Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One

by Bernard Evslin

  Indeed, every living creature was monstrously enlarged—for Hera had asked this of Poseidon and the sea god had done as she wished. Hercules was staring at a clam the size of a chariot wheel. The thing was alive, for it was spouting water and beginning to dig itself into the wet sand, sinking out of sight as he watched.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” cried Hercules. “I have need of you!”

  He drew his sword and rushed at the clam. He pried open its shell, then studied what was inside. Hercules never killed any creature unnecessarily. Using his sword as delicately as a surgeon’s scalpel, he swiftly severed the tendons, slid the blade under, and flipped the naked clam out of its shell.

  “Sorry to evict you, my friend,” said Hercules, “but I must borrow your dwelling place.”

  He watched the blob of phlegm that was the naked clam wobble toward the sea. A gull dived, screaming. But the clam slithered safely into the water.

  “Yes,” said Hercules. “I think my idea may work.”

  He lifted the two massive clamshells and carried them to the edge of the water. There he washed them out thoroughly and scrubbed them with sand, then rinsed them again. Finally, he climbed into one of the shells and closed the other over himself, pulling the two tightly together.

  Something hard struck the shell, almost deafening him. But he had expected the shock and braced himself. He felt the shell rising, felt himself being lifted into the air. This is exactly what he had wanted. For gulls, he knew, loved clam meat but were able to break the shells open in only one way, by dropping them onto the rocks. He had noted that the incoming tide had covered the rocks of this islet, but that Geryon’s shore was very rocky, girded by tall boulders whose tops poked above the swelling waters. And he had calculated that the only place a gull could break a clam was upon Geryon’s shore.

  Hercules lay curled in the darkness as he felt himself rushing through the air. “It’s working!” he said to himself. “And I’ve assured myself safe passage, at least as far as the sharks are concerned. All I have to do now is survive the crash when the gull drops me. But it must be flying lower than usual; with me inside, this clam is very heavy.” No sooner had he finished this thought, when he heard the gull scream and felt himself fall. The shell dropped heavily and shattered on the rocks.

  Hercules did not rise but lay sprawled among the fragments of clamshell. The lion-skull helmet had protected his head; nevertheless, he had hit the rocks with such force that he was knocked unconscious.

  He did not feel the gulls’ claws striking his armor nor hear them scream as they quarreled over his body. For gulls are thievish. When one carries a clam over rocks, others will follow and dive after the falling shell, trying to snatch away the meat before its rightful owner can reach it.

  It was only when he felt himself being tugged at that Hercules regained consciousness. But he immediately understood what was happening. The gulls, unable to pierce the lion skin, thought he was inside some sort of inner shell, and one of them was trying to lift him in order to drop him again.

  Hercules clung to the rocks. His weapons had been knocked from his grasp in the fall, but he swung his fists, punched at the birds, and drove them off. One came at him from behind. He whirled just in time to seize the giant bird and wring its neck with one twist of his great gloved hands. When he flung the dead gull on the sand, the others dived at it in their cannibal way, forgetting him.

  “Well, gulls,” said Hercules. “I have repaid you poorly for wafting me safely over the shark-swarming seas, but you should not have returned to the attack.”

  He gathered his weapons and struck inland.

  13

  Hero Meets Monster

  With the sun beating down hotly, Hercules felt himself basting in his armor. He stripped off the lion-skin garments and carried them. When he came to a hollow tree he hid the armor inside, marking the place in his mind so that he could find it again. Then, he passed through the wood onto a great meadow, and immediately wished he were back inside his armor.

  Three enormous dogs were rushing toward him. He was still near the fringe of trees fortunately. With one powerful leap, he was among the lower boughs of an oak. Just in time. As he caught the bough he felt the hot breath of the dogs upon him. Mastiff they were, large as bull calves.

