9 Apollo presented his young friend with his own golden shepherd's staff, taught him the art of prophesying by means of dice, and Zeus made him his own herald, and also of the gods of the lower world. Hermes now invented the syrinx, and after having disclosed his inventions to Apollo, the two gods concluded an intimate friendship with each other. As, however, he saw that his assertions were not believed, he conducted Apollo to Pylos, and restored to him his oxen but when Apollo heard the sounds of the lyre, he was so charmed that he allowed Hermes to keep the animals.

Zeus commanded him to comply with the demand of Apollo, but Hermes denied that he had stolen the cattle. She showed to the god the child in its cradle but Apollo took the boy before Zeus, and demanded back his oxen. 8Īpollo, by his prophetic power, had in the meantime discovered the thief, and went to Cyllene to charge him with it before his mother Maia. The number of strings of his new invention is said by some to have been three and by others seven, and they were made of the guts either of oxen or of sheep. He took the animal's shell, drew strings across it, and thus invented the lyre and plectrum. 7 Hereupon he returned to Cyllene, where he found a tortoise at the entrance of his native cave. 6 The skins of the slaughtered animals were nailed to a rock, and part of their flesh was prepared and consumed, and the rest burnt at the same time he offered sacrifices to the twelve gods, whence he is probably called the inventor of divine worship and sacrifices. 5 In order not to be discovered by the traces of his footsteps, Hermes put on sandals, and drove the oxen to Pylos, where he killed two, and concealed the rest in a cave. 4 Other accounts, again, refer the theft of the oxen to a more advanced period of the life of the god.

3 In the Iliad and Odyssey this tradition is not mentioned, though Hermes is characterized as a cunning thief.

In the first hours after his birth, he escaped from his cradle, went to Pieria, and carried off some of the oxen of Apollo. For his greed and dishonesty, Hermes leaves without even fetching this man's actual ax.Hermes, a son of Zeus and Maia, the daughter of Atlas, was born in a cave of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, 1 whence he is called Atlantiades or Cyllenius but Philostratus 2 places his birth in Olympus. When one of the woodcutter's friends hears the story, he intentionally throws his ax in the water and tries to claim the golden ax for himself when Hermes presents it. As a reward for his honesty, Hermes gives the man all three axes. The man likewise says that this treasure doesn't belong to him, so Hermes goes under for a third time and comes back with the woodcutter's own ax. The man denies that the golden ax is his, so Hermes dives again and this time comes back with a silver ax. Hermes dives into the river and comes back up with an ax made of gold. As he sits there crying at his own foolishness, Hermes appears and tells him that he will help him out. collects these fables in one place, including what is perhaps the most famous one, which tells of a woodcutter who accidentally drops his ax in a river. Aesop, the famous writer of fables, would often use Hermes as a character in his brief moralistic tales, perhaps because his role as a pastoral god of travelers suited the frequently rural settings of many of his stories.

Hermes god