10B-Hercules: Labor Intensive

This week on the Myths and Legends podcast, we're going to finish up the 12 labors of Hercules in a podcast episode that has way too many monsters, fights, centars, and fights with centars. I point out missed opportunities for cheesy action movie one-liners. Hercules will kill way too many people and wrestling matches, and you'll see that hydropoison coated arrows are the cause of and solution to most Hercules' problems. Then, on the creature of the week, if you fall and get a skirt on your leg, it could be that sharp tree branch, or it could be these flying, sickle-wielding weasel triplets. This is the Myths and Legends podcast, episode 10b, labor intensive. This is a podcast where I tell stories that have shaped cultures throughout history. Some are incredibly popular stories you think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories you probably haven't heard, but really should. Previously on the podcast, I started the story of the 12 labors of Hercules. He's the illegitimate son of Zeus, and by being the result of an extra marital affair, Hera, Zeus' wife, dislikes him quite a bit, so much so that she has prepared several monsters and labors to put him through in an attempt to shame and kill him. She made him go mad and murder his wife and children, and he exiled himself from his home city of Thebes. He heard from the Delphi Choracol that he must serve King Eurostheus as a penance for his crimes and to earn immortality. He slew the Nami'en line in the Hydra last episode, but only of the line-counted, because his half-net few Iolus helped him with the Hydra. In his mind, he has nine more labors to go. So I had to make some choices with this story. This will be a longer episode, but I'll be finishing out the labors. There are so many forking paths I could take with these stories, explaining each of the gods, goddesses, heroes, and unrelated monsters that I could go 10 episodes just on the labors. That being said, I'd rather give someone like Prometheus their own episode down the road than mention them in two minutes here, and it would only serve to confuse things if I mentioned 12 additional names on a story that's unrelated for five minutes and then jump back to the labors. It was tough, but I would rather have the labors neatly finished up here and address everyone in their own time than have this lurching behemoth of a story that, when it gets down to it, I don't think it's worth multiple episodes. So that episode will be extra long this week. I'd rather keep the run time between 20 and 35 minutes, but this will probably go over. The labors range from anti-climactic to downright ridiculous. I went for sort of a gritty realistic telling in the last episode, but as you'll see, that quickly becomes impossible. Anyway, on with the show. Her killee's gently laid behind, or stag, down in front of the city. The second labor had taken an entire year chasing the thing around the continent. It was a swift stag with golden horns and hooves of bronze, and he had to bring it back alive. Day in and day out, he chased it. Through fields, forest, mountains, and swamps, he could barely get close enough to take a shot, let alone catch it without killing it. On the anniversary of setting out to complete what he thought would be a quick and painless endeavor, he was frustrated and decided to risk a shot at its ankles when he got close enough. He succeeded, and the arrow passed between bone and sinew, drawing no blood. And it slowed down the stag long enough for Hercules to tackle it, bind it, and throw it over his shoulder. Dropping the stag off in my sine, he got the information on the next labor. It was another powerful animal he was supposed to capture. Fantastic. This time it was the Aramethian Boer, a large, raging boar amount Aramethos. As a aside, this one isn't too interesting, but what happens on the way there is. Its winter, when Hercules takes off from Mount Aramethos, and as he's making his way, he realizes an old friend lives just off the road. He trudges through the snow, and sees his friend Fulis's home glowing in the twilight. He knocks on the door, and hears Fulis trot over. As it turns out, Fulis is a sentar. A man down to the waist with a lower body of a horse, I'm sure you know what a sentar is, but he's a civilized one, unlike the rest that are shown as wild and lustful. He invites Hercules in, and the two share a meal. Fulis's larger is well stocked for a sentar, but not so for a man. He has some difficulty cooking the meat because sentars are content to eat it cold and raw. He also doesn't have any wine, which Hercules would really like to warm him up after walking through the woods on winter evening. Well, he does have some wine, Fulis says, but they can't drink it. Give it here. Hercules says, "I'm thirsty." Really though, Fulis says, "We can't drink this. It was left there by Dionysus." If you don't know, Dionysus is the great god of the harvest, wine, ritual madness, and fertility, which, yeah, all these things kind of go together. Dionysus was another son Zeus had with the mortal woman, and once again, Herra was for some reason mad that her husband was impregnating strangers. She went to the woman in the form of a "wizendold" crone, and when Dionysus's mother, said her baby's father was Zeus, Herra planted seeds of doubt in her mind. Are you sure? Have you seen his face to confirm it, Zeus? You should really see his face