Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (54 page)
Read Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One Online
Authors: Bernard Evslin
Hundred-handed Giants | Hera's servants |
Slaves | Those who serve Geryon |
Contents
1
The Three Fates
Of all the monsters who sought to destroy Hercules, the most dreadful, perhaps, was the three-bodied Geryon, also known as the Triple Terror of Thessaly. This tale has deep roots; its seeds were planted long before Geryon was born, in the very year that the dawn-hero, Perseus, was stalking the snake-haired Medusa.
It all began one windy night in a cave on the western slope of Olympus, where dwelt three ancient sisters known as the Fates. Atropos, the Scissors Hag, was ranting at her sisters, raising her voice above the screech of the wind:
“We have enemies, I tell you!”
“Who dares challenge us?” yelped Lachesis.
“Yes, sister, who, who?” howled Clotho.
“Stop hooting like an owl,” said Atropos, “and listen. A new breed has arisen among humankind, a select few who seek to blur the designs of destiny. Instead of worshiping the official gods and meekly obeying our edicts, they intend to follow the arch-meddler, Prometheus, who defied us by giving man the gift of fire.”
“Who are these troublemakers, who, who?”
“They are called heroes,” said Atropos. “They move restlessly from adventure to adventure, upsetting the natural order, breaking the webs of fate we so carefully spin.”
“How?” asked Lachesis. “What do they do?”
“Different things, all of them troublesome. They're either brawling young brutes like Hercules and Perseus, who go about killing monsters who should be killing them. Or they're pesky questioners who keep poking their noses into our most sacred arrangements, always asking âHow does it work? How can it be changed? Why, why?' And then there's the sneaky, gentle kind like Asclepius, who dares to overturn our dooms, dosing people with his damned herbs, sewing up wounds, resetting bones, pulling his patients from the very brink of death and robbing our cousin Hades of his proper quota of corpses.”
“Makes you think, doesn't it?” murmured Lachesis. She was the one who measured the thread that Clotho spun and Atropos cut. This was the Thread of Life, out of which the three sisters wove the web of Fate. Each time Atropos cut the thread it meant death.
“Yes,” said Clotho. “Her words are full of wisdom; they do make one think. And thinking makes one thirsty, very thirsty.” She dipped a ladle into the great vat of barley beer that stood near the hearth; the other sisters dipped their ladles too, and drank deep. They were gluttons. As ancient as they were, they had kept their big yellow teeth and could crack marrow bones, something they did all day long and much of the night. The sisters sat down to regular meals, of course, but they also ate while they worked. Nor did they foul their webs, for they kept curly-headed slaves to wipe their greasy fingers on.
“Thinking makes one thirsty,” muttered Lachesis. “And drinking makes one hungry.”
“But you never speak idly, sister,” said Clotho. “An intention always lurks behind your words. What do you want us to doâreinforce our webs so that these heroes can't escape their fates?”
“By all means,” said Atropos. “We should do that. But we must do more, I'm afraid. We must leave our cozy home and go on an inspection trip to see just what these pesky heroes are up to. Then we'll be able to patch our webs more precisely.”
“Oh dear,” said Lachesis. “I hate to travel. It's a sorry business. Can't eat properly on the road.”
“As it happens, we can do two things at once,” said Atropos. “A place I particularly want to visit is the western shore of the River Castelos, where great events are fated to transpire. We must look over that ground carefully. There's an oak grove near the river whose acorns are very fat and flavorsome. And the wild pigs who eat these acorns are also very fat and flavorsome. The flesh of their suckling pigs is said to be of unparalleled flavor.”
The sisters slavered as they heard these words. Roast piglet was their favorite dish.
“Yes,” said Atropos. “We'll round up a nice batch of these sucklings and bring them back with us. That should make up for the discomforts of travel.”
2
Bats on the River Bank
The three sisters changed themselves into bats for their journey, giant bats, who slept by day and flew at night. When they flew low their wingspread blotted the moon. They flew here and there, spying on peopleâon kings and slaves, heroes and cowards, lovers and killers, and many who were none of these things but simply lived as they could, hoping to avoid trouble and keep going from day to day.
On the last night before returning home, the sisters alighted on the shore of the River Castelos, where they hoped to catch suckling pigs, enough to last them through the winter.
Now, the local river god who had given his name to these waters was someone very hard to get along with. He had a savage temper. He hated strangersâalmost as much as he despised acquaintances. Boasting the purest waters in all the land, he drove away any animals that tried to hunt along his shores, for he couldn't bear the idea of blood seeping into his river. The only creature in the world he didn't hate was his beautiful naiad daughter, Calliroa. Nevertheless, he had always wished that she were a boy. For he dreaded the prospect of her marrying someone someday; he knew he would hate her husband, whoever he was.
Particularly loathsome to Castelos were bats. His waters were fed by icy little springs born out of the winter snows, which turned into boisterous streams as they tumbled down the mountain slopes. These streams ran through caves and under rock walls where bats clung. They hung like rags from the ceilings of the caves until nightfall when they suddenly became winged rats with terrible claws, who hunted through the night, killing everything they could catch and drinking its blood.
Upon this night, the moon knelt low and burned so brightly that it was like a muted sun, strong enough to cast shadows. Castelos and his daughter rose from the spangled river to bathe themselves in golden light.
Something darkened the moon. The naiad uttered a half cry. Castelos saw the shadow of wings branding his shoresâhuge wings, not tapered but fan-shaped and strangely ribbed. Three enormous bats were settling upon the riverbank. The god had seen enough. He grasped his daughter's arm and pulled her under the water.
