They could make themselves visible or invisible to men as they pleased, and assume the forms of men or of animals as it suited their fancy. Like men, they stood in daily need of food and sleep. […] There arose a band of armed men, at whom Cadmus flung stones. […] This light was called by men the Aurora Borealis*. […] On the seaboard of this wild land is a rim of grassy country where cattle can subsist, and men by means of them and of what the sea yields; and it seems they were poetic men these, men who had deep thoughts in them and uttered musically their thoughts.