Of the twelve tasks that Hercules had the last was to capture CERBERUS and bring him back to the court of king Eurystheus.To do this Hercules passed into the land of HADES and sought permission from the king & queen to "borrow" CERBERUS. Thier permission was given under the condition that he could only use his bare hands to implement the capture. Agreeing Hercules returned to the gates of Hades where seizing the hound by two of its necks in iron grips he carried the snarling hound back into the world above. Hercules having completed the twelfth task by displaying CERBERUS at the kings palace as promised returned it back to Hades.

orpheus..

Orpheus was another mortal that managed to pass Cerberus unharmed,something that few morals managed and survived. Orpheus was the son of apollo and was given by him a lyre. It was said that his music & poetry had no rival in the world. Orpheus married a lovely nymph called EURYDICE sadly it was an ill fated marriage and shortly after the wedding she was bitten by a viper and died. striken by grief Orpheus determined to travel into hades and beg for the life of his wife. The problem was how to get past Cerberus. it was said of Orpheus's playing that he could charm even the most savage of beasts, so this was what he would try.All day he played & recited poetry to Cerberus until the great beast was lulled into sleep. Journeying on he went to the king of hades begging for his wifes return. The king was so moved by Orpheus's plea that he agreed , under one condition. That condition was that Orpheus would make the journey back to the world above ,Eurydice would follow behind him but under no condition was he to look back until he was back in the world of man. Orpheus agreed but in his eagerness to be reunited with his wife looked back just as he was entering the upper world . Sadly it was a moment to soon and his wife faded before his eyes. With a broken heart & grief stricken he wandered the lands alone until he was killed by a band of fierce thracian women. when they threw his severed head into the river hebrus it continued to call for his lost wife.

AENEAS..

On having to travel into the underworld AENEAS sought advice on how to pass safely by Cerberus. Many were the advisors but few could come up with genuine posibilities. Orpheus had used music ,Hercules his massive strength, but Aeneas had neither in abundance. One sugestion seemed to occure more than others though. PSYCHE who had looked upon the face of her secret lover CUPID and been spurned by him had used Honey Cakes. In her futile search for CUPID she had traveled even into Hades to find him. Psyche had offered the honey cakes to Cerberus and tamed him eneugh to allow her entry through the gates.Aeneas though sceptical took with him a supply of honey cakes for his attempt to pass the through . word of his success spread and after this it became a tradition to place honey cakes with the dead to appease the spirit of the gates savage guardian, CERBERUS.

In Greek mythology these were two sea monsters dwelling on the opposite sides of a narrow strait, the personification of the dangers of navigation near the rocks and eddies. Scylla was a horrible creature with 12 feet and 6 long necks, each bearing a head with 3 rows of teeth, with which she devoured any prey that came within reach; she lived in a cave on a cliff. Across the strait, opposite her, was a large fig tree under which Charybdis, the whirlpool, dwelt, sucking in and belching forth the waters of the sea three times daily, engulfing anything that came near. When the Greek hero Odysseus passed between them, he was able to avoid Charybdis, but Scylla seized six men from his ship and devoured them. In later times, the geographical position of this dangerous passage was believed to be the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily, with Scylla on the Italian side. Scylla, originally a beautiful maiden loved by a sea god, had been transformed into a monster by her jealous rival, the sorceress Circe.

According to Greek mythology, Pegasus the winged horse was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and the Gorgon Medusa. Pegasus sprang from Medusa's neck when the hero Perseus killed her. Shortly after its birth, the magic steed struck the ground on Mount Helicon, and on the spot a spring, later sacred to the Muses and believed to be a source for poetic inspiration, began to flow. All longed in vain to catch and tame the creature, and this became the obsession of Bellerophon, prince of Corinth. On the advice of a seer, Bellerophon spent a night in the temple of the goddess Athena. As he slept, the goddess appeared to him with a golden bridle and told him that it would enable him to capture Pegasus. When Bellerophon awoke, he found the golden bridle beside him, and with it he easily captured and tamed the winged horse. Pegasus thereafter proved to be a great help to Bellerophon and aided the hero in his adventures against the Amazons and the Chimera. Bellerophon was overcome by his own pride, however. When he attempted to fly to the top of Olympus to join the gods, the wise horse threw Bellerophon, who fell to the Earth, lame and blind, leaving him to wander disconsolately about, hated by the gods. Pegasus found shelter in the Olympian stalls and was entrusted by Zeus with bringing him his lightning and thunderbolts, Pegasus was later placed among the stars and constellation was named after him.

