Delphi replaces a lost sister with livestock navigation. Cadmus, searching for the stolen Europa, is told by the god "not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow", and to found a city where "she should fall down for weariness" [The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. IV]. It happens exactly so: "falling in with a cow among the herds of Pelagon, he followed it behind", and after crossing Boeotia "it sank down where is now the city of Thebes" [ibid.]. The animal's exhaustion is the oracle's signature on the site — and the site comes mortgaged: "Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena", Cadmus sends men to the spring of Ares, where the sacred dragon kills most of them and the city's bloody prehistory begins (that violation is filed at C92.2) [ibid.]. Thompson's one other row for the cow-founded city is Indic (Thompson-Balys), unwired; on our shelf the type-site is Thebes alone. The founder does not choose his ground: he is towed to it by a tired animal — delivered by the god at the pace of the god's own beast.