INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
Welcome to another special! It feels like there have been loads already this year, but I hope you still think they are special! This is our 100th episode if you can believe it and I thought it would be a good plan to mark the occasion with a special episode.
DESCRIPTION:
Before I begin, I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you listening for listening - I really appreciate every single one of you for sharing, getting in touch and just tuning in every week to hear me ramble about monsters. I started the podcast as a way to release creative energy, and it’s really helped me with that and I hope that you’ve enjoyed learning about these monsters as much as I have. I’m so touched and humbled to be even getting to 100 episodes - let alone with the amount of people listening to them, which ticked over to 50k last week, which is CRAZY. I truly am motivated by your ongoing kindness and willingness to join me on this adventure - thank you so much again.
Now before I cry and start doing an Oscar style speech - let’s get onto the topic of the week. We’re doing something really different this week for this special and actually something I’ve avoided and actively said we’re not going to cover and that’s hero specialisation. We’re going to be focusing on the labours of Heracles this week - but let’s get into what that means.
What we’re going to do is cover the labours and the monsters in which he fights within this episode - I’m not going to focus on Heracles himself - because that’s not what this podcast is. You may notice that some of the labour monsters have been covered by their own episode, but we’re going to do a summary of each monster so that they are still open to their own episodes later down the line. So think of this as a shorter summary episode of all those monsters - almost like a top ten chart format, so it’ll be a little different from our normal episodes.
However, it is necessary for me to do a quick summary of the myth and who Heracles was, so bear with me on this one - but we’ve got to cover all the bases here.
The myth goes like this - the legendary Heracles or Hercules as he’s more popularly known, was the son of the Greek god Zeus and Alc mene, a woman on the mortal plane. Hera, Zeus’ wife and queen of the gods - was immensely jealous of all of Zeus’ exploits, especially when they resulted in offspring. Initially she sent two snakes down to kill Heracles in his crib, but the child was so strong that he managed to strangle them with his bare hands. I am gonna say it - I’m not sure where a snake's neck starts and where it ends so don’t ask me HOW he strangled the snakes.
Annoyed at this triumph, Hera partnered up with her hero, Eurystheus, King of Tiryns, and started a wicked plan with him to sort out the hero. Now the myth gets divided here - sometimes it’s that Heracles first gets married to Megaera and has children, then murders them in a rage induced by Hera. The other version is that he does this after the labours as a punishment for the murder. The way I think it makes the most sense is he kills the kids and his wife first, and then is indebted to Eurystheus and has to perform the labours. Either way the kids and wife die.
So he’s indebted to his cousin and he sets him ten labours to redeem his crime - which are all planned by Hera. Originally, it was ten - however, Eurystheus didn’t believe that two of the labours were performed correctly due to involvement of another cousin, Iolaus in the labour - so he added another two. Heracles does perform all 12 labours and gains his immortality in the end - sometimes sailing off with the Argonauts and their hero Jason, but that’s a whole other myth.
THE MONSTERS:
Now the bit you’re actually listening to this podcast for, the monsters. I will say that to save us time on the origin of these monsters - all of them originated from either this myth, or a Greek myth beforehand so are all extremely ancient in terms of their history and if they have their own episodes - this will be explained in more detail there.
The 12 labours were kill the Nemean Lion, kill the Lernaean Hydra, capture the Ceryneian Hind, capture the Erymanthian Boar, clean the Augean stables, kill the Stymphalian Birds, capture the Cretan Bull, capture the Mares of Diomedes, obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, capture the cattle of Geryon, pick a golden apple of the Hesperides and capture Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld.
The first of these labours was to kill the Nemean Lion, which was a massive lion that was terrorising the city of Nemea. It was told that someone had to kill this beast in 30 days to satisfy Zeus and make the lion leave them alone, otherwise townsfolk would have to be sacrificed instead. This lion was suspected to be the offspring of the titans Typhon and Echidna - who most of our big Greek monsters originate from, however the Lion was raised by Hera herself. In terms of powers, the Nemean Lion was at least double the size of an average lion and had an impenetrable hide with claws sharper than any mortal sword - so was pretty scary to come up against.
After hunting the beast for 29 days, Heracles eventually found it and shot at it with arrows, only to have them bounce off the beast’s hide. He forced the monster back into its cave and smacked it around the head with his club before strangling it to death. He then skinned the lion with its own claws and carried it back on the 30th day to Eurystheus.
He kept the skin with him as a cloak, and it was pretty useful - it was impervious to the elements and was also practically indestructible. So the lion was pretty non-ferocious, and full on one off - there were no other lions within Greek myth that I could find with the same powers at least. That’s honestly about it on this one - it’s a pretty short and sweet beginning to this monstrum collection.
