Out of these originally anonymous and unlocalised personages and romantic situations of _Märchen_, the Greek States made the heroes and events of their legendary history. That history, as of Theseus, Heracles, Perseus, Jason, Sisyphus, even Odysseus, Pelops, Oenomaus, Athamas, Laomedon, is but a series of _Märchen_ localised; while, in place of fairy godmothers, or anonymous benefactors, the old man or old woman of _Märchen_, the Olympian gods are introduced, with their fairy gifts, the cap of darkness, the winged shoon, the sword of sharpness (Perseus), the power of taking all animal disguises. Homer knows the attack of Heracles on the father and brothers of Nestor. Hesiod knew the cause of the feud, Neleus refused to purify Heracles who had slain his host under the hospitable roof. Hesiod knows that Poseidon had given to Periclymenus, brother of Nestor, the power to appear in any animal shape, eagle, ant, snake, or bee; and that while Periclymenus lived, Heracles failed in the fight, and could not take Pylos. But when Periclymenus, as a bee, settled on the chariot of Heracles, Athene shot that bee with an arrow (see fragment of the _Eoiai_ 14 (33), with the scholia).[5] Other examples of the wildest absurdities of _Märchen_, retained and rejoiced in by the Ionic epic poets, are given later ("Homer and the Ionian Cyclic Poets"). But Homer, in the _Iliad_, takes his heroes forth from the prison of _Märchen_: whether the fairy tales had not yet become attached to Bellerophon, Achilles, and Meleager in his time, or whether his genius ignored such fanciful elements of tradition, Homer does not speak of the invulnerability of Achilles, save on his heel; or tell the wooing by his father, Peleus, of Thetis as she takes a variety of bestial forms. Either these situations had not yet become attached to the story of Achilles, or Homer chooses to ignore them. Such things do not come into the natural objective world of the _Iliad_. In the digression of Bellerophon he recurs to the human natural side of _Märchen_, the story of the woman who, vainly attacking a man's virtue, accuses him falsely; the message or letter of death,[6] his three strange adventures to achieve, that of the Chimaera and others, and his winning of the king's daughter. This _Märchen_, localised, is in a digression; but Homer usually keeps his _Märchen_ for the _Odyssey,_ and the incidents occur beyond the bounds of the world he knows.