In the decade before the Spanish arrived in Mexico, Aztec Emperor Montezuma II and his people were filled with a sense of foreboding. A series of evil omens had foretold of calamities to come. A fiery comet crossed the sky. The temple of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, burst into flames. The Lake of Mexico boiled and rose, flooding into houses. A weeping woman passed by in the middle of the night, crying "My children, we must flee far away from this city!" Fishermen discovered a bird that wore a strange mirror in the crown of its head. Montezuma looked into the mirror and saw a distant plain, with people making war against each other and riding on the backs of animals resembling deer.