to confirm it, Zeus. That evening, Zeus shows up, and the mother asks to see his face. Zeus is shocked, and says, "You really don't want to do that. Anyone who's not a god but looks on the face of Zeus will die." She thinks about it, but she says she's not buying it. That's just what someone who's not Zeus would want me to think. Zeus argues with her, and instead of just saying no in doing what he wanted, you know, like he always does, he relents and shows her his face, and she dies. No surprise there. Zeus knows she's pregnant, and takes the baby from her and so's it up in his thigh, because of course you should do that with premature demigods. He carries the baby to term in his thigh, because why not? And the child grows up to be Dionysus. And I just did what I said I wouldn't do by getting distracted by a tangential narrative. Okay, back on track. Full of the center has a jar of wine, and her gilly snatches it from him, opens it, and takes a big swig. Not carrying it all that Dionysus had given it to the centers, and they all believe that they should never open it. They're different accounts on what happens next, but I'm going with the center smelling this extremely pwn wine in the air, and attacking Full of his house for opening the jar. Another cat has them drinking the wine too, and getting really drunk, going mad, and then attacking the house, because they were late weights, and apparently couldn't handle the wine without watering it down, as was the custom in the ancient world. Anyway, they attack the house. Centaur's are wild and powerful, and full of runs and hides. Hercules size picks up a bow in his arrows coated with the hydra blood, and runs outside. Dodging rocks flung by centaur's with slings, he fires off a few arrows, which instantly kill their targets. The others call off the attack and gallop away, seeing their brethren fell by these tiny arrows, and instead of calmly walking inside and going to bed, Hercules decides to chase them in the wilderness with poison arrows, and kill many, many more of them. This proves to be tragic for him, though. When he's off killing things that are running away from him, Full of some merges into the quiet forest, seeing a few of the centaur's dead by only one arrow each. He pulls an arrow out and inspects it. For such a smart, civilized centaur, he doesn't suspect poison arrows. Shrugs and flings it back over his shoulder. It drops point down, and sticks in his back hoof. His brain barely has time wredged through the pain before he dies from the poison. Hercules comes back. Hey, Foulis, try to guess how many of your fellow centaur's I killed. It's not a low number. Foulis? Foulis? A grim and serious Hercules finishes bearing his friend in the frozen ground, and continues on. He tries to put the thought out of his head that so many people he's cared about have been killed or put in mortal danger directly due to his actions. He's in no mood to chase this bore for a year, and when he sees it, he chases it into a snowdrift. While it's briefly stuck, he jumps on its back and turns it over and mobilizes it. He literally hogties it and carries it back to my scene. As an aside, if you're familiar with the story, you might notice that I skipped the part about Kyron, Achilles, and Prometheus. Like I said, Prometheus deserves his own show, but basically in some versions of the tale, Hercules is directly responsible for rescuing him. Eurostheus, the high king who was hiding in this bronze jar since Hercules was approaching, smiled with Glee at the next labor. He would win either way. If Hercules refused the shameful task, cleaning Augustus' legendarily disgusting stables, then he would not be able to finish his labors. If he did complete the task, he would forever be known as one caked in dung, the stableboy of a careless king. He might earn immortality, but he would never be worthy of it. Hercules walked up to the stables, still not convinced the humiliating labor was worth it, and looked at it. It housed 1,000 divinely healthy cattle, and since they were divinely healthy, they produced a lot of dung. Sidebarke, does anyone know if health and feces production are actually correlated? In addition, because of their health, the king never bothered to clean it because they couldn't get sick. I won't describe the feces crusted everything of the stables, where how these cows must have been neck deep, and it must have been oozing out of the stables to everyone's detriment. Yeah, I won't describe those things. Anyway, Hercules instantly sees a solution. He talks to the king, and doesn't tell him that Yuristheus had commanded him to do this. The kings that were richest man in the world, cattle currency wise, so Hercules decides that he's going to try to get a bit of a kickback under the table, and bargains for 10% of the man's wealth if he can clean the stables in one day. The king says, "Yeah, it's been 30 years since it's been cleaned, so I guess it's maybe getting a little out of hand." And he agrees to it. Hercules nods and goes to work. Using his club, he smashes down part of the wall of the cattle yard and leaves for hours. He just kind of shrugs and goes about the business. Towards evening, Hercules comes running back through the hole in the wall, telling everyone to get out of the way. He ducks just to the right of the opening before the water comes rushing through, and it flows through the stables, cleaning grime and excrement from the