  One after the other they leaped up, trying to catch any part of him in their great jaws. But Hercules was just out of their reach. He sat on the bough, considering them. “They’re magnificent,” he said to himself. “As splendid as the cattle they guard. Geryon certainly knows how to pick his animals. I’d hate to kill them. But I’m afraid they have no such reservations about me.”

  After pondering this for a while, Hercules drew an arrow from his quiver and studied it. “Pity to do this to a good arrow,” he thought to himself, and snapped the sharp head off the shaft.

  In those days, archers used short bows of yew or ash and drew the bowstrings only to their chests. But Hercules used a much longer bow made of antelope horn stiffened by copper wire. His arrows were as long as ordinary spears. And he drew the bowstring in a full-armed way, bending the bow almost in two, pulling the string back past his right shoulder. His arrows sped with deadly accuracy and with such force that, hitting a tree, they would bury themselves up to their feathers.

  Now, however, he took the headless arrow and drew his bow only halfway. The blunted shaft traveled at half speed and struck one of the dogs in the rump, knocking it off its feet. It rolled on the ground, yelping in pain, then struggled up, and limped away.

  Hercules broke the point off a second arrow and shot it in the same way, hitting the second dog squarely in the nose. This dog, too, rolled on the grass, yelping and whimpering, then scrambled away. Hercules did not have to shoot again. The third dog understood and raced off after his wounded companions.

  Hercules waited until they were quite gone, then climbed down from the tree. The cattle, excited by the clamor of the dogs, milled about in a nearby meadow. Hercules decided to circle around the herd instead of passing through it. He still felt stiff and bruised and would have liked to loosen his muscles by wrestling a bull or two, but he also wanted to find Geryon’s dwelling place as soon as possible.

  He quickly ran over in his mind the things he had to do. “Observe his movements for a full day; study his habits; try to see how he handles himself in a fight—and finally, test that dismal prophecy. For if the prophecy is correct, and some magical mandate says that he cannot be killed, I shall have to avoid direct conflict and try to devise some other way to cope with the monster.”

  Hercules made his way through the woods until he entered a clearing and knew immediately that he had found Geryon’s dwelling place. At first sight, it resembled a cave more than a house, for it was built of huge boulders. It looked like the most ancient of habitations, built in the very dawn of time.

  A huge grass sward fronted the dwelling. Hercules saw that Geryon preferred to dine outside. His table was a slab of stone resting on four tree stumps. He saw smoke arising from behind the house, and smelled the savor of meat roasting.

  Then he saw something huge shambling out of the stone hovel. Despite all his experience of monsters, Hercules gaped in dismay. For this—or these—appeared more fearsome than anything he had encountered before. Each of the three bodies was twice as tall and at least twice as wide as his own.

  Hercules watched the monster very closely as it shuffled toward the table. Although Geryon was actually three separate entities bound together at the waist, he still managed to move with absolute coordination, as if one brain were directing all the action. Nevertheless, Hercules noted, the two side bodies could do two entirely different things at once, while the middle body was pursuing a third activity—and they did not interfere with one another, or betray the least awkwardness. And when they had to move in concert, the separate activities flowed smoothly into a single set of movements.

  All this told Hercules that if it ever came to close combat, he would have a most difficult time.


  Geryon was seated now. Servants were crossing the grass, bearing trays of food. Hercules had watched greedy creatures before—huge ones that devoured everything in sight—but he had never witnessed gluttony like Geryon’s. Every two hours, three cooks and their helpers laid out three different meals on the table. For each body had its own favorite food. The right-hand body craved pork. The middle body liked mutton. And the body on the left preferred goat meat.

  “Odd that he doesn’t like beef,” thought Hercules. “No one on earth has such fine herds. Perhaps he doesn’t want to eat his own cattle.”

  One of the servants, setting a haunch of mutton on the table, was unfortunate enough to splatter his master with a bit of gravy. Without rising from his seat, Geryon shot out one of his six hands, caught the man about the neck, and squeezed until the servant’s face grew purple and his eyes bulged. Then the hand dropped the dead body to the grass. And not one of the three monster’s mouths had ceased chewing for a second.

