Various - Myths That Every Child Should Know

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When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
around at the attentive faces of the maidens.

"Perhaps you may have heard of me before," said he, modestly. "My name
is Hercules!"

"We had already guessed it," replied the maidens; "for your wonderful
deeds are known all over the world. We do not think it strange, any
longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
Hesperides. Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!"

Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
shoulders, so that the lion's skin was almost entirely covered with
roses. They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it
about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms that not a
finger's breadth of its oaken substance could be seen. It looked all
like a huge bunch of flowers. Lastly, they joined hands, and danced
around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and
grew into a choral song, in honour of the illustrious Hercules.

And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know
that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had
cost him so much toil and danger to achieve. But still he was not
satisfied. He could not think that what he had already done was worthy
of so much honour, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure
to be undertaken.

"Dear maidens," said he, when they paused to take breath, "now that you
know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
Hesperides?"

"Ah! must you go to soon?" they exclaimed. "You--that have performed so
many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content
yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?"

Hercules shook his head.

"I must depart now," said he.

"We will then give you the best directions we can," replied the damsels.
"You must go to the seashore, and find out the Old One, and compel him
to inform you where the golden apples are to be found."

"The Old One!" repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name. "And, pray,
who may the Old One be?"

"Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels.
"He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have
sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes. You must talk with this Old
Man of the Sea. He is a seafaring person, and knows all about the garden
of the Hesperides, for it is situated in an island which he is often in
the habit of visiting."

Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
with. When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and
dances wherewith they had done him honour--and he thanked them, most of
all, for telling him the right way--and immediately set forth upon his
journey.

But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.

"Keep fast hold of the Old One, when you catch him!" cried she, smiling,
and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive. "Do not be
astonished at anything that may happen. Only hold him fast, and he will
tell you what you wish to know."

Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens
resumed their pleasant labour of making flower wreaths. They talked
about the hero long after he was gone.

"We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands," said they, "when
he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
with a hundred heads."

Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
through the solitary woods. Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow. His mind was so full of
the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to
fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.
And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he
almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting
idle breath upon the story of his adventures. But thus it always is with
persons who are destined to perform great things. What they have already
done seems less than nothing. What they have taken in hand to do seems
worth toil, danger, and life itself. Persons who happened to be passing
through the forest must have been affrighted to see him smite the trees
with his great club. With but a single blow, the trunk was riven as by
the stroke of lightning and the broad boughs came rustling and crashing
down.

Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
heard the sea roaring at a distance. At this sound, he increased his
speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf waves tumbled
themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam. At one end
of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green
shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and
beautiful. A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with
sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of
the cliff and the sea. And what should Hercules espy there but an old
man, fast asleep!

But was it really and truly an old man? Certainly, at first sight, it
looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. For on his legs and arms
there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and
web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of
a greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of seaweed than of
an ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been
long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with
barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up
from the very deepest bottom of the sea. Well, the old man would have
put you in mind of just such a wave-tossed spar! But Hercules, the
instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could
be no other than the Old One, who was to direct him on his way.

Yes, it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea whom the hospitable maidens
had talked to him about. Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe toward him, and
caught him by the arm and leg.

"Tell me," cried he, before the Old One was well awake, "which is the
way to the garden of the Hesperides?"

As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright. But
his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of
Hercules, the next moment. For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to
disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the
fore and hind leg! But still he kept fast hold. Then the stag
disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea bird, fluttering and
screaming, while Hercules clutched it by the wing and claw! But the bird
could not get away. Immediately afterward, there was an ugly
three-headed dog, which growled and barked at Hercules, and snapped
fiercely at the hands by which he held him! But Hercules would not let
him go. In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should
appear but Geryon, the six-legged man monster, kicking at Hercules with
five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty! But
Hercules held on. By and by, no Geryon was there, but a huge snake, like
one of those which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a
hundred times as big; and it twisted and twined about the hero's neck
and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly
jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible
spectacle! But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the great
snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain.

You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
looked so much like the wave-beaten figurehead of a vessel, had the
power of assuming any shape he pleased. When he found himself so roughly
seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into such
surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the hero
would be glad to let him go. If Hercules had relaxed his grasp, the Old
One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea,
whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming up, in
order to answer any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine people out of a
hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their wits by the
very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their heels at
once. For one of the hardest things in this world is to see the
difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.

But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.
So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of personage,
with something like a tuft of seaweed at his chin.

"Pray, what do you want with me?" cried the Old One, as soon as he could
take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many
false shapes. "Why do you squeeze me so hard? Let me go this moment, or
I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!"

"My name is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "And you will never
get out of my clutch until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of
the Hesperides!"

When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw with
half an eye that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
wanted to know. The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other seafaring people. Of
course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the wonderful
things that he was constantly performing in various parts of the earth,
and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he undertook. He
therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the hero how to find
the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him of many
difficulties which must be overcome before he could arrive thither.

"You must go on, thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after
taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall
giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he happens
to be in the humour, will tell you exactly where the garden of the
Hesperides lies."

"And if the giant happens not to be in the humour," remarked Hercules,
balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps I shall find means
to persuade him!"

Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He met with a
great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.

It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature that, every
time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever he had
been before. His name was Antaeus. You may see, plainly enough, that it
was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for, as often
as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger, fiercer, and
abler to use his weapons than if his enemy had let him alone. Thus, the
harder Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the further he seemed
from winning the victory. I have sometimes argued with such people, but
never fought with one. The only way in which Hercules found it possible
to finish the battle was by lifting Antaeus off his feet into the air,
and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing him until, finally, the
strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous body.

When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went
to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
put to death if he had not slain the king of the country and made his
escape. Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. And here,
unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
journey must needs be at an end.

Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
But, suddenly, as he looked toward the horizon, he saw something, a
great way off, which he had not seen the moment before. It gleamed very
brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disc of the
sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world. It evidently drew
nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger and
more lustrous. At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules discovered
it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or burnished brass.
How it had got afloat upon the sea is more than I can tell you. There it
was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, which tossed it
up and down, and heaved their foamy tops against its sides, but without
ever throwing their spray over the brim.

"I have seen many giants, in my time," thought Hercules, "but never one
that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!"

And, true enough, what a cup it must have been! It was as large--as
large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill wheel;
and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
lightly than an acorn cup adown the brook. The waves tumbled it onward,
until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
where Hercules was standing.

As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
the common rule. It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
Hesperides. Accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over the
brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's skin,
he proceeded to take a little repose. He had scarcely rested, until now,
since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the river. The
waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
motion was so soothing that it speedily rocked Hercules into an
agreeable slumber.

His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
loudly as ever you heard a church bell. The noise awoke Hercules, who
instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
island. And, on that island, what do you think he saw?

No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
times! It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules in the whole course of his
wonderful travels and adventures. It was a greater marvel than the hydra
with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut off;
greater than the six-legged man monster; greater than Antaeus; greater
than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since the days
of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld by travellers in
all time to come. It was a giant!

But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so
vast a giant that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and
hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes,
so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was
voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands
and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern
through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does really seem
almost too much to believe.

Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth
of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
those who let themselves be weighed down by them. And whenever men
undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.

Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient
forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak trees, of
six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
themselves between his toes.

The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.

"Who are you, down at my feet there? And whence do you come in that
little cup?"

"I am Hercules!" thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
quite as loud as the giant's own. "And I am seeking for the garden of
the Hesperides!"

"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. "That is a
wise adventure, truly!"

"And why not?" cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
mirth. "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"

Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
impossible to distinguish a word. Only the giant's immeasurable legs
were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
of mist. He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder claps, and
rolled away over the hills, like them. Thus, by talking out of season,
the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath to no
purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.

At last, the storm swept over as suddenly as it had come. And there
again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
against the background of the sullen thunder clouds. So far above the
shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
rain-drops!

When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the seashore, he
roared out to him anew.

"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold the sky upon
my head!"

"So I see," answered Hercules. "But, can you show me the way to the
garden of the Hesperides?"

"What do you want there?" asked the giant.

"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin,
the king."

"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the
garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples. If it were not
for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
dozen steps across the sea and get them for you."

"You are very kind," replied Hercules. "And cannot you rest the sky upon
a mountain?"

"None of them are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head. "But
if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one, your
head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a
fellow of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your
shoulders, while I do your errand for you?"

Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
exploit, he was the one. Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
undertaking that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.

"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.

"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
shoulders. "But it gets to be a little burdensome after a thousand
years!"

"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
golden apples?"

"Oh, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas. "I shall take ten
or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
your shoulders begin to ache."

"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
there and relieve you of your burden."

The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
he should be doing the giant a favour by allowing him this opportunity
for a ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
his own glory if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
of Atlas and placed upon those of Hercules.

When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
he was then. Next, lie slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
that had grown up around it; then, the other. Then, all at once, he
began to caper, and leap, and dance for joy at his freedom; flinging
himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
with a shock that made the earth tremble. Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers. When
his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the
first stride, which brought him midleg deep; and ten miles at the
second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at
the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was the
greatest depth of the sea.

Hercules watched the giant as he still went onward; for it was really a
wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
and blue as a distant mountain. At last the gigantic shape faded
entirely out of view. And now Hercules began to consider what he should
do in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung
to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the golden
apples of the Hesperides. If any such misfortune were to happen, how
could he ever get rid of the sky? And, by the by, its weight began
already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.

"I really pity the poor giant," thought Hercules. "If it wearies me so
much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!"

O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in
that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! And
there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery
clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules
uncomfortable! He began to be afraid that the giant would never come
back. He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to
himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the
foot of a mountain than to stand on its dizzy summit and bear up the
firmament with his might and main. For, of course, as you will easily
understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well
as a weight on his head and shoulders. Why, if he did not stand
perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be
put ajar! Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be
loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the
people's heads! And how ashamed would the hero be if, owing to his
unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack and show a great
fissure quite across it!

I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea.
At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all
hanging from one branch.

"I am glad to see you again," shouted Hercules, when the giant was
within hearing. "So you have got the golden apples?"

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