Harpies, in Greek mythology, were foul creatures with the heads of old women and the bodies, wings, beaks, and claws of birds. They could fly with the speed of the wind, and their feathers, which could not be pierced, served as armor. The Harpies frequently snatched up mortals and carried them off to the underworld, always leaving behind a sickening odor.

One of the many perils to be overcome by the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece was an encounter with these dread, half-human creatures, who were slowly starving a pathetic old man by befouling his food before he could eat it. The Argonauts were on the point of killing the creatures when Iris, goddess of the rainbow, intervened. At her request they merely drove the Harpies away. The Trojan prince Aeneas also came upon the Harpies, but he and his crew put out to sea to escape them.

 . The fleece was from the winged ram, Chrysomallus. The ram was sent by the god Hermes to rescue Phrixus and Helle, the two children of the Greek king Athamas and his wife, Nephele. Athamas had grown indifferent to his wife and had taken Ino, the daughter of King Cadmus, for his second wife. Ino hated her stepchildren, especially Phrixus, because she wanted her own son to succeed to the throne. Realizing that her children were in grave danger because of the jealousy of their stepmother, Nephele prayed to the gods for help. Hermes sent her Chrysomallus, the winged ram, whose fleece was made of gold. The ram snatched the children up and bore them away on his back. Soaring into the air, he flew eastward, but as he was crossing the strait that divides Europe and Asia, Helle slipped from his back and fell into the water. The strait where she was drowned was named for her: the Sea of Helle, or the Hellespont. The ram safely landed Phrixus in Colchis, a country on the Black Sea that was ruled by King Aeëtes. There he was hospitably received and, in gratitude to the gods for saving his life, sacrificed Chrysomallus at the temple of the god Zeus. Phrixus then gave the precious Golden Fleece to Aeëtes, who placed it in a sacred grove under the watchful eye of a dragon that never, slept.

Many years later, the Argonauts led by Phrixus's cousin, the Greek hero Jason, recovered the Golden Fleece with the help of the daughter of King Aeëtes, the sorceress Medea who, out of love for Jason, put the dragon to sleep.

One of three monstrous daughters of the sea god Phorcys and his wife, Ceto, collectively known as the Gorgons.The Gorgons were terrifying, dragonlike creatures, covered with golden scales and having snakes for hair. They had huge wings and round, ugly faces; their tongues were always hanging out, and they had large, tusklike teeth. They lived on the farthest side of the western ocean, shunned because their glance turned persons to stone.

Two of the Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal; Medusa alone could be killed. The hero Perseus, a gallant but foolish young man, volunteered to kill Medusa and bring back her head. With the help of the deities Hermes and Athena, Perseus cut off Medusa's head. From her blood sprang the winged horse Pegasus, her son by the god Poseidon.

In Hesiod's account of the lives of the gods, there were three Cyclopes: Arges, Brontes, and Steropes sons of Heaven and Earth who made the thunderbolts of Zeus. In Homer's 'Odyssey', however, they were a colony of man-eating giants said to live in caves high in the mountains of Sicily. Odysseus with 12 men landed on the island of the Cyclopes and blundered into the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus. After blocking the entrance with a huge stone, Polyphemus began to dine on Odysseus' men. Odysseus made Polyphemus drunk, blinded him, and escaped with the rest of his men. Polyphemus called for revenge to his father, Poseidon, god of the sea, who stirred up the waters so that Odysseus could not get home for ten years. Other traditions include the story of Polyphemus' falling madly in love with a sea nymph, Galatea.

Cyclopes are also credited with building ancient walled cities such as Tiryns in Greece. Walls made of unsquared stone are still called cyclopean.

In Greek legend the Hydra was a gigantic monster with several heads (usually nine, though the number varies), the center one of which is immortal. It is said to haunt the marshes of Lerna near Argos. The destruction of the hydra was one of the 12 labors of Hercules. When one of the hydra's heads was cut off two grew in its place.

SIREN...

In Greek mythology, a fire-breathing monster that had the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat, and the tail of a Dragon, and was thought to be the sister of Cerberus. It terrorized Lycia, a region in Asia Minor, but was finally killed by the Greek hero Bellerophon.

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