  “I don’t want to believe that this ogre can’t be killed,” thought Hercules. “I shall have to test the prophecy myself.”

  He withdrew into the woods to try his arm and sharpen his aim. He raised his spear and flung it at an oak. The spear passed entirely through the thick bole, splitting it as cleanly as the ax of a woodsman splitting a log. Retrieving his spear, he loped back toward Geryon’s house.

  The monster was still at the table. His three heads were sprawled on the stone slab; he was asleep, snoring hoarsely. Hercules came closer and hurled his spear with all his force. It cleaved the bright air, then slowed strangely, without dropping, as if the air had suddenly jelled around it. Hercules saw that the air about Geryon’s sleeping heads had indeed thickened to a murk. The spear point stopped one inch from the monster’s middle head.

  The murk cleared; the aspic air faded. The spear dropped to the grass, and all eyes remained shut. “The prophecy does not lie,” thought Hercules. “Some demonic destiny shields him from death.”

  He walked back into the shade of the trees. He needed to think. “What I’ve learned about prophecies,” he continued, “is that they don’t always mean exactly what they say. Fate often speaks in code. Now what does this prophecy say precisely? ‘Geryon can’t be killed’.… No, that’s not it. It’s longer than that. ‘Geryon can’t be killed by anyone’.… That’s not right either. ‘Geryon can be killed by no one else.’ That’s it. No one else. What does ‘else’ mean? It means another being, another creature, not himself. Himself? But he’s three selves. Hmm.… There’s the seed of an idea in there somewhere.”

  Hercules went deeper into the woods, then climbed a hill. He spotted a goat and chased it, springing from boulder to boulder as the animal leaped ahead of him. He cornered it finally in a cleft of rock. It turned and charged him, lowering its big, curved horns, trying to butt him off the hill.

  Hercules caught one horn in each hand, swung the goat off the ground, slung it over his shoulder, and carried it down the hill to a place where three paths came together. There he tethered it to a tree and set off into the woods again. He was after wild boar now.

  First he returned to the hollow tree where he had hidden his armor, and dug out his lion-skin gauntlets. For a boar is very dangerous to hunt. It is built low to the ground, is one slab of muscle, and moves very fast. Its tusks are deadly weapons. When cornered, it turns and charges.

  Now a huge one burst out of the underbrush. As soon as it spotted Hercules, it lowered its head and charged. Hercules reached out his gauntleted hands. Seizing the boar by its tusks, he arose, swinging the beast high and smashing it to the ground, knocking its wind out. It seemed ten times as heavy as the goat when he heaved it onto his shoulders and carried it back to the hill. There he tethered the boar to a tree near where he had tied the goat and ran down the path again to find a sheep.

  He came upon a meadow where sheep were grazing, and chose a big ram. Despite its horns, the animal was no fighter. Hercules simply lifted it upon his back and carried it to where he had tethered the other animals, feeling quite weary by the time he had it tied to a third tree. But he could not permit fatigue; he had much to do before he could sleep.

  He returned to the clearing and stood in the dappled shade of the trees near the house so that he could see without being seen. Geryon was still at the table, but awake now, bawling for food. Hercules saw the servants beginning to file out from behind the house.

  He raced across the grass, pulled a tray out of the hands of an amazed cook, and carried it toward the table. Standing behind Geryon, he held the tray over him and calmly turned it upside down.

  A ten-pound ham hit the middle head. A gallon of hot gravy splashed over the two other heads. Hercules moved around to the front of the table so that the monster could see who had done this to him, then began to run. Geryon sprang after him.

  For all the monster’s bulk, he was extremely fast. Running on six legs, he could outrace a good horse. But Hercules easily kept ahead of him, holding the same distance between them—speeding up and pulling ahead when the monster came too close, lagging again when he thought they were too far apart.

