Amazing Greek Mythological Creatures

Hydra

A water serpent which had breath that’s lethal to both man and beast, and possessed nine heads, eight of which were mortal, while the remaining middle one was immortal. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid where it guarded an entrance to the underworld lying beneath its waters. Heracles was tasked to kill this serpent for his second labor, but everytime he cut off each head, two new heads would sprout in its place. So he sent for the assistance of his nephew Iolaus who would burn the neck stumps with a torch to prevent new heads from growing. He then ripped off the immortal head burying it deep in the ground, and placed a huge rock on it.

Echidna

Known as the “Mother of All Monsters” as she mothered with the giant Typhon almost every major monster in the Greek mythology including Geryon, Cerberus, Chimera, Hydra, and the Sphinx, among others. She was portrayed as having a beautiful woman’s face and a serpent’s body. Though she and Typhon rebelled against the Olympian gods, Zeus allowed her and her children to live to challenge to future heroes.

Harpies

Originally beautiful winged women but were altered into winged hags with sharp claws in later traditions. They were most known for continually stealing food from the hand of Phineus so that his hunger could not be satisfied, the punishment Zeus sentenced on him for his abuse of the gift of prophecy by revealing too much regarding the future.

Argus

The hundred-eyed giant that made a very effective watchman as only a few of its eyes would sleep at a time, while the rest would be wide awake. Hera commanded it to watch over a white heifer, and to keep it chained to an olive tree in her sacred garden, knowing fully well that the heifer was actually the nymph Io, with whom her philandering husband Zeus was having an affair. Zeus had Argus slain with the help of Hermes who put all his eyes to sleep with boring tales. As tribute to her faithful watchman, Hera preserved its hundred eyes in a peacock’s tail.

Scylla

A she-monster with the upper body of a woman, tail of a serpentine fish; and clustered around her waist were six long-necked ferocious dog-heads with mouth containing triple rows of razor-sharp teeth. She was once a beautiful nymph, who had a habit of showing contempt for her many suitors. One day, a fisherman-turned-sea-god Glaucus declared his love for her, but she immediately fled having mistaken him for a monster. Glaucus went to the witch Circe asking her to use magic herbs to make the nymph fall in love with him. However, Circe would fall in love with him and asked that he forget the nymph, a proposal Glaucus rejected and instead reaffirmed his eternal love for the nymph. Circe, out of jealousy and rage, turned the girl into a monster by poisoning the water in which the nymph used to bath.

Charybdis

She was originally a sea-nymph who flooded her father Poseidon’s underwater kingdom until Zeus turned her into a monster. She lived in a cave at the northern end of the Strait of Messina, opposite another sea-monster Scylla, where she would swallow huge amounts of water three times a day only to disgorge it back out again, thereby creating an enormous whirlpool which would devour passing ships.

Ladon

An ever-awake hundred-headed dragon with the ability to speak many languages in a multitude of voices. It guarded the garden of the Hesperides, where immortality-endowing golden apples grew.

Triton

A son of Poseidon and the messenger of the deep. He was usually pictured as a merman, living in a golden palace in the depths of the sea and carrying a trident like his father Poseidon. His special attribute was a twisted conch shell which he would blow either to calm or raise the waves.