and there was none
to help.

He fell like a leaf tossed down the wind, down, down, with one cry that
overtook Daedalus far away. When he returned, and sought high and low
for the poor boy, he saw nothing but the bird-like feathers afloat on
the water, and he knew that Icarus was drowned.

The nearest island he named Icaria, in memory of the child; but he, in
heavy grief, went to the temple of Apollo in Sicily, and there hung up
his wings as an offering. Never again did he attempt to fly.

261

This story of how Apollo, god of music and
poetry, was sent to earth for a space to serve
a mortal is also from _Old Greek Folk Stories_,
by arrangement with the publishers. (Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston.) James Russell Lowell
wrote a very fine poetic treatment of this same
story in "The Shepherd of King Admetus" (No.
373).

ADMETUS AND THE SHEPHERD

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

Apollo did not live always free of care, though he was the most glorious
of the gods. One day, in anger with the Cyclopes who work at the forges
of Vulcan, he sent his arrows after them, to the wrath of all the gods,
but especially of Zeus. (For the Cyclopes always make his thunderbolts,
and make them well.) Even the divine archer could not go unpunished, and
as a penalty he was sent to serve some mortal for a year. Some say one
year and some say nine, but in those days time passed quickly; and as
for the gods, they took no heed of it.

Now there was a certain king in Thessaly, Admetus by name, and there
came to him one day a stranger, who asked leave to serve about the
palace. None knew his name, but he was very comely, and moreover, when
they questioned him he said that he had come from a position of high
trust. So without further delay they made him chief shepherd of the
royal flocks.

Every day thereafter, he drove his sheep to the banks of the river
Amphrysus, and there he sat to watch them browse. The country folk that
passed drew near to wonder at him, without daring to ask questions. He
seemed to have a knowledge of leech-craft, and knew how to cure the ills
of any wayfarer with any weed that grew near by; and he would pipe for
hours in the sun. A simple-spoken man he was, yet he seemed to know much
more than he would say, and he smiled with a kindly mirth when the
people wished him sunny weather.

Indeed, as days went by, it seemed as if summer had come to stay, and