GREEK MYTHS 35 



intervening plain the incessant peals and reverbera- 

 tions from the northern and southern ranges might 

 well sound like shouts of mutual defiance from the 

 two lines of lofty rampart, as where, in a more 

 northern clime 



"Jura answers from her misty shroud 



Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud." 



If to these daily or frequently returning meteoro- 

 logical phenomena we add the terrors of occasional 

 earthquakes, such as affect most mountainous countries 

 and are known to have convulsed different parts of 

 Greece within historic times, we perceive how favourable 

 the conditions of environment must have been for 

 exciting the imagination of x an impressionable people. 

 Whether, therefore, the early Hellenic myths arose 

 in Hellas, or came from elsewhere, they could hardly 

 fail in the end to betray the influence of the sur- 

 roundings amid which they were handed down from 

 generation to generation. The snowy summits of 

 Olympus, rising serenely above the shifting clouds 

 into the calm, clear, blue heaven, naturally came to 

 be regarded as the fit abode of the gods who ruled 

 the world. The association of that mountain-top with 

 the dwelling-place of the immortals, first suggested 

 to the imagination of the early settlers in Thessaly, 

 passed outwards to the utmost bounds of the Hellenic 

 world. Everywhere the word Olympus came to be 

 synonymous with heaven itself. 



In the myth of the Gods and the Titans, as handed 

 down in early Greek poetry, the influence of Thes- 

 salian topography is abundantly conspicuous. The two 



