| Hydra | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Real Name: | Lernaean Hydra |
| Species: | Serpent |
| Parents: |
Typhoeus (Father) |
| Family: |
Sphinx (Sister) |
| Physical Description | |
| Gender: | Female |
| Character Information | |
| First appearance: | Labour Day |
The Hydra is a serpentine water monster. It had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly. The Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number is unknown. The monster is killed by Hercules as the second of his Twelve Labors.
History[]
In the ancient past, Hercules was tasked with performing twelve labours for an unknown purpose, one of which was to slay the Hydra.[1][2][3]
From modern day, Cronus sent Hercules' descendant Herry back in time to face three of Hercules' labours in the hopes they would kill him, including slaying the Hydra. Herry successfully does so, and Hercules appears soon after, ultimately taking the credit for himself.[1][3]
After the Hydra was slain, Hercules dipped several of his arrows in its poisonous blood; Hercules gifted one of the arrows to Theseus, where it was passed down through generations of his family until ultimately coming into the possession of Theresa's father.[2]
By modern day, pictures of Hercules performing his labours (including slaying the Hydra himself) are depicted on the walls of his room in Olympus.[1]
In modern day, Herry is sent back in time by Cronus and successfully defeats the Hydra himself, before ultimately returning to his own time.[1]
Autolycus is called from his time by Cronus, he agrees to find and steal Hercules's Last Surviving Arrow, which was soaked with lethal Hydra poison, in exchange for A Golden Apples of Immortality from the Garden of the Hesperides, granting him immortality. He returns with a fake arrow, who, and the real one is kept safe inside the school.[2]
After Peirithous taints the Ambrosia that the gods depend on in revenge for Hercules leaving him in The Underworld, he recalls the legends of Hercules slaying monsters, including the Hydra.[3]
Mythology[]
The Hydra is a serpentine water monster with poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly, and the offspring of Typhoeus and Echidna. Its lair was the Lake of Lerna, an entrance to The Underworld. The Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number is unknown. Later versions of the story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads.
Eurystheus sent Hercules to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised just to slay Hercules. Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Hercules covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes. He shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lai, a deep cave from which it emerged only to terrorize neighboring villages. He confronted the Hydra, wielding either a harvesting sickle, a sword, or his famed club. The chthonic creature's reaction to this decapitation was botanical: two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero. The weakness of the Hydra was that it was invulnerable only if it retained at least one head.
Realizing that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Hercules called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation. Heracles cut off each head and Iolaus cauterized the open stumps. Seeing that Hercules was winning the struggle, Hera sent a giant crab to distract him. He crushed it under his mighty foot. The Hydra's one immortal head was cut off with a golden sword given to Hercules by Athena. Hercules placed the head—still alive and writhing—under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius, and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood. Thus his second task was complete.
The alternate version of this myth is that after cutting off one head he then dipped his sword in its neck and used its venom to burn each head so it could not grow back. Hera, upset that Hercules had slain the beast she raised to kill him, placed it in the dark blue vault of the sky as the constellation Hydra. She then turned the crab into the constellation Cancer.
Heracles would later use arrows dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill other foes during his remaining labors, such as Stymphalian Birds and the giant Geryon. He later used one to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus' tainted blood was applied to the Tunic of Nessus, by which the centaur had his posthumous revenge. The stench of the river, making all the fish of the river inedible, was reputed to be due to the Hydra's poison, washed from the arrows Hercules used on the centaur.