Stories from Greek Mythology

The final task given to Heracles was the most difficult: to go into the underworld and bring back the guard dog Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades (god of the underworld) who stopped people passing between the world of the living and the dead. No living person had ever returned…

The eleventh labor was to bring back the golden apples of the Hesperides. These apples had been a wedding present to Hera from the Earth goddess Gaia, and she had put the Hesperides – nymphs who were the daughters of the titan Atlas – in charge of looking after the…

Geryon was a monster, born from parents who were also fierce creatures, and the grandson of Medusa (who had snakes for hair, and any hiuman who looked directly at her would be turned to stone). It was no surprise that Geryon was a wicked-looking giant – many stories say he…

King Eurystheus then sent Heracles on his ninth labor: to steal the magic girdle (a type of belt) from Hippolyta, one of the queens of the Amazons, a group of fierce female warriors. The girdle, given by Ares (the god of war) to show that Hippolyte was the strongest Amazon…

Diomedes was a cruel chief who lived in a wild part of the land, next to the Black Sea. He kept 4 horses who, because they were fed the human flesh of strangers that Diomedes killed, were as wild as their owner. Each horse had a name: Podagros (‘the fast’);…

Some Greek stories call the Cretan Bull the bull which fathered the minotaur, the half-man, half-bull monster that was later killed by Theseus. Either way, the Cretan Bull rampaged across Crete. The king of Crete, King Minos, offered Heracles help in capturing the bull, but Heracles thought he was doing…

The Stymphalian birds were birds sacred to the God of War, Ares. They had beaks made of bronze, feathers made of metal, and their dung was toxic. They lived in a swamp into which no man could walk. For his sixth labor, Heracles was told he had to kill them,…

The next task King Eurytheus thought of was supposed to be both impossible and embarrassing: for Heracles to clean the stables of King Augeas. These stables housed over 1000 immortal cattle and had never been cleaned. Worse, Eurytheus told Heracles he had to do the job in one day. King…

The boar was a wild, dangerous animal that caused panic amongst people. Heracles decided to talk to his friend Pholus, who lived in a cave. The two sat, ate and drank, along with Pholus’s colleagues. Unfortunately Pholus’s colleagues did not know how strong wine is, and so got drunk. When…

Seeing that Heracles was able to kill dangerous monsters, Hera and King Eurystheus decided to change their plans. They decided that Heracles new quest was to capture the Ceryneian Hind, a deer that belonged to the goddess Artemis. The deer was so fast it could outrun an arrow, and they…