12ERASMUS+ KA2 Searching for the Labours of Hercules2014-1-TR01-KA201-012990

Romania: Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra

Hercules had to obey in order to deserve his absolution for the murder of his wife and children. So, off he went to find the Hydra! He did not go alone. His devoted charioteer, Iolaus, drove him to Lerna. Hercules found out that the Hydra dwelt in a den on a hill beside the springs of the Amymone. The animal had a huge body and nine tentacles with a head at the end of each. The odor of its body killed all who breathed the stinking fumes.

He stirred up the monster out of her den by pelting her with burning shafts of wood. She came out raging with poisonous tongues against him. She wound herself around one of Hercules’ feet trying to immobilize him. But he hit the tentacles with his mighty club causing the monster to roar with pain.

He knew that eight of the Hydra’s heads were mortal and one was immortal. He could hit as hard as he might, the tentacles would not easily be beheaded. To his surprise, once he struck a head with his club, two more grew in its place.

A huge crab, friend of the monster, came along and bit Hercules’ foot. The hero asked Iolaus for help. The later used a torch and burnt the beheaded tentacles so no more new heads sprout. Thus, Hercules managed to kill all the heads, except the immortal one. He finally took this one too, using a golden sickle.

He buried this head under a rock and then dipped some of his arrows into the poisonous gall of the monster’s corpse.

King Eurystheus kept council with the vengeful goddess Hera on what to order Hercules to do as his second labour of penitence out of the ten foretold by the Pythian priestess of the temple in Delphi.

They wanted him to have a meeting with the Lernaean Hydra, a monstrous creature, a water-snake which Hera raised to fight against Hercules. To kill this nine-headed animal was the task the fearless hero had to accomplish.

As one of his glorious predecessors once had done - Perseus, who killed the Medusa (a woman’s head -like monster that could kill anybody with the deadly glare in her eyes) -, Hercules had the almost impossible task to annihilate a vicious animal who lived in a swamp, and would ravage the cattle and the country around.