One day, when he was a small child, he crept down to the seaside and there found the shell of a tortoise. He stretched some strings tightly across it, and blew upon the strings, and made wonderful music.
He called this thing a lyre.
On the same day, toward evening, he looked across the meadows and saw some beautiful white cows. His brother Apollo was looking after them.
"What fun it would be to drive those cows away!" he said.
So he crept up behind the cows while Apollo was not looking, and he drove them away. He drove them far, and at last shut them up in a cave, where he thought Apollo could not find them.
Apollo saw that the cows were gone, and went to look for them, but he had a hard time.
He thought that Hermes might have had something to do with them. So he went to Hermes.
Hermes was playing upon the lyre which he had made, and was singing gently to himself.
The music was so beautiful that Apollo forgot all about his cows.