The Midgard serpent or the worm which supported the earth with its tail in its mouth, is another most interesting mythical animal, whose story will be found in this chapter. Finally, there is a Norse cow, still more remarkable than the Hindoo cow. She was made of frozen vapor, and four rivers of milk ran from her and fed the giant Yiner, or the earth. It is easy to recognize these rivers of milk as mountain streams of melted snow. This poor cow had only rime stones to live on, which she licked because of the salt. After she had licked them for some time, two magical, godlike beings sprang out of the stones and became the parents of Odin. The name of this strange cow was Audhumbla. In the Norse Heaven, Valhalla, there are two more strange animals. The food of the Gods of Valhalla, Mead, is supplied by the milk of a she-goat who feeds upon the leaves of an extraordinary tree. Upon this same tree feeds a stag, and from his antlers fall so many drops of dew that water is supplied to thirty-six rivers, twelve of which flow to the abodes of the gods, twelve to the abodes of men, and twelve to Niflheim. Fenris, the wolf, is another important animal who typifies evil. Turning now to Greek mythology, we find that animals, on the whole, play a subordinate part. Animals are sacrificed to the gods of Greece, but they are not often worshipped. Many of the gods have more than one animal sacred to them or sacrificed to them in their worship, and very likely some of these animals, as in Indian mythology, were originally worshipped. When the ideas of early mankind once began to develop it would soon occur to them that human beings would be better impersonations for their gods than animals, yet the animals, once having been sacred, it would be very difficult to banish them altogether, hence they remained in the more developed myths as animals sacred to gods in human form. Greek myths, too, abound in transformations into animal form, Zeus (Roman name Jupiter or Jove), the ruling god of heaven and earth, being especially given to appearing on earth in the form of some animal. Gods of the earth and sea were also often represented as half man, half animal, the most famous of these being Pan, the god of the woods, who was half man, half goat, and the mermaids, who had the bodies of women with fishes’ tails. Though not so prominent as in India, the sky is the pasture land for flocks and herds in Greece, as you will see illustrated in the story of Odysseus’s meeting with them. There are animals, also, which talk, like the celebrated steeds of Achilles, described in the “Iliad.” In one place they are pictured as weeping when they saw the Greek hero Patroclus slain. As Pope translates this affecting scene: