The night came and the young man took his lyre and went to the cave, where he began to play as sweetly as he could, for dance purposes. In a little while, the Fairies appeared and were caught dancing. Shortly before the roosters crowed, the young man left his lyre and we did as the old woman had advised him. The Fairy resisted with rage, became fierce, raised her voices, but nothing! The young man was holding her tight! She then began to transform sometimes into a dog, sometimes into fire, sometimes into a snake, sometimes into a camel, but the lyre player held her tightly by the hair and would not let her go. Suddenly, the roosters crowed and the other Fairies disappeared. Then the one that the young man was holding became beautiful again, as it was before and followed him to his house. She lived with him for a year, gave birth to a son, but she never heard her words! Γε So he went to the old woman again and asked her for advice. She urged him to heat the oven well and then take the child from his wife's hands, pretend to throw it in the oven and say: "Are you not talking to me? Then I throw your child in the oven too". She faithfully followed her advice, but the moment she pretended to throw the child in the fire, the Fairy fell on him, shouting: "Do not dog my child!". She snatched it from his hands and they became useless, mother and child together.

Desperate he looked for them with voices, pleas and cries, but in vain. The Fairy - mother and child, never appeared again. She told her sisters, but they did not accept her. They did not forgive her for leaving a man and touching and infecting her. That's why he had to go a little further to a fountain called Loutra. There they see her two or three times a year holding the child in her arms and crying. Her tears fall on the water and blur it, that's why the waters of the Fairy Cave appear cloudy sometimes ".

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