If, in respect to water and fire, the cosmogony of the Scandinavians was kindred with that of other people, the resemblance furnished by the cow was equally great. “We need not be surprised,” observes Magnussen, “that men selected the ox, the most useful and widely-spread animal with which they were acquainted, for a cosmic symbol in its various forms. The cow was probably our first nurse; and the oldest nations, especially the Hindoos and the Egyptians, regarded her with religious veneration, and called her the mother of mankind. When men applied poetry to cosmogony, they elevated a mythic cow to the place of earth’s mother, or nurse. Such is our Audumbla. And if the cow was the mother, well may the bull (as in India) be held the father: he propagated the race, drew the plough, and in both cases might be said to rear or nurse mankind.” Among the Persians, the cow was held in even greater veneration than among the Scandinavians. The Abudad was the earth, which Jemsheed (the sun) pierced with his dagger. The cow was the symbol of creation, the instrument which Ormuzd employed for the production of the first human being. A cow, too, received the soul of Zoroaster, and transmitted it in the form of milk to the father of the prophet; but the notion was common to most people. The Cimbri in Italy had their copper ox, on which they swore, just as the Egyptians swore by Apis. It was the symbol of heaven, just as the cow was that of earth; it was held to be the father, just as the female was the mother, of all. The chariot of Hertha, or mother earth, was, as Tacitus informs us, drawn by cows. The Io of the Greeks was probably derived from the same widely-spread doctrine.