One more god who lived on Olympus was 19 the messenger. He wore golden winged sandals which carried him dry-shod over sea and land. He darted down from the peaks of Olympus like a kingfisher20 dropping to catch a fish. or came running down the sloping sunbeams bearing messages from Zeus to men. Mortal eyes were too weak to be: behold the dazzling beauty of the immortals: le. consequently the messages of zeus usually he came in dreams. Hermes was therefore also a me god of sleep. and of thieves because they prowl ws by night. Healing was another of his powers on His rod, a staff entwined by two snakes is nd commonly used as a symbol of medicine. nd The Greeks have left us so many stories e about their gods that it hardly would be pos f sible for everyone to know them all. We can still enjoy them because they are good stories. In spite of their great age we can still under- t stand them because they are about nature e and about people. We still need them to enrich y our knowledge of our own language and of the n great masterpieces of literature.