S5E3 - Ancient Greek Monster Mash the Sequel

The stories featured in Greaking Out are original adaptations of classic Greek myths.

This week's story features the removal of all of someone's muscles, winning contests against jealous gods, ill-advised romances, some truly brutal deaths, and terrorizing the countryside.

This one is pretty gruesome, so younger listeners might want to skip it.

Monsters.

They are a huge part of Greek mythology, and I mean that literally.

Many monsters are physically huge.

A monster is commonly defined as an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.

It comes from the Latin word monio, meaning to remind, warn, instruct, or foretell.

Right, but monsters aren't always what they appear to be in Greek mythology, and most of them are more complicated than you might think at first.

So this time on Greaking Out, we're not going to tell you a single story.

Instead, we're going to tell you a bunch of stories about some of your favorite, or least favorite, creatures from ancient Greek myths.

Listen carefully, because sometimes the real monsters aren't who you think they are.

But let's start with the big one, meet Typhon.

Now, if you listen to some of our earlier episodes, you may remember the story of Gaia and her children, the Titans.

Zeus and the Olympians fought and defeated them to take control of the ancient Greek universe.

So Typhon was kind of a Titan.

Gaia was his mother.

But he wasn't like his brothers and sisters.

He was much bigger and much meaner.

In fact, Typhon was so fierce, he is sometimes called the father of all monsters.

There's even a kind of storm named after him.

A typhoon is similar to a hurricane in that it is a storm with strong winds over 74 miles per hour that rotate around an eye.

It is called a typhoon if it is in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Typhon was so tall that his head touched the sky and the stars.

He had the torso of a man, but his legs were coils of vipers that would hiss and attack as he moved.

His head and hair were made up of a hundred different snakes.

His eyes were glowing red and could paralyze his opponents with fear.

Oh, and he could breathe fire.

He had giant wings and snake coils for arms, just like his legs.

There are 3,686 species of snakes.

It is unknown how many of them were part of Typhon.

Uh, okay.

Snakes are ectotherms, which means they are cold-blooded and they do not have eyelids.

Good to know, I guess.

I just want to make sure we are portraying a fair picture of snakes.

Gotcha.

Well, snakes aside, Typhon was a pretty fierce creature.

Many of the Olympians were actually terrified of him, and his fights with Zeus were legendary.

Typhon was actually victorious a few times.

In one fight, Zeus and Typhon traded blow for blow, and when the god ran out of thunderbolts, Typhon was able to overpower him easily.

He dragged Zeus to a cave and removed all of his muscles and tendons so Zeus couldn't escape.

He kept Zeus there for weeks so he could tease and torture him whenever he felt like it.

Luckily, Hermes decided to help.

Along with the satyr Pan, they snuck into the cave, gave Zeus his muscles back, and returned the god to Olympus where he was able to heal properly.

A tendon is the connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone in the human body.

Although, tendons may also attach muscles to structures such as the eyeball.

On another occasion, Typhon decided to bring the fight to Zeus and started climbing Mount Olympus.

The gods were so scared that they all actually began to flee.

They each took animal forms and flew all the way to Egypt.

Some ancient Greek scholars thought this was why why the Egyptian gods seemed similar to their own mythology, but with animal shapes.

Apollo is Horus the falcon.

Artemis is Bastet the cat.

Aries was Onaris the lion.

And so on.

Only Athena stayed behind in her human form to face the monster.

In her enchanted armor, she hurled spears and rocks at Typhon as he climbed the mountain towards the god's palace.

She also didn't miss the opportunity to mock the other gods for fleeing like cowards.

Maybe this was what kept Zeus from escaping.

I mean, if anyone had a reason to fear Typhon, it would be him, right?

But seeing his fiercely brave daughter standing alone on the cliff battling the giant monster gave him the courage to join the fight.

Instead of flying away as a giant eagle, he landed atop a nearby mountain and began to hurl Thunderbolts at Typhon while Athena held him back.

It was actually actually a pretty good strategy.

While Athena held her ground, Typhon was an easy target.

Zeus hit him with a hundred lightning bolts, and eventually, the monster fell to the ground, defeated.

Quickly, Zeus and Athena hurled the monster's body into a deep, bottomless pit called Tartarus, and then Zeus moved an entire mountain, Mount Etna, over the opening to keep Typhon imprisoned forever.

Mount Etna is an actual, active volcano on the island of Sicily.

This is not the first story where a fire-breathing giant has been imprisoned beneath it.

Athena did something similar to the giant and Colotus in an earlier episode.

Yeah, it's probably getting a little crowded down there.

