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Last month's article told of one of the three monsters in the sky, the dragon Ladon. This month, we'll read about one of its siblings, the Lernean Hydra.
Like almost all of the monsters and dragons of mythology, the Hydra was born to Echidna and Typhoeus, both of whom were children of Gaia, mother of the universe. Echidna was described as "divine and iron-hearted, half fair-cheeked and bright-eyed nymph and half huge and monstrous snake inside the holy earth, a snake that strikes swiftly and feeds on living flesh. Her lair is a cave under a hollow rock, far from immortal gods and mortal men; the gods decreed for her a glorious dwelling there".
Her mate, Typhoeus was a monstrous immortal giant. It is described that "from his shoulders there grew a hundred snake heads, those of a dreaded dragon, and the heads licked with dark tongues, and from the eyes on the inhuman heads fire glittered from under the eyelids: from all his heads fire flared from his eyes' glancing; and inside each one of these horrible heads there were voices that threw out every sort of horrible sound, for sometimes it was speech such as the gods could understand, but at other times, the sound of a bellowing bull, proud-eyed and furious beyond holding, or again like a lion shameless in cruelty, or again it was like the barking of dogs, a wonder to listen to, or again he would whistle so the tall mountains re-echoed to it."
One of this couple's many cute little babies was the savage water snake known today as the Hydra. It was said to have from nine to one hundred heads, one of which was immortal. If one head was cut off two would grow back in its place. The beast was reared in the swamps of Lerna, not far from Mycenae, and would frequently "raid the flocks and ruin the land". This monster was so poisonous that she killed men with her breath.
Defeating the spawn of these two was assigned to Hercules as his second Labor. He went to the swamps with his trusty sidekick Iolaos, who assisted him by cauterizing the stumps after Hercules had chopped off each head. The immortal head was covered with "a heavy rock at the side of the road." (Continued on page 6)
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