Not but that these worshippers of Apollo were likewise worshippers of Zeus. It was from the Dorians, whose ancient home was in Thessaly, in the vale of Tempe, and under the shadow of Olympus, that sprang the worship of the Olympian Zeus. This Olympian Zeus was the same as the ancient god of the Pelasgians--the Pelasgian Zeus--the same, and yet different, for he was the ancient storm-god, softened and made more human by his contact with Apollo. In time this Olympian Zeus superseded the Pelasgic god even in his own favourite seats, and we have the phenomenon of the festival in his honour--the greatest festival of Greece--the Olympia, being held in the plains of Elis, near the ancient grove of the Pelasgian Zeus. * * * * * [Sidenote: Hermes.] As before by a comparison of words, so now in mythology by a comparison of legends, we form our notion of the remoteness of the time at which these stories first passed current. Not only, for instance, do we see that Indra and Apollo resembled each other in character, but we have proof that nature-myths--stories really narrating some process of nature--were familiar alike to Greeks and Indians. The Vedas, the sacred books from which we gather our knowledge of ancient Hindu religion, do not relate their stories of the gods in the same way, or with the same clearness and elaboration, that the Greek poets do. They are collections of hymns, prayers in verse, addressed to the gods themselves, and what they relate is told more by reference and implication than directly. But even with this difference, we have no difficulty in signalizing some of the adventures of Indra as almost identical with those of the son of Lêtô. Let one suffice. The pastoral life of the Aryans is reflected in their mythology, and thus it is that in the Vedas almost all the varied phenomena of nature are in their turn compared to cattle. Indra is often spoken of as a bull; still more commonly are the clouds the cows of Indra, and their milk the rain. More than one of the songs of the Rig-Veda allude to a time when the wicked Pa_n_is (beings of fog or mist[71]) stole the cows from the fields of Indra and hid them away in a cave. They obscured their footprints by tying up their feet or by making them drag brushwood behind them. Then Indra sent his dog Sarama (the dawn or breath of dawn), and she found out where the cattle were hidden. But (according to one story) the Pa_n_is overcame her honesty and gave her a cup of milk to drink, so that she came back to Indra and denied having seen the cows. But Indra discovered the deception, and came with his strong spear and conquered the Pa_n_is, and recovered what had been stolen. Now turn to the Greek myth. The story here is cast in a different key. ‘Te boves olim nisi reddidisses Per dolum amotas, puerum minaci Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra Risit Apollo.’