Note 258 — Chapter III

Wednesday in this, and Friday in the preceding story, are the exact counterparts of Lithuanian Laumes. According to Schleicher (“Lituanica,” p. 109), Thursday evening is called in Lithuania Laumiú vákars, the Laume’s Eve. No work ought to be done on a Thursday evening, and it is especially imprudent to spin then. For at night, when the Laumes come, as they are accustomed to do between Thursday evening and Friday morning, they seize any spinning which has been begun, work away at it till cock-crow, and then carry it off. In modern Greece the women attribute all nightly meddling with their spinning to the Neraïdes (the representatives of the Hellenic Nereids. See Bernhard Schmidt’s “Volksleben der Neugriechen,” p. 111). In some respects the Neraïda closely resemble the Lamia, and both of them have many features in common with the Laume. The latter name (which in Lettish is written Lauma) has never been satisfactorily explained. Can it be connected with the Greek Lamia which is now written also as Λάμνια, Λάμνα and Λάμνισσα?