You will realize by this time what an extensive and wonderful forest this forest of myths is which we imagine ourselves looking down upon from our hilltop, and after having taken this bird’s-eye view of the whole forest, you will be the better able to enjoy going down into the forest and making little journeys in different directions and becoming better acquainted with some of the most beautiful of the myths as you will in the following chapters. And now, moreover, you will have no difficulty in understanding me when I answer the question, “What is a myth?” by saying: _A myth is any imaginative explanation or interpretation by man of himself or of the objects and events in nature outside of himself, including their appearance, their effects and the still greater mystery of their causes. It may exist in many forms from the simple myth of explanation to the complicated systems of religious myths in which the objects of nature are regarded as gods in human form. The chief thing to be remembered about myths is that they are not true, though they may contain some elements of truth; another, that though not actually true they seemed to be true to the people who made them._ [Illustration: A Reading from Homer. _L. Alma-Tadema._] CHAPTER II ANIMALS IN PRIMITIVE MYTHS The stories now to be told belong to that very early time in human life, when, as we learned in the last chapter, men regarded every thing in nature as if it were gifted with life like themselves. The strange ideas to which this belief gave rise are, of course, reflected in their myths. Many of the stories have in them animals and plants which talk, while the transformation of men into animals or animals into men or even gods into animals, when animals are not actually worshipped is frequent.