Serpents and Werewolves by Lari Don Page B

old-fashioned clothes and boots. Yet he could hear the people call this wretch a god...
    Lycaon refused to believe this man was better than him. “He is not a god,” Lycaon said to his three oldest sons. “He is not above us. And we will prove it.”
    So they invited the traveller in and asked him to wait by the fire while they prepared him a feast.
    Down in the kitchens, the King summoned his youngest son, Nyctimus. Lycaon told the boy to stand beside the largest pot in the kitchen. Then Lycaon cut his son’s throat, sliced him up and dropped the flesh into the pot. Lycaon and his three remaining sons added wine, herbs and spices to the meat, and boiled up a fragrant stew.
    â€œLet’s see if that smelly traveller can work out what
this
is,” said Lycaon.
    They carried the stew up to the feasting hall, sat the traveller at the table and placed a bowl of stew in front of him.
    The traveller hesitated. He sniffed the stew and frowned.
    The three sons filled bowls for themselves and took big spoonfuls. “Yum, delicious, very filling,” they said.
    So the traveller took a bit of meat and put it to his lips.
    Then he roared with anger. He stood up, lifted the table into the air and tipped it over. Bowls and spoons clattered to the floor, stew spilled everywhere.
    â€œHOW DARE YOU? How dare you test a god this way? How dare you treat a guest this way? And how dare you, how
dare
you eat the flesh of your own kind?”
    As the god roared, his eyes flashed lightning and his voice boomed with thunder.
    Lycaon recognised Zeus. The King fell to the ground and grovelled. “We only wished to test your power so that you could reveal your greatness to us, oh great powerful one.”
    â€œHOW DARE YOU?” Zeus thundered again.
    Lycaon and his sons ran...
    They had tested the god, they had discovered his power, and now they were terrified. So they ran out of the castle, past the village and up towards the hills.
    But as they ran, they tripped and stumbled, and started to run on four legs not two. Their fine clothes became ragged and grey and hairy, and the fabric stuck to their skin like fur.
    They screamed in terror until their screams became howls.
    And finally, they were wolves, running into the wilderness, running from the people who would always fear them and hunt them. They would never eat hot meat in a warm castle again.
    Zeus waved his hand over the lumps of stew and pools of gravy on the floor. The boy Nyctimus stood up, brushing herbs from his shoulders and spices from his hands. Zeus lifted him onto the throne.
    Then Zeus rose up to Olympus, to eat ambrosia for his supper and to tell his family about the goodness and evil he’d found as he walked the earth.
    Lycaon and his oldest sons ran through the hills, as the first ever pack of werewolves. Cold and hungry and forever hunted by men.
    They howled their pain and sorrow and anger. They howled their unhappiness to the gods in the sky every night. But Zeus didn’t listen, because gods rarely do.

Catching Loki
    Norse myth
    Loki, the Viking god of mischief, was on the run.
    One of his tricks had gone too far and he was hiding from the Viking gods, so they wouldn’t punish him for tricking blind Hodur into killing his own brother Baldur.
    Loki was sure the gods wouldn’t find him, because Loki knew he was smarter than all the other gods put together.
    First he climbed high into the mountains. Then he built himself a house with four doors, facing north, east, south and west, so he could see his pursuers approaching from any direction.
    Then he worked out his escape route.
    If they found him, Loki wouldn’t have to run away on his two human legs. Loki was a shape-shifter. He could become a falcon or a fly or a horse. This time, he thought he’d become a fish.
    He’d built his house by a narrow river just below a waterfall, and he decided that if the gods approached, he would turn into a fish and leap into the