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Immortal Journey
The Tales of Heracles, Leo, Cancer,
Sagittarius, Centaurus, Draco, Sagitta and Cerberus
Chapter 7: The Stymphalian Birds
Thousands of birds gathered in the forest
and the trees where they nested were surrounded by thorny thickets
which the birds had long ago learned would protect them from the
wolves, but it also saved them from the reach of Heracles. He sat
near their nesting trees, close enough to hear them mocking him.
He walked around the thickets, but they were impenetrable and he
asked the gods for help.
Athena was sitting in Hephaestus' workshop when she heard Heracles'
request. "I hate those disgusting dirty birds," she said to Hephaestus.
"Ares always brings them to Olympus. They make a mess of everything
and they're so noisy they give me a headache every time they're
here. What do you have that might help Heracles get rid of them?"
she asked as she walked through the workshop picking up items and
looking them over before discarding them just as quickly for their
unsuitability. No new weapon would help, mirrors wouldn't work,
and a new vehicle would get him nowhere. Then she spied some strange
little bronze items. Picking them up, she shook them and they made
horrible noises. One was a contraption with gears which, when you
shook the handle, whirred round and round making a spine tingling
grinding sound. The other had little hammers on both sides of a
metal plate and when you shook its handle it produced an earsplitting
clatter.
"What did you have planned for these strange things?" Athena asked
the master craftsman.
"I made those for a celebration," he said. "Since Zeus makes so
much noise with thunderclaps, I thought Hera might enjoy these."
"I think Hera's noisemakers will be appropriate, especially since
she doesn't know about them," mused Athena. She thanked Hephaestus
and carefully dropped the items near Heracles.
As he opened his eyes, light glinted off some polished bronze objects
and he picked up them up. As he moved them around to examine what
they were, they made frightful sounds. He looked up at the trees
and watched as the birds reacted nervously. "Aha," he thought, "these
will work nicely." He experimented with them, finding the best ways
to make a hideous din. He watched in delight as the birds reacted
to their newest and noisiest enemy. Finally, able to endure the
racket no longer, they took off in a flock, darkening the sky.
Heracles, like a small boy, ran after the birds, laughing and shaking
the toys as hard as he could. When he had chased them far from their
nesting place, he grabbed his bow and shot the sky full of arrows,
bringing down many of the dirty birds and scaring the rest of them
into finding a safe new haven near the ends of the earth. Heracles
grabbed three fallen birds and ran laughing all the way back to
Tiryns.
It was the middle of the night when Heracles arrived at the gate.
Everyone was asleep in the palace. Mischievously, he shook the noisemakers
and he heard an immediate flurry of activity inside. Copreus ran
outside in his nightclothes, armed and looking for the noisy intruder.
Instead, he found a laughing Heracles at the gate. "Open the gate
and take these noisy birds to Eurystheus," Heracles said as he handed
three dead birds to the herald, who laughed as he carried them into
the palace.
He was gone for quite a while, but every few minutes new voices
would ring with peals of laughter, until it sounded like everyone
in the palace was in on the joke. "Eurystheus enjoyed that," Copreus
said as he returned. "He also gave me your next task. Your seventh
labor is to capture the Cretan Bull and bring it back here.
"King Minos of Crete had said that he would sacrifice to Poseidon
whatever appeared from the sea, but Poseidon did not trust the king,
so he decided to test his honor by sending a beautiful snow white
bull out of the sea and onto the shores of Crete. When Minos saw
how beautiful the bull was, he wanted to use it to breed his cattle
so he sent it out to his herds and sacrificed another bull to Poseidon
instead. This made the god very angry and, in retaliation, he turned
the bull wild. It is this wild bull that you must bring back here.
Good luck and good night," Copreus said as he finished his story,
yawned and went into the palace to return to bed as Heracles left
on yet another labor.
Tales of
the Immortal Night ©2003, J.J. Kuhl
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