Gorgons

(European mythology)

In Greek mythology, three frightful sisters named Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. They had snakes for hair and to look on them turned people to stone. Medusa, who alone of the trio was mortal, had at first a beautiful form, but she was changed by Athena into a winged monster because she slept with Poseidon, the sea god. The hero Perseus slew Medusa by never looking directly at her, but only at her reflection in his shield. Later traditions placed the Gorgons in Libya.

Other winged creatures were the Harpies, usually represented as women with bird's wings, sometimes as birds with women's heads. They lived in horrible places and had an insatiable hunger, which gave their faces a pallid, pinched appearance.

Gorgons (Gorgonēs), in Greek myth, female monsters. Homer seems to know only one Gorgon: in the Iliad her head adorns the aegis of the goddess Athena and inspires terror. According to Hesiod there were three Gorgons, Sthenno (‘mighty’), Euryalē (‘wide-wanderer’), and Medusa (‘queen’), living in the far West, by the stream of Ocean, daughters of the sea deities Phorcys and his sister Ceto, and sisters of the Graiae. They are often given monstrous features such as serpents in their hair and glaring eyes. Medusa, who alone was mortal, and whose head was so fearful that anyone who looked at it was turned to stone, was loved by Poseidon and pregnant by him when Perseus killed her. At the moment of her death she gave birth to Pegasus and Chrysaor (‘golden-sword’). The head of Medusa was said to be buried under a mound in the agora of Argos, where it was probably thought to have apotropaic power, and the representation of the head or Gorgoneion was often carved as a protective figure on armour and walls. In the art of the fifth century BC the head is humanized, and later is often shown as beautiful in death.