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As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears in woman as an unknown young girl, not infrequently as Gretchen or the unmarried mother.2 Another frequent modulation is the dancer, who is often formed by borrowings from classical knowledge, in which case the “maiden” appears as the corybant, maenad, or nymph. An occasional variant is the nixie or water-sprite, who betrays her superhuman nature by her fishtail. Sometimes the Kore- and mother-figures slither down altogether to the animal kingdom, the favourite representatives then being the cat or the snake or the bear, or else some black monster of the underworld like the crocodile, or other salamander-like, saurian creatures.3 The maiden’s helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice. Often there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the innocent child falls victim. Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a descent into Hades and a quest for the “treasure hard to attain,” occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings of menstrual blood to the moon. Oddly enough, the various tortures and obscenities are carried out by an “Earth Mother.” There are drinkings of blood and bathings in blood,4 also crucifixions. The maiden who crops up in case histories differs not inconsiderably from the vaguely flower- like Kore in that the modern figure is more sharply delineated and not nearly so “unconscious,” as the following examples will show.