fairy lore have endeavored to render her name immortal. By many she is
said to have built the most beautiful of the Pyramids, the Pyramid of
Mycerinus or Menkera. One tale related of her and reported by Strabo and
AElian probably gave rise to our oldest and most beautiful fairy tale,
Cinderella; another is near akin to the Loreley legend. An eagle,
according to AElian--the wind, in Strabo's tale,--bore away Rhodopis'
slippers while she was bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet of
the king, when seated on his throne of justice in the open market. The
little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until he had
discovered their owner and made her his queen.

The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked woman could
be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una ex
pyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad through
her exceeding loveliness.

Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse:

"Fair Rhodope, as story tells--
The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells
'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
The lady of the Pyramid."

Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have
been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a level with
the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus,
Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying the victorious Neith)
has been found on the monuments, applied to a queen of the sixth dynasty.
This is a bold conjecture; it adds however to the importance of our
heroine; and without doubt many traditions referring to the one have been