The next monster up was to kill the Lernaean Hydra. This monster lived in lake Lerna, and had a dragon-like body with many serpentine heads, with highly toxic blood and breath. The most impressive power of the Hydra though was its ability to regrow its heads - with two growing in the place of one. It again, was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and was raised by Hera.
Heracles covered his mouth and nose as he entered the Hydra’s lair, and at this point had a companion - his nephew Iolaus who did the same. They start the fight by chopping off the heads of the snakes - only to find them regrowing once they had done so. After hours, Iolaus figured out that if they took a torch and started to cauterise the wounds before they could regenerate, it would eventually kill the beast - and so it did. Another important note here is that they dipped their weapons in the Hydra blood for usage in other labours - which will come with consequences for the hero and his companions in this story.
The Hydra is a monster that is beloved by Greek mythology nerds like me, and is one of the defining parts of my childhood within the Disney movie Hercules. However, it’s only got the one mention in mythology - and there is only one of it by all accounts. I have already done an episode on the Hydra, so you should check that out if you want to hear more.
Next up, it’s actually not a kill quest which is nice - it’s to catch the Ceryneian Hind. A hind is a female deer, however, this deer was the most beautiful you’d ever see. It was larger than a bull, with a spotted hide, and had golden antlers and bronze hooves - could breathe fire and was one of the fastest things on the planet. These deer were apparently naturally occurring within Ancient Greece, rather than monsters themselves - and there were only 5 of them.
Deer were a sacred animal to the goddess Artemis, who is much lesser mentioned god within mythology to a great shame - a virgin hunter goddess, who allowed the 5 hinds to pull her chariot. She allowed one of her hinds to escape to be one of Heracles’ labours and it ended up settling in the city of Ceryneia, to the anger of local farmers who would be chased from the land.
The hind was so exceptional and treasured by Artemis, that Heracles knew he could not kill the creature. Therefore, he spent a whole year trying to capture it, which he did with a net whilst it was sleeping. He then explained to Artemis and her twin brother Apollo what he was doing with it and returned it to Eurystheus alive. The hind aren’t really mentioned again other than as the chariot drivers - which is a little bit of a shame.
The next labour was to capture the Erymanthian Boar, named after its location once again. The beast was a massive, shaggy boar who was apparently rabid and massively aggressive. There’s no origin within the myth for this one, it’s believed that actually - this was just an abnormally large normal boar, so they would have just been around anyway. I will say that boars are dangerous, so it’s still a monster in its own right.
Heracles chased the boar around shouting, and ended up trapping it within the snow of the Erymanthus mountains before binding it in chains and popping it over his shoulder to return to Tiryns, where Eurystheus was so scared of the beast that he hid in a large pot. As I said, the boar was probably just a normal boar - so there’s no mention of any monstrous backgrounds or kin of this one, a bit boring if you ask me. The labour after this did not include a monster, so I will skip it - but in summary, he had to clean a poopy stable of cows. That’s about it.
Number 6 were the Stymphalian Birds. These were little brutes and again, pets of the goddess Artemis, but raised by Ares, the god of War. These birds were raven sized, with beaks made of bronze and sharp metallic feathers that they could shoot out at their prey, as well as poisonous poop - but most importantly, had a taste for human flesh. They lived in the marshes in Stymphalia, and were difficult to get to due to the swampy conditions.
Heracles found himself in that exact situation, and Athena - goddess of wisdom blessed him with a krotala or castanets to startle the birds. Once they had flown, Heracles shot a good few of them with his poisoned tipped arrows from the Hydra and took their bodies back to Eurystheus. The remaining birds went off to Aretias, where years later the Argonauts would be plagued by them too.
The next labour was to catch the Cretan Bull, which if you’ve listened to the Minotaur episode - you might remember. It was a beautiful pure white bull blessed to King Minos from Poseidon god of the sea. However, it was cursed to have Queen Pasiphae of Crete fall in love with it - and she went on to have the actual Minotaur, Asterius with said cow. After this happened, the bull went on a rampage through Crete by uprooting crops and destroying orchards. Heracles was sent to capture the bull, and did so fairly easily - and returned to Tiryns with it on his shoulders. However, it did run off to Marathon where it was then killed by Theseus - another hero and demi-god - as a sacrifice, before he killed its son the Minotaur.
The next labour is possibly my favourite - capturing the Mares of Diomedes. These were giant horses, which were only really monstrous by the diet they were fed - which was human flesh. These monsters were unable to be calmed unless they had been fed a person, and were apparently also able to breathe fire when they got too riled up. How did this happen I hear you ask? Their owner Diomedes would feed them guests that he stole from and murdered - so they developed a taste for this.
