this watery way?" asked Perseus. "Would that I were a white-winged bird that skims across the waves."
And, with the smile of a loving comrade, Hermes laid his hand on the shoulder of Perseus.
"My winged shoes shall be thine," he said, "and the white-winged sea-birds shalt thou leave far, far behind."
"Yet another gift is thine," said Athené. "Gird on, as gift from the gods, this sword that is immortal."
For a moment Perseus lingered. "May I not bid farewell to my mother?" he asked. "May I not offer burnt-offerings to thee and to Hermes, and to my father Zeus himself?"
But Athené said Nay, at his mother's weeping his heart might relent, and the offering that the Olympians desired was the head of Medusa.
Then, like a fearless young golden eagle, Perseus spread out his arms, and the winged shoes carried him across the seas to the cold northern lands whither Athené had directed him.
Each day his shoes took him a seven days' journey, and ever the air through which he passed grew more chill, till at length he reached the land of everlasting snow, where the black ice never knows the conquering warmth of spring, and where the white surf of the moaning waves freezes solid even as it touches the shore.
It was a dark grim place to which he came, and in a gloomy cavern by the sea lived the Graeæ, the three grey sisters that Athené had told him he must seek. Old and grey and horrible they were, with but one tooth amongst them, and but one eye. From hand to hand they passed
