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Long ago in the age before
television, Hercules returned from his fight with the Nemean Lion. He
strode right into the throne room to report his success. Seeing
Hercules not only alive but wearing the lion skin, King Eurystheus
was terrified. He dove into a large bronze jar to hide and told
Hercules that from now on everything would go through the kings
messenger. On hearing that Hercules had completed the first task the
goddess Hera was furious. She was certain Hercules wasn't powerful to
live among the gods and the fact he had so far passed the test was
simply luck. In her anger she summoned the Hydra, a powerful
multi-headed snake monster into lake Lerna and commanded Eurystheus
to make slaying it the second task. Eurystheus agreed and sent out
his messenger to Hercules with the task. With his new invincible lion
armor and trusty sword Hercules set out to lake Lerna. As Hercules
left the city his nephew, Iolaus, asked to come along to watch his
famous uncle fight. Hercules agreed and the two traveled together.
The swamp near the lake had poisonous fumes coming from it but
Hercules covered his mouth with a cloth and continued on. Eventually
he found a cave and heard what sounded like the hissing of many
snakes coming from it. Knowing that the Hydra would have an advantage
in the cave he fired flaming arrows into the cave. Although the
arrows couldn't kill the Hydra they could harm it and he managed to
drive the monster out of the cave and into the open. The hydra was a
large fearsome beast. Each of it's multiple heads would work together
so as he fought one the others would attack from the side. It also
had powerful venom in it's fangs that made even one bite deadly.
Using his armor to protect himself Hercules launched himself to
attack and chopped off one of the Hydra's many heads. As Hercules
prepared himself to attack again to take out another head, the stub
of the head he had just chopped off sprouted two more heads. Time and
again, Hercules would chop off a head and two more would sprout. Each
time Hercules attacked the Hydra became more and more dangerous.
After some time of battling Hercules began to be overwhelmed by all
the heads now attacking him. Desperate he called out to Iolaus for
help. Iolaus had been holding a torch in case Hercules needed a light
for the cave but didn't have a weapon of his own. Seeing the
situation Hercules was in Iolaus got an idea, he waited until the
next time Hercules chopped off another head and then rushed forward
with his torch and burned the stub before it could regrow two more
heads. The smell of burning Hydra was horrible but it worked, the
hydra couldn't regrow it's heads if the stub was burned. Encouraged,
Hercules fought extra hard and as each head was chopped off Iolaus
was there to burn the stub. Seeing that Hercules was starting to win
Hera sent a large crab to distract him and give the Hydra a chance to
bite him. Hercules simply crushed the crab and continued his fight
with the Hydra. Finally, after a long hard battle, the last head was
chopped off, the end seared, and the Hydra was dead. After resting a
little bit with Iolaus, Hercules took his arrows and ran them along
the fangs of one of the Hydra's heads putting it's poison on them to
use as a weapon later. After Hercules left, Hera took the body of
both the Hydra and the Crab and set them in the heavens as
constellations.
Continued in The Ceryneian Hind