Now, let's keep it in the family and take a look at another monster, the offspring of Typhon, known as Chimera.

Now, most folks depict the Chimera as a lion, just a really strangely tricked-out lion with an extra head of a goat, and a venomous snake for a tail, but the specifics change a bit from story to story.

Really, the term chimera has been used to describe any mythical or fictional creature made up of pieces or segments taken from different animals.

According to legend, the original chimera was known as a bane to many men.

A bane today is something that causes great distress or annoyance, but in older definition is

something poisonous that causes death.

Right, and the chimera terrorized the countryside, eating livestock and people, so you can see why it was known as a bait.

Chimera was so terrifying, in fact, that a king decided to use him in a political plot.

He decided to get rid of the hero Bellerophon by tricking him into fighting the beast.

That's a pretty monstrous thing to do, right?

This was your typical, oh, I don't want to fight you directly, I just want you you to die conveniently in a faraway land situation.

But as it turned out, Bellerophon prevailed, helped more than a bit by the fact that he was riding Pegasus,

a flying horse that also happens to be a demigod.

There's a lot more to it, trust me, but we'll get into Bellerophon in another season.

Pegasus was also ridden by the hero Perseus when he rescued Andromeda.

Although, Some versions of the story say that hero used winged sandals instead.

Now some of the more interesting monsters in Greek mythology are the females.

Very often they are the fiercest and most feared, but many of them have a sad origin story.

For example, the Gorgons.

Now the Gorgons were three deadly sisters with hair made of living, venomous snakes and the power to turn anyone into stone with just a look.

If this sounds like I'm talking about Medusa, it's because I am.

Didn't know she had sisters, did you?

According to legend, Medusa started out as a regular mortal, while her sisters, Stano and Eurali, did not.

They were gorgons.

Wanting to avoid the life of a monster, Medusa became a priestess at the temple of Athena.

But she was so beautiful and enchanting that she caught the eye of the god Poseidon himself.

The two quickly hit it off, but Athena wasn't having any of that.

She was too proud to have one of her priestesses fall for Poseidon, so she cursed Medusa and turned her into the thing she feared becoming most of all, a Gorgon.

Early Greek writers and artists simply portray Medusa as a monster born into a large family of monsters.

But the classical poets prefer this version.

And classical poems are sometimes sad.

Yes, they are.

And we've already talked about what happened to Medusa in the end.

Perseus killed her with his magical sword and shiny shield.

This is in reference to our episode on Andromeda and Perseus in season four.

Right.

And then there's the story of Lamia, which is even sadder and scarier.

Lamia was the beautiful queen of Libya.

Like Medusa, she was so beautiful that she caught the eye of the gods.

Specifically, Zeus himself.

I'm sensing a theme here.

The two started a romance, and of course, this did not make Zeus's wife Hera happy at all.

She was furious at Zeus, but she couldn't take her anger out on him.

He is the king of the gods after all.

So instead she decided to make Lamia miserable.

Classic Hera.

She stole the queen's children away and cursed the woman so that every child she had would die.

And because Queen Lamia loved her children, this drove her to madness and she gouged out her own eyes.

What happened next is unclear.

It depends upon which version of the myth you read.

Some say Lamia turned herself into a monster.

Others say it was Hera.

And there's another version of the story that says it was Zeus who turned Lamia into an evil creature to get revenge on Hera.

But either way, Lamia became a horrible beast, half woman, half snake, with eyes that she could pluck out of their sockets and hold in her hands.

And worst of all, she was known mostly for roaming the countryside and stealing young children away from their mothers.

And all because she fell in love with Zeus.

Again, I'm sensing a theme here.

You are, Oracle.

I mean, this happens a lot in Greek myths, right?

The male gods behave badly, and then the women and goddesses they wrong are seen as either jealous and vengeful, or helpless victims who die horribly or become evil monsters.

I was talking about the snakes.

Why do they hate snakes?

Oh, right.

Well, they do portray snakes in a bad light too, I guess, but snakes were really scary to the ancient Greeks.

They didn't have anti-venom to cure snake bites, and they had to worry about snakes getting into their beds and baby cradles and shoes.

I mean, snakes were scary back then.

I suppose that might be true.

I just think it's important that we remember in these myths, not all of the gods and heroes are 100% good, and not all of the villains are 100% bad.

Even the horrible monsters have an origin story.

Not everything evil starts out that way.

Did I mention that snakes do not have eyelids?

They never blink.

Ever.

Yeah, you mentioned that before.

Okay.

What about a commercial?

You think we should take it?