  Geryon would have kept chasing him in any case. The three-bodied monster was in a flaming rage now, not only because he had been assaulted in that unbelievable way but also because he had been running so long. He had missed a meal and was about to miss another. Hunger mixed with rage and clawed at his bellies.

  Geryon saw that he could not catch the young man. He scooped up a rock as he ran and hurled it. His aim was good. The rock struck Hercules in the calf. It would have shattered the leg bone of any other man, but Hercules’ bones were like iron rods. His flesh, though, could be bruised and his muscles torn. And the stone did wound him.

  His leg hurt terribly; the pain slowed him down. Geryon put on a burst of speed and was gaining on Hercules, who angled off now, left the road, and ran across a patch of woodland, leaping over fallen logs. Hercules chose this rough route because he thought that, despite his injured leg, he would be able to out-jump Geryon.

  It was true. Forcing himself to ignore the agonizing pain of his leg, he soared over the tangle of fallen trees, while Geryon had to clamber over them. Hercules was able to draw ahead slightly, but he was terribly weary now. He had hunted all day without food or rest, while Geryon had eaten and slept. He knew that he would have to end this chase soon or Geryon would catch up with him and break him to pieces with those six monstrous hands.

  Hercules was running uphill now. He swerved and headed for a stream that was tumbling down the slope. He ran straight toward the water, then leaped. He sailed over, landed on the other side, and kept running. Geryon jumped also, but he came down in the middle of the stream and stumbled, trying to regain his footing. He plowed through the water and climbed out onto the other bank.

  But now Hercules was well ahead, and racing to where he had tethered the animals. He drew his knife as he ran. When he reached the goat, he slashed its rope, setting the animal free. Raced to the tree where the pig was tied, and cut that rope. Sped to the third tree, and cut the rope that bound the sheep.

  But he didn’t let them run free. With his last strength Hercules caught them in his arms. He hurled the boar to the left, the goat to the right, and the sheep straight ahead.

  The three bodies of Geryon, hurtling toward their enemy, saw food fleeing before them —the favorite food of each body racing away. These bodies were raging with hunger. They were used to eating every two hours and had now missed three meals.

  The right-hand body tried to go after the pig; the left-hand body tried to wrench itself away to follow the goat. And the middle body forged ahead after the ram. With three bodies trying to go in three different directions, they went nowhere. They were glued to the spot.

  They shook violently, trying to tear free. But the more they tried, the less they could move. Six legs began kicking at one another. Six hands became six fists, pounding at the nearest face. Three sets of teeth tore at each other�
�s shoulders and necks.

  Hercules, hiding from behind a tree, watched the three bodies of the giant fight among themselves—doing to Geryon what no one else could do. They broke each other’s face bones, kicked each other’s legs to a pulp, clawed and butted. Blood bubbled when mouths tried to scream. Geryon fell. He looked like a crab crushed by a rock.

  Hercules stood over him and saw that his enemy was dead. “That was it, then,” he said. “That was the joker in the prophecy: This monster could be killed by no one else. But, torn by conflicting hungers, his selves hating one another, he went to war with himself, destroyed himself. And I’m glad I was able to help.”

  There was one more thing Hercules had to do. He rounded up Geryon’s herds and, aided by mastiffs, drove them down to the sea. The recent storm had felled many trees, and Hercules labored mightily for an entire day, hauling the great trunks down to the beach and lashing them together into gigantic rafts.

  He then bound raft to raft, making a long line of barges, and drove the cattle on board. Planting himself on the first raft, he used a tree trunk to paddle the entire string of barges, loaded with cattle, across the strait to the mainland.

  Word of Hercules’ victory had reached the coastal villages of Thessaly, and a great crowd had come down to the beach to welcome him. Hercules unloaded the herd from the rafts and thanked the people for coming to greet him. He bade those who had been robbed by Geryon to reclaim their cattle.

  Hercules was very tired, but happy. He had no way of knowing that the Hags of Fate were hovering above him, for they had made themselves invisible.