[1a]
In earlier times the oracle was in the neighborhood of Scotussa, a city of Pelasgiotis; but when the tree was set on fire by certain people the oracle was transferred in accordance with an oracle which Apollo gave out at Dodona. However, he gave out the oracle, not through words, but through certain symbols, as was the case at the oracle of Zeus Ammon in Libya. Perhaps there was something exceptional about the flight of the three pigeons from which the priestesses were wont to make observations and to prophesy. It is further said that in the language of the Molossians and the Thesprotians old women are called "peliai"1 and old men "pelioi."2 And perhaps the much talked of Peleiades were not birds, but three old women who busied themselves about the temple.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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