Yeah, let's take a break, regroup, and we'll be back in just a couple of seconds.

Since we're talking about monsters and scaries, did you know that Halloween has been celebrated for more than 2,000 years?

That vampire bats have straw-shaped tongues to better suck their victims' blood?

Or that 81% of parents admit to stealing some of their kids' Halloween candy?

Discover 297 more spooky and silly facts about the holiday in weird but true Halloween.

Available from National Geographic Kids wherever books are sold.

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That's bit.ly forward slash go wbth.

Moving on.

As I said, not all monsters are bad.

Some aren't even really all that monstrous.

Take Satyrs, for example.

A satyr is a mythological woodland god.

In Greek art, they are represented as a man with a horse's ears and tail, but in Roman representations, they appear as a man with a goat's ears, tail, legs, and horns.

Oh.

I always think of them as the goat people.

But the horse thing can work too, I guess.

Satyrs were companions of the god Dionysus, and they lived in the forests and were known for their fun-loving spirit and their commitment to revelry.

Satyrs love to party.

But sometimes that leads to trouble.

Take the story of Marcius, one of the most famous satyrs in Greek mythology.

He's skipping along through the meadows, singing a song, and suddenly he looks down and he sees a weird-looking flute thing just laying there on the ground.

Jeepers, creepers!

He didn't know it was a flute.

He had never seen it before.

In fact, no one had ever seen it before because it had just been invented and then cast aside.

Technically, this so-called flute was actually an aulus, an ancient Greek musical instrument, similar to a recorder, but with two pipes instead of one.

You see, the goddess Athena had invented this musical instrument.

She had seen her brother Apollo playing his harp thing and maybe she wanted to get in on the act.

The harp thing is actually called a lyre, which refers to several kinds of stringed instruments.

You really need to pay attention in music class.

Sorry.

Anyway, Athena enjoyed playing the flu or all us, and she wanted to show it off to the other gods, but she didn't get the reaction she was hoping for.

As you might know, your cheeks kind of puff out when you play these kind of instruments, and well, some of the gods snickered as Athena played.

But no one made fun of how Apollo looked hunched over a liar.

No, and that actually made it worse.

The goddess was embarrassed and angry, so she cursed the instrument and threw it out of Olympus, only to be found on the ground by an unsuspecting satyr.

But Marcius turned out to be a good musician, and he wasn't as self-conscious as Athena.

He didn't care if his cheeks puffed out or his face looked funny.

And after a while, the other creatures didn't either.

He played the aula so beautifully, he he soon became famous for his skill, eventually getting the notice of the gods.

Marcius was so proud of his skill that he even bragged that he was better than the god Apollo, who, upon hearing that, showed up and said, prove it.

The contest was on.

It was like Battle of the Bands, the ancient Greek edition.

First up was Apollo, who played the lyre so beautifully that that all of the creatures in the woods were moved to tears.

Studies have shown that around 25%

of the population experiences a physiological response when listening to certain musical compositions.

In other words, music can change the way you physically feel.

But then, Marcius played his flute.

and the whole forest changed.

The satyr's melody filled everyone with joy, and his his playing was exquisite.

When he played the last note, the entire forest erupted in applause.

And Apollo knew that he'd been beat.

But instead of simply admitting defeat, Apollo suggested a rematch and Marcius reluctantly agreed.

I mean, what choice did he have, really?

This time, however, Apollo changed the rules.

To see who the true master of their music is, the god proclaimed, we will play our instruments upside down.

Obviously, this was a little unfair.

I mean, it's hard to play a harp thing upside down, but it's almost impossible to do that with a flute.

Needless to say, Apollo won the rematch easily and was declared the winner.

But Apollo wasn't done.

He actually had Marcius killed and killed in a very brutal way.

So brutal, in fact, that some of the other gods thought this was going a bit too far.

A great hush of sadness fell over the forest as the satyr drew his last breath.

Apollo was satisfied, but some of the other gods were upset.

Dionysus, Hermes, and Demeter all felt bad for Marcius, and they knew that all the woodland creatures would miss his song.

So instead of bringing the Satyr to the land of the dead, Hermes brought Marcius to Demeter and Dionysus and together they transformed him into a beautiful bubbling stream whose song would be heard throughout the forest forever.

That was not very godlike behavior from Apollo.

No, it wasn't.

Humans may not be powerful like the gods, but humans seem to better understand good sportsmanship.

That is very true, Oracle.

Sometimes it's hard to tell who the real monsters are, isn't it?

I see what you did there.

Another monster that's not a monster is the Phoenix.

