Hello, this is Bertie and welcome to StoryNory. I'm here with some Greek myths about music.

We were planning to bring you the next episode of the Dutch Hotel, but unfortunately,

Ghana has lost her voice. We think it's due to a summer cold, so for that reason, I'm here with two musical myths.

First, I'm going to tell you how the Greek god Apollo began to play the musical instrument called the lyre.

A lyre is a kind of harp, or you might even think of it as an ancient guitar.

One form of a lyre uses a tortuice shell as its sound box. This story explains how Apollo came to play a tortuice shell lyre.

But the story begins with another god, Hermes. Hermes was the messenger of the gods, also known as a trickster, a dreamgiver, and a thief.

The mother of Hermes was Maya, a nymph who gave birth to him in a cave. As soon as he was born, his father, who was Zeus, King of the gods,

gave him a pair of winged sandals that enabled him to fly. The baby god was just a day old when he first flew out of the cave and began to explore the world.

As he was flying around, a plotting and wrinkly faced creature caught his eye. This was the tortuice, who carried her shell around on her back.

As soon as Hermes saw the shell, he understood how it could be useful to him, and he wanted it. So he landed in the tortuice's path and declared,

Hello, my pretty one, how are you today? No one had ever spoken to the tortuice like this before, let alone a baby with winged sandals.

She should have suspected a trick, and perhaps she did. But Hermes' flattery worked its charm on her. She smiled her prettiest of smiles, which wasn't that pretty,

unless you happen to be another tortuice. The infant smiled back and said,

I'd love to see you dance, and I bet your singing voice is as beautiful as your face.

Now you're going too far, laugh to the tortuice, I'm far too shy to dance, and as for singing, I've never even tried.

I'll leave that sort of thing to the birds and the grasshoppers, you have a more autistic nature.

But I tell you that you have the most beautiful voice of all.

Declared the baby Hermes, you can take me at my word, I'm a god, and we are mortals, never lie.

He insisted. And if you know anything about mythology, you will realize that this was far from true.

The gods almost always lie, even when there's no need. They do it just for practice.

And so, with this insincerity and flattery, the baby god won the trust of the tortuice, who was old enough to know better.

...