Magical Creatures That You Might Not Know : Medusa

Image by bazylek100 via Flickr

One of the Gorgons, three sisters from classical Greek mythology who were transformed into three monsters by the goddess Anthena after the sea god Poseidon had raped Medusa in a temple sacred to the goddess.They are described as looking like woman but with leathery, bat-like wings, great tusks sticking out from a gaping mouth and snakes for hair; Medusa also has clawed hands made of brass.Any mortal who looked into her face was instantly turned to stone.The three were the children of Ceto and Phorcrys, the Old Man of the Sea, but unlike her sisters Euryale and Atheno, Medusa was a mortal and met her end at hands of the hero Perseus, who beheaded her while she slept.From her spilled blood sprang the montrous Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus.Though pursued by Medusa’s sisters, Persues escaped and eventually used the severed head to turn his enemies to stone.

   Medusa’s name means ‘ruler’ or  ‘queen’, and the appearence of both her and her sisters as hideosly ugly women probably derives from a similar monster, the Lamastu, found in Mesopotamian myth.Images of the Gorgons were especially popular as the guardians of temples and are found carved on pediments above the entrance to such buildings.During the 16th-century, it was still widely believed that Gorgons inhabited North Africa, where they had hidden, guarded by the Graeae.