Heracles brought a gang of people to help him with this labour - and eventually managed to break them free of their bronze chains and take them down to the sea, leaving them with a companion Abderus whilst he fought Diomedes - not knowing they were man-eating. He returned with the body, and found his friend being munched - so in revenge, threw Diomedes body to them, which apparently permanently satisfied their hunger for flesh. He returned them to Eurystheus, who dedicated the horses to Hera and they then roamed freely around Argos, eventually apparently helping Alexander the Great and his conquest in Persia and Egypt.
A quick mention of the ninth labour - it was to retrieve the girdle of Hippolyta, who was queen of the Amazons. The Amazons were a demi-god race of women with demi-god like powers, but are in no way monsters within this story. I’ll do a whole episode on them, but there’s no need to bring them into this one.
However, Heracles did get that girdle and on the way home found himself between Scylla and Charybdis - a monstrous pair of female monsters living across from each other on the Strait of Messina. Scylla was half woman, half-dog with a female torso and beneath her belt heads of ravenous dogs. Charybdis was a whirlpool monster of teeth which crushed boats passing through their strait. It’s the origin of the term between a rock and a hard place, and most people took the Scylla route to avoid killing all their crew in Charybdis’ teeth. Heracles took the Scylla route, but decided to kill her as he passed - cutting off the dog heads where her thighs should be. However, she was brought back to life by her father, Phorcys - a sea god eventually - so only a quick mention. I’ve done an episode on them both, so you can get more information on them there.
The next labour was to capture cattle from the monster Geryon, who was a giant with three heads and six arms. He was the grandson of the gorgon Medusa, and son of Chrysaor, who sprung from Medusa’s decapitated body. He heard Heracles coming as he killed his two headed dog Orthrus beforehand, and so armed himself and went to face his foe. Heracles then shot him with a poisoned Hydra arrow straight through his forehead - taking the cattle for himself.
There was nothing particularly special about these cattle - but Heracles herded them back to Tiryns, not without some issue on the way. Some of the cattle were stolen by another giant, Cacus - who made the cows walk backwards to trick the hero, but that didn’t work and Heracles just murdered him instead. Then Hera sent a gadfly to scatter the cattle and it took Heracles a year to find them all - so then she sent a flood and he had to fill a whole river with stones so that he could reach his destination. There are technically two giants in this labour, but there are many within Greek myth - including the stories of the other big heroes that we’ll save for another time.
At this point, technically the ten labours were done - but Eurystheus believed that he cheated by getting help on the Hydra and the Stables (because he used a river to clean them)- so he sent him for two more.
Next up was retrieving three golden apples of the Hesperides - these were guarded by technically two monsters. One being the giant Antaeus, who was completely invincible as long as he touched the Earth - his mother, the titan Gaia. So Heracles picked him up and crushed him in a bear hug - which is pretty rough. Another giant though, so I won’t linger on him.
The main monster here was Ladon, a multi-headed dragon who guards the apples. He was also a son of Phorcys, and of Ceto - making him a brother to Medusa and the Gorgons and also Scylla. The dragon is wrapped around the tree to guard it, and in some versions of the myth - isn’t mentioned at all. In one version though, Heracles kills it with one of his poisoned arrows as usual - and the next day, the Argonauts turn up and see its still twitching body. In other myths, Atlas the titan holding up the sky retrieves the apple whilst Heracles takes up his mantle for a time. This type of multi-headed dragon comes up a few times in Greek myth, but most notably here and the Hydra.
We’re at the last one - hooray! The last labour was to capture Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld and Hades, god of the dead’s favourite guard dog. Cerberus is a giant, and I mean giant, three headed dog. He has a serpent for a tail but also has them around the rest of his body. He lived at the door of the Greek Underworld, guarding the River Styx in which you were ferried down to your judgement. No mortal was allowed to leave the Underworld, and it was his job to make sure you didn’t - with only one exception but the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is another one I will leave for now.
Heracles captured Cerberus in one of two ways that are debated. One is that he squeezed Cerberus’ head with the Nemean Lion’s hide until he submitted, another is that he had to fight Hades for the right to borrow him. In this version, he wounds Hades with a normal arrow, and Persephone, queen of the Underworld and technically Heracles’ half-sister gave him Cerberus in chains. He drags Cerberus to Eurystheus who is shocked to see the massive chthonic dog and tells him to return him - but Cerberus flees back to the Underworld himself.
Cerberus is used within so many myths and is one of my favourite named monsters, so we’ll definitely be doing an episode on the best underworld doggy sometime soon.
A last hoorah is to mention an important monster throughout Heracles’ labours - the Centaur. He had assistance from at least two Centaurs throughout his labours - these half-men, half-horse creatures are exceptionally wise, ruthless and quick to anger. Both of these companions, Chiron and Pholus, died after the fourth labour when another Centaur, Nessus attacked them. Chiron was accidentally struck with a poisoned arrow, and Pholus went to investigate and dropped it on his own foot - killing him too.
