"I care not whether it be a tree beloved of the goddess or not," Erisichthon shouted angrily to them. "If I cut it down I shall have no more need of Ceres, for its wood will make me rich beyond the need of planting. She owes me a living on account of the past seasons in which I have worked for her. If Ceres herself were in my way I would cut her down also!" he exclaimed. With this terrible threat on his lips, the lawless ploughman seized an axe from one of his trembling servants and began chopping the trunk of the mighty tree. He had great strength, and each blow cut a deep gash. As Erisichthon cut in toward the heart of the oak tree, that held the Dryad, the oak began to shiver and groan, but he showed it no mercy. He ordered his men to tie ropes to the branches and pull, and he continued to cut it until the tree fell with a crash that was like the sound of a thunderbolt, and brought down with it a great part of the forest that surrounded it. As the giant trunk lay on the ground at the feet of Erisichthon, there was a sighing of the branches like that of a summer breeze passing through, and the leaves fluttered as if they had been stirred by the flight of a bird. It was the spirit of the Dryad whom Erisichthon had so hurt, taking her way to her family of the gods on Mount Olympus. Those Dryads who were left in the grove hastened to Ceres with news of what had happened. "This man must be punished!" they cried. Ceres bowed her head in assent, and the fields of grain bowed also, and the branches of the fruit trees drooped. It was the ripe time of the harvest, but there were no crops on the farm of Erisichthon, and Ceres decreed that no neighbor should share with him. In the northern part of Greece lay the ice topped mountains of Scythia, a bleak, unfertile region without fruit or grain. Cold, and Fear, and Shuddering lived there and one other, who was more to be dreaded than all three. This was Famine with unkempt hair and sunken eyes, blanched lips, and her skin tightly drawn over her sharp bones. She made her home in a hard, stony field where she pulled up the scanty herbage with her claw-like fingers and tried to subsist on it. After Erisichthon had cut down the old oak tree Ceres sent to Scythia for Famine. Erisichthon found that it was going to be a month's task to cut up his wood and carry it to his farm, so he went home to rest over night, planning to start the work in the morning. He felt hungry after his hard work of chopping down the tree, but he had not even a pomegranate for his supper. All his food had strangely disappeared. He decided to go to bed and try to forget his hunger in sleep. "I will sell a load of wood in the morning for many gold coins," he thought, "and buy food in plenty."