“What are they, father?” she cried. “Are they bats? They're so big!”
“Stay here,” he said. “I'll get rid of them.”
He pushed her into the underwater cave where they dwelt, and began to stir his river into a flood. So enraged was he at the sight of the loathsome creatures that he didn't even bother to surface for another look. He didn't see the bats strip off their wings like capes, twitch their rat faces back into crone faces, and stand revealed as themselves, the Three Hags of Fate.
Tittering and chuckling in the moonlight, they began to caper with excitement, for they smelled suckling pig on the wind.
But the hags were given no chance to hunt. Castelos was busy below, and the river swelled with his rage. It rushed, it foamed, it overflowed its banks in a mighty spate and swept over the land, washing away everything that stood before it, including the three sisters. Being immortal, they couldn't drown, but they could suffer discomfort.
Now, gathering their wet cloaks about them, they bobbed on the surface, shivering, and clinging to one another. Castelos rose from the river and saw a seething waste of waters. He studied the treeline and the sky, saw no bats flying against the moon, and laughed to himself. He raised both arms high and whistled loudly, summoning the waters to subside. Obediently, they shrank back between their banks.
Then, Castelos froze with horror. The bats had returned; they had sprouted legs, and were dancing about waving their wings and screeching at him. Their hag voices were like knives slashing away at his power, letting his strength drain out, and fear enter. They screeched:
River, take care,
River, beware.
Rolled in mud
by your insolent flood,
we Hags of Fate
know how to hate,
and whom to curse
with magical verse.
River, take care,
River, beware.
Monsters three
shall your daughter bear.
They shall hunt
along your shore,
killing, killing,
spilling gore,
fouling your waters
forever more.
The hags uttered the last mighty rhyme of their curse, spread their cloaks and flew off, still screeching.
For the first time in his life, Castelos was afraid. Before this, the only fear he had known was the fear he had caused. For in those days, people who dwelt in delta lands were affected by the whims of their local river god far more than by any of the distant gods of Olympus. Their lives literally hung on the antics of the river, which in flood swept away houses and barns and those who lived in them, and buried fields under tons of water. At other times, the river simply shrank itself into a miserly muddy trickle, leaving crops to wither on the stalk, cattle to thirst, and people to starve.
Thus it was that up till now, Castelos had spread fear but had never felt it himself. Now everything had changed. The giant bats had blotted the moon and settled loathsomely on his bank. When he had tried to drown them, as was his right, they had changed into the very Hags of Fate, cursing him forever, and naming his daughter as both the victim and the instrument of their vengeance.
3
The Suitors
Despite all the magical verses and moonlit curses uttered by all the capering hags in the world, Castelos was not one to acquiesce in his own doom. He said to himself, “If I arrange matters so that no male of any species is able to approach my daughter, then she will bear no childâsingleton, twin, or tripletâmonster, or otherwise. I shall keep her strictly secluded, and in my behavior shall set an example for suspicious fathers everywhere.”
Now, Calliroa was very shy, appearing only after sunset and before dawn to dive off rocks and play with the swans. Nevertheless, she had been seen, and young men came courting. Nor were they discouraged by rumor that her father was an ogre who had promised death to all who wooed her. Such rumors only made the idea of winning her more attractive. For in the springtide of life when youth is maddened by unspent energy, danger adds spice to any possibility. It is so now, and was even more so then, when the entire human race was in its springtime.
So the young men came courting, and some that were not so youngâwarriors, captains, princes, a widowed king or two. They appeared on the shore at all hours, some with rich gifts, calling into the waters. They spoke to her in various ways:
“Nymph. Maiden. River's daughter. Come out! Come out! Come see what I have brought you! Come be my bride!”
But not one of them was given time to press his suit, for Castelos was there, crouching underwater on mighty legs, waiting to attack.
A young poet who came at the first light of dawn was rewarded by the sight of Calliroa completing her last dive. He caught a searing glimpse of her long legs entering the water and was so excited that he hopped up and down on the shore, shouting: “Nymph! Nymph! Come out! Please come out. I can't go in after you; I'll drown.”
A column of mist rose from the river and thickened before his wondering eyes. It congealed into the shape of a gigantic snapping turtle. The youth gaped in amazement.
“Begone,” said the turtle in a throaty voice. “You stand upon a fatal shore. Depart, or die.”
“Thank you for your warning, good turtle,” said the young man courteously. “But I cannot leave just yet. For I have fallen in love with the nymph who dwells in this river. And I mean to marry her.”
The turtle did not reply. It simply tucked in its head and legs and spun out of the water like a discus. It skidded to a landing on the shore, poked out its leathery head and advanced on the boy. He was too poor to own a sword. All he carried was his lyre, slung over his shoulder, and a wooden staff. He felt very frightened as the huge turtle came toward him, but was determined not to be chased away. He clutched his staff and prepared to strike.
“Stop where you are,” he said. And was disgusted to hear his voice quavering. “Stop right there or I'll smash your shell with my stick.”
The turtle lunged. The youth struck. The turtle caught the staff in his jaws and snapped it in two like a twig. The lad realized that those terrible jaws could break an arm or leg just as easily. He whirled and ran away as fast as he could, hating himself for his cowardice. He didn't stop running until he reached the top of a hill, and the river was just a silver thread far below. There he sat on a rock and wept. “I shall never forget her,” he vowed. “I shall spend the rest of my life making verses about nothing but her, her, her!”