themselves.

It was not long before men saw that strong men could not work for
themselves without working for others, and there came in very early
the idea of service as part of the idea of heroism, and the demi-
gods, who were among the earliest heroes, were servants as well as
masters. Hercules, the most powerful of the heroes to Greek and
Roman boys was set to do the most difficult things not for himself
but for others. He destroyed lions, hydras, wild boars, birds with
brazen beaks and wings, mad bulls, many-headed monsters, horses
which fed on human flesh, dragons, he mastered the three-headed dog
Cerberus, he tore asunder the rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar which
bear his name to open a channel between the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic. He fought the Centaur and brought back Alcestis, the wife
of Admetus, from the pale regions of death where she had gone to
save her husband's life. In all these labors, which were so great
that works of extraordinary magnitude have since been called
Herculean, the brave, patient, suffering hero, was helping other
people rather than helping himself.

And this was true of Thor, the strong god of the Norsemen whose
hammer was the most terrible weapon in the world, the roll and crash
of thunder being the sound of it and the blinding lightning the
flash of it. The gods were the friends of men, giving the light and
warmth and fertility of the summer that the fields might bear food
for them and the long, bright days might bring them peace and
happiness. And the giants were the enemies of men, tirelessly trying
to make the fields desolate and stop the singing of birds and shroud
the sky in darkness by driving away summer with the icy breath of
winter. In this perpetual conflict Thor was the hero of strength and