3 Fearsome Greek Monsters by. C. H. Rosbie
Now, when I ask you what you think is the most important thing in Greek myths, apart from the gods, you’ll probably say the heroes. However, I’ll say otherwise. I’ll say Greek monsters. What is the purpose of heroes if they don’t have any enemies to fight? You might as well know that there are several of these creatures, but, right now, I’ll only talk about three of them.
First, let’s discuss Medusa. She, for one thing, could turn people into stone with her looks. There were a couple of statues at the place she lived with her other two sisters, the Gorgons, who were, long ago, men. Some might say that most interesting feature Medusa had was the snake hair growing on top of her head, which stayed attached to her heck until invisible Perseus came along and chopped off her head as a king’s present, but that’s another story. Anyway, from her badly severed head came bold, pure white Pegasus as a young foal and glided away with his silver wings. We’ll come back to this horse later on, but after we talk about our second Greek monster-the Minotaur.
The Minotaur was a creature that had a tremendously large body that resembled a human, and, curiously enough, the brown head of a hairy bull. He (or maybe an it) was so revolting, and bloodcurdling that he was kept in an endless labyrinth at King Minos’s castle. But what exactly did he do? For one thing, the Minotaur consumed people alive. That was why every nine years, the monarch of Athens had to send 7 boys and girls to Crete, who were devoured by the outrageous creature. That was, until Theseus defeated it once and for all with his father, King Aegeaus’s permission, a magical ball of yarn, and the princess, Ariadne’s advice and help. However, I think that King Minos shouldn’t have made King Aegeaus send his young subjects to be eaten by the Minotaur in the first place. But I guess that it had some advantages since it got Ariadne and Theseus together, at least for a short time before the god Dionysus half kidnapped Ariadne, claiming she was actually his bride.
Now, for the last monster–the Chimera. Just like the Minotaur, it was made of multiple creatures, which were lion, goat, and also a snake. The Chimera had firebreath that could cause great damage. She caused the most destruction to the kingdom Lycia. It was great relief to its residents when Bellerophon along with our winged horse, Pegasus, defeated the monster. The Chimera finally died when lead from one of Bellerophon’s arrows tricked into her stomach and killed her. It had been melted by one of the fires that it had caused to defend itself.
Those were the three Greek monsters I was going to talk about for today. I chose these specific three creatures because they were connected. For instance, if Medusa hadn’t been killed be Perseus, Pegasus wouldn’t be there to assist Bellerophon in combat with the Chimera. I thought that perhaps I should choose the three which had the most influence in each other’s myths.