Nessus was eventually killed by Heracles too, but not before he could also write the demi-gods death. For trying to rape his second wife, Heracles shot Nessus with another poisoned arrow - the Centaur gave Heracles’ wife his bloody cloak telling her that it will revive waning love. Then, when Heracles’ looked like he was going to leave her, she gave him the cloak and the poisoned blood of Nessus melted all his skin from his bones and killed him, ascending him to Olympus in death.
The end. I did an episode on Centaurs and it goes more in depth with Chiron and Pholus - so if you’re interested, check it out!
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, there are LOADS of things that depict Heracles and his labours - so I’ve picked out the most popular, and I’m sorry if your favourite didn’t make the cut!
For art, check out Hercules' fight with the Nemean lion by Peter Paul Rubens, Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra from 1964 by Gustave Moreau, Hercules capturing the Ceryneian Hind by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Heracles and the Erymanthian Boar, by Francisco de Zurbarán from 1634, Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds by Albrecht Dürer from 1500, Heracles forces the Cretan Bull to the ground by B. Picart, 1731, Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre’s Diomedes King of Thrace Killed by Heracles and Devoured by his own Horses from 1752 & Hercules and Cerberus by Peter Paul Rubens from 1636.
In movies, we have; Hercules (1983, 1995, 2005, 2014), Disney’s Hercules, Enchanted Tales: Hercules, Hercules in New York, Immortal, Jason and the Argonauts, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The Warrior’s Husband, The Adventures of Hercules, Young Hercules & Thor: Love and Thunder.
For TV, we have; Hercules the animated series, The Mighty Hercules, Space Sentinels, One Piece, The Freedom Force, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Young Hercules, Hercules, Class of the Titans, Once Upon a Time, Ducktales & Atlantis.
In video games, we have ones such as; Hades, Disney’s Hercules, Smite, God of War: Ascension, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Civilisation 6, God of War 3, DragonFable, Rise of the Argonauts, Empire Earth, World of Warcraft, Heracles: Battle with the Gods, Fate/Stay Night, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Herc’s Adventures, Glory of Hercules, Hercules no Eiko, The Return of Hercules, Kingdom Hearts, Age of Mythology, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Scribblenauts Unleashed & Zeus: Master of Olympus.
My book recommendation this week is to check out The Twelve Labours of Hercules by Joe Corcoran for the actual myth in much higher detail or you can look at my favourite for Greek myths, Greek Myths: Meet the heroes, gods, and monsters of ancient Greece by Jean Menzies.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?
Bit of a weird one for this because there are so many to cover - so I think I’ll take a different stance to this question this time and ask - how plausible is the myth and the monsters within it.
Well, the problem with this whole setup is that Heracles is the son of the chief god - and so already has an unfair advantage throughout his life, let alone the labours. He also continuously gets help from either other beings or gods throughout - so did he really complete many of the labours, I’m not too sure.
Also I feel bad for the monsters in a lot of these tellings - they’re just minding their own business and this bloke comes along and kills them for no reason - like what was the Hydra doing to annoy Hera so much? And they’ve not had a chance to procreate a lot of the time either, so their species is practically erased from the world - although, can’t say I’m not thankful that the Lernaean Hydra didn’t procreate, but who says that snakes aren’t descended from him - we don’t know.
This myth though, in summary is asking who is the monster? Is it Heracles, going about killing everything including his wife and children, or is it even Hera - who defines hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, who tortured not only the monsters in this story, but also Heracles himself - only to allow him into Olympus upon his death. The age old question of who is the monster and who is the man is perfect for this myth and I love it, it’s one of my favourites.
I also really loved Disney’s Hercules as a child, like unbelievably so - I was too young in ‘97 to see it at the movies, but once we had it on VHS, I was unstoppable. I still really hold that as the reason I love mythology so much - and it still holds up 25 years later. I actually did a guest spot recently talking about this movie that should be out soon, so I’ll give you the details when it’s available.
But what do you think about the monsters of Heracles? Would you have been able to tackle these labours? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
I really enjoyed this episode - it’s something a little different, and I really love some of the monsters within this myth so it’s a joy to talk about them, even if I already have their own episode. It’s nice to cover some of them again as I did their episodes so long ago, it’s really fun to bring them up again with fresh eyes.
Next week, we’re heading over to Canada for I think the first time - and we’re looking at a pretty famous political water beast that could be called Canada’s Nessie - it’s the Mugwump! Get your flippers on and keep an eye out for this soggy cryptid next Thursday!
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.