And while the strength of glorious Hephaestus was beginning to kindle the fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned cows close to the fire; for great strength was with him. He threw them both panting upon their backs on the ground, and rolled them on their sides, bending their necks over,The cows being on their sides on the ground, Hermes bends their heads back towards their flanks and so can reach their backbones. and pierced their vital chord. Then he went on from task to task: first he cut up the rich, fatted meat, and pierced it with wooden spits, and roasted flesh and the honorable chine and the paunch full of dark blood all together. He laid them there upon the ground, and spread out the hides on a rugged rock: and so they are still there many ages afterwards, a long, long time after all this, and are continuallyO. Muller thinks the “hides” were a stalactite formation in the “Cave of Nestor” near Messenian Pylos, —though the cave of Hermes is near the Alpheus (1. 139). Others suggest that actual skins were shown as relics before some cave near Triphylian Pylos.. Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat stone, and divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each portion wholly honorable.