While Cadmus was still weeping he was surprised to hear some one calling
him. He stood up and looked around. On the hillside before him was a
tall woman who had a helmet on her head and a shield in her hand. Her
eyes were gray, and her face, though not beautiful, was very noble.
Cadmus knew at once that she was Athena, the queen of the air--she who
gives wisdom to men.
Athena told Cadmus that he must take out the teeth of the dragon and sow
them in the ground. He thought that would be a queer kind of seed. But
she said that if he would do this, he would soon have men enough to help
him build his city; and, before he could say a word, she had gone out of
his sight.
[Illustration: "SOON THEY BEGAN TO FIGHT AMONG THEMSELVES."]
The dragon had a great many teeth--so many that when Cadmus had taken
them out they filled his helmet heaping full. The next thing was to find
a good place to sow them. Just as he turned away from the stream, he saw
a yoke of oxen standing a little way off. He went to them and found that
they were hitched to a plow. What more could he want? The ground in the
meadow was soft and black, and he drove the plow up and down, making
long furrows as he went. Then he dropped the teeth, one by one, into the
furrows and covered them over with the rich soil. When he had sown all
of them in this way, he sat down on the hillside and watched to see what
would happen.
In a little while the soil in the furrows began to stir. Then, at every
place that a tooth had been dropped, something bright grew up. It was a
brass helmet. The helmets pushed their way up, and soon the faces of men
were seen underneath, then their shoulders, then their arms, then their
bodies; and then, before Cadmus could think, a thousand warriors leaped
out of the furrows and shook off the black earth which was clinging to
them. Every man was clothed in a suit of brass armor; and every one had
a long spear in his right hand and a shield in his left.
Cadmus was frightened when he saw the strange crop which had grown up
from the dragon's teeth. The men looked so fierce that he feared they
would kill him if they saw him. He hid himself behind his plow and then
began to throw stones at them. The warriors did not know where the
stones came from, but each thought that his neighbor had struck him.
Soon they began to fight among themselves. Man after man was killed, and
in a little while only five were left alive. Then Cadmus ran towards
them and called out:
"Hold! Stop fighting! You are my men, and must come with me. We will
build a city here."
The men obeyed him. They followed Cadmus to the top of the hill; and
they were such good workmen that in a few days they had built a house on
the spot where the cow had lain down.
After that they built other houses, and people came to live in them.
They called the town Cadmeia, after Cadmus who was its first king. But
when the place had grown to be a large city, it was known by the name of
Thebes.
Cadmus was a wise king. The Mighty Folk who lived with Jupiter amid the
clouds were well pleased with him and helped him in more ways than one.
After a while he married Harmonia, the beautiful daughter of Mars. All
the Mighty Ones were at the wedding; and Athena gave the bride a
wonderful necklace about which you may learn something more at another
time.
But the greatest thing that Cadmus did is yet to be told. He was the
first schoolmaster of the Greeks, and taught them the letters which were
used in his own country across the sea. They called the first of these
letters _alpha_ and the second _beta_, and that is why men speak of the
_alphabet_ to this day. And when the Greeks had learned the alphabet
from Cadmus, they soon began to read and write, and to make beautiful
and useful books.
As for the maiden Europa, she was carried safe over the sea to a distant
shore. She may have been happy in the new, strange land to which she was
taken--I cannot tell; but she never heard of friends or home again.
Whether it was really Jupiter in the form of a bull that carried her
away, nobody knows. It all happened so long ago that there may have been
some mistake about the story; and I should not think it strange if it
were a sea robber who stole her from her home, and a swift ship with
white sails that bore her away. Of one thing I am very sure: she was
loved so well by all who knew her that the great unknown country to
which she was taken has been called after her name ever since--Europe.
[Illustration:]