You've probably heard this one before.

Phoenix is the capital city of the state of Arizona in the United States of America.

It is known for its year-round sun and warm temperatures, and it anchors a multi-city metropolitan area known as the Valley of the Sun.

It's also known for...

Sorry, sorry, that's the city.

I'm talking about the Phoenix.

The mythological creature.

In Greek mythology, the Phoenix was a bird that could live for a long long time and would also be regenerated or reborn from its ashes the legends say that after it lived a full life the phoenix would combust kind of like explode and die wrapped in flames then from the pile of ashes a new baby phoenix would emerge and begin to grow it was believed that the bird could live over 1400 years at a time the city of phoenix arizona was named after that same creature.

In the 1800s, the city's founding fathers chose the name because they built their town on the same site where the ancient Hohokam people lived thousands of years before.

In ancient Greece, the Phoenix was also linked to the civilization in Phoenicia for obvious reasons.

Right, okay.

I see how the names sound alike, Phoenix, Phoenicia.

I get it.

Well, we're almost at the end of our ancient Greek monster mashup, but we still have one more creature for you.

We started out with a giant winged fire-breathing beast, but we're wrapping up with a small, cunning fox.

Remember, in Greek mythology, the monster isn't always the monster.

There are always good and bad choices made by good and bad beings.

So in this case, we start with the god Dionysus and the city of Thebes.

Creon, the king of Thebes, had offended the gods, specifically Dionysus.

I don't know exactly what he did or how he did it, but he somehow managed to anger the nature god of fruitfulness, wine, and fun, so I'm guessing it must have been pretty bad.

Whatever the reason, Dionysus decided he would send his vengeance in the form of a fox.

Specifically, the Tumessian fox.

Now, as punishments from the gods go, go, this seems pretty tame, right?

I mean, no one was turned into a monster or cursed or kidnapped or given a fate worse than death.

How bad could one little fox be?

As it turns out, pretty bad.

You see, the Tumessian fox was impossible to catch.

Literally, it was an enchanted creature and no hunter could catch or kill it.

All traps failed, all arrows missed.

The fox was free to to roam the city as it pleased.

Foxes are omnivorous, meaning they will eat both plants and animals.

They are known for their cleverness and curious nature.

Right, and the Tumesian fox got into all sorts of trouble in Thebes.

It stole eggs from hen houses, killed chickens, destroyed crops.

It even stole milk from babies' cribs.

Before long, people were demanding action from the king.

Unfortunately, the king had no idea what to do, so he passed the buck.

He gave the task of killing the fox to one of his generals, Amphitrion.

Now, Amphitrion knew this was a raw deal.

He knew he couldn't catch a magic being without help from another magic being.

So he called upon an old friend whose wife, Procrus, had been given an enchanted hound as a gift from Zeus himself.

The hound was named Laleps, and he was the ultimate hunting dog.

The gods had decreed that this dog would catch whatever prey it was hunting and so Amphitrian had his solution.

He returned to Crete with Laleps, made his way to a clearing and let the dog catch the scent of the fox.

In an instant, the dog howled into the air

and took off like a shot, following his nose and tracking the uncatchable fox.

The Tumessian fox, watching from the edge of the woods, sprinted away and the chase was on.

And on

and on

and on.

A paradox is a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.

Hunting a fox that can never be caught with a dog that catches everything it hunts creates a paradox.

Yeah, this went on for a while.

Days, weeks.

The dog howling and barking and chasing, the fox running, hiding, and running again.

Finally, the gods themselves took notice and quickly realized the situation couldn't continue, or more accurately, would continue forever if they didn't intervene.

It was Zeus himself who made the call.

He turned both animals into stone and then picked up the statues and flung them as far into the sky as he could, where they could chase each other forever.

And you can still see them them in the night sky today.

It is said that Lalaps the dog became the constellation we call Canis Major, and the Tumessian fox became Canis Minor.

Indeed.

So that's our ancient Greek monster mashup.

But remember, this is only a small sample of some of the amazing creatures that live in Greek mythology.

Believe me, there's more where these came from, but we'll save them for another story on another day.

Greaking Out.

You made it through the scary episode.

Brush up on your runes and join us next week for something a little different.

Listen and you'll see it.

National Geographic Kids Greaking Out is written by Kenny Curtis and Jillian Hughes and hosted by Kenny Curtis, with Tori Kerr as the Oracle of Wi-Fi.

Audio production and sound design by Scotty Beam, and our theme song was composed by Perry Gripp.

Dr.

Diane Klein is our subject matter expert, and Emily Everhart is our producer.