316 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PL A Y 



best of any. While he was walking quietly up the 

 path, he heard a rustling in the underwood, and 

 stayed to listen. Through the branches he saw an 

 unknown animal moving very quickly in the same 

 direction as himself, and made ready to fire at it 

 VOL 7rvpo/3o\j(ry but was stopped by shouts of the 

 shepherds on the hill-side above, who called to him 

 not to shoot. He then followed this strange creature, 

 which had the form, indeed, of a man, and was 

 wholly naked ; but ran very fast, sometimes on its 

 feet, but more often on all-fours, and reached the 

 sheep-cote before him. There he found it eagerly 

 drinking the buttermilk from a trough into which 

 it had run while the cheeses from the morning milk- 

 ing were being pressed. When it saw him near, it 

 ran into the wood ; and the chief of the shepherds 

 told him its story. " He is a boy," he said, " a 

 Wallachian, the son of a Wallachian, who lived at 

 Castania, on Mount Pindus. The man went back 

 to Wallachia to seek work, and there he married. 

 He lived there some time, but afterwards came back 

 to Pindus. Six years he was absent, and he brought 

 back four or five children. Then he died, and left 

 his wife and children to the 'five roads' (/'.*., to 

 fortune). The woman saw no way of keeping her 

 children in Castania, so she distributed them among 

 her neighbours, and went back to her own country. 



