As a pledge, he gives her the whitethorn, or hawthorn, which has the power to repel injurious influences from the entrances to houses (6.129–130). This is the "hinge" or turning point of the unnamed Cardea's transformation from a maiden nymph of the wild to a goddess who polices the threshold or boundaries "(limina)" of domesticity. The tale of Cranaë's rape, though stocked by Roman rather than Greek figures, would be not out of place in Ovid's "Metamorphoses": the heroine doesn't change into a tree, but her transformation resides in the token of the whitethorn tree.