creatures

Creatures

Some of the creatures in Greek mythology were natural disasters. In a since they were like floods: sometimes they could be helpful, while other times, destructive. One of the many monster in Greek mythology was Argus. The eyes of Argus was all over his body and he could have as many as 100 eyes. Argus was hired by Hera as a protector and was later killed by the god Hermes. When he died, Hera put his eyes on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock, which is supposedly why the peacock has prints on its feathers that look like eyes.

Cerberus was a huge three headed dog that was owned by Hades. Cerberus would guard the entrance of the Underworld.

The monster Cyclopes was gigantic and had one eye in the middle of its forehead. The Cyclopes would make weapons, like thunderbolts and lightning bolts, for Zeus to use. The horrifying, ugly monsters that lived at the edge of the World were called the Gorgons. Gorgon hair was made out of snakes and one look at the Gorgon's eye would turn a man into stone. One famous Gorgon was Medusa. The Hydra was another frightening creature for it was a serpent with nine heads. Every time one of the serpent's head was cut off another two would grow in it's place. The man eating monster, the Minotaur, had the head of a bull and had the body of a man.

On rocks in the sea, Sirens would sing and lure sailors into their rocks. Sailors thought that sirens were women...but that is only half the truth in that statement.

These beautiful sirens would have the upper body of a woman, but had the lower body of a bird. In legend, it was said that the sirens competed against the Muses in a singing competition, and lost. For the Muses' trophy, they plucked all the feathers from the sirens and wore them. Because they had no feathers and could not fly, the sirens turned their once bird like half to a fish half. These creatures were unpredictable and so they made the lives of the gods more interesting.

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