walls and stalls. As it turns out, he rerouted a river to flow through the stables and clean it so he didn't have to. Seeing that the job is done, Hercules climbs back over the wall, and sometime passes before the water slows to a trickle. He's done it. He's clean the stables in a day without soiling his honor by covering himself in feces. That, and he may quite a bit of cows while doing it. The only problem? King Auguste learned that Hercules was forced to clean the stables anyway, and in his mind, this nullified his need to pay Hercules, so he lied about the oath. They go back and forth, and eventually Hercules demands arbitration, and as the truth about the King's oath is about to come out, he banishes Hercules from the land. Hercules is both not allowed to come back, and he won't have to pay Hercules, so I don't know why he didn't do that to begin with. Or so yet, after Hercules made his way back to my Sine, he learned that he wouldn't even get credit for this labor. He didn't clean the stables. The river did. Besides, even if he had cleaned it, it still wouldn't have counted because Hercules had done it for payment. Even though this really wasn't stipulated at the outset. As an aside, if you're wondering why some of these are negated after the fact, it's because of the many versions over time. It's thought that some writers tried to rectify that Hercules had completed ten labors in some stories, and twelve labors in others, so they just have two of the labors being disqualified. It's remarkably inconsistent as the story goes. The next labor was driving off the Stimphalian birds. These birds, about the size of cranes, looked in a marsh. As you probably guessed, there's a catch. They have bronze beaks, bronze feathers that they can shoot out at travelers, and their dung is poisonous. Though really, isn't all dung kind of poisonous? Standing on the edge of the swamp, Hercules was at a loss of what to do. They were in a thicket of trees, and the swamp before him was too deep and muddy for him to wade through, and too thick for him to boat through. Worse, the birds weren't coming out of the trees. Hercules waited for days, and was about to wade out into the swamp when Athena stopped him. "You didn't get these from me," she said, and she gave him some bronze castonets, forged from the gauht Hepestus, and if he clanged them against the cliff face nearby, it would spook all the birds. He did, and it did. The birds terrified, shot up, and Hercules was ready with his long bow. He killed several of them, the hydrous poisons still very effective, and the rest of them were so fearful of landing because of the sound, and fearful of staying in the air because of the arrows that they flew off. The sixth labor was complete. Spoiler alert, Hercules will run into these birds again during the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The overstuffed, ancient world avengers-style team-up that includes Hercules, Iolus, Theesius, Odysseus' father, and many, many other heroes. The next labor was captured in the Cretan bull, which, as you probably guessed, was a big bull on Crete. For sources that are already spars, they're especially short on detail for this labor. Some say that it was a bull that fathered the Minotaur, others say that it was the bull sent by Zeus to carry your rope at a Crete, which I thought was actually Zeus who transformed the bull to trap a woman into being his lover, but whatever. Regardless, there's nothing definitive, and compared to a Hydra and a giant lying, you can't harm with your weapons, one larger than average bull must have been like a nice break. The eighth labor was to steal some mayors from the barbarian king, Diomedes. As he walked away from my scene on this mission, he ran into a group of men. His legend was growing in the land, and regardless of how he tried to hide himself, he had freed so many people from these dangerous creatures that everyone knew where he was. Among the group was Apterus, an old friend of Hercules, and a son of the god Hermes. They embraced. This group of young men wanted to help him. The Gaolus, who's not there this time, think his labors are unfair. Despite this being literally the exact thing that happened last time that got the Hydra killing disqualified, Hercules agrees, and they all set sail for threes. Oh, and so there isn't some disappointing tension as to whether or not this labor will count? It does. He literally has a group of people with him to help, and yet Eurus theus doesn't bat an eye. Given by how much these sources contradict one another, I'm surprised that I'm surprised by this. When they're sailing, Hercules learns with horses, they are four mayors, and they're completely uncontrollable and strong, because of their diet, which is human flesh. King Diomedes keeps them chained with iron to a bronze manger, and he feeds them guests and prisoners alike, anyone to saith their hunger. Hercules and his gang doesn't hesitate when they come ashore. They immediately go secure the mayors. The stable is in a city, though, a city loyal to Diomedes. Her travels quickly to the king, who assembles a fighting force to meet the men, and a battle ensues. Hercules doesn't want to lose another friend in a stupid mishap, like he lost the sentar, so he has his buddy Abduress stay behind with the mayors. Abduress watches his friend leave, and just as Hercules disappears into the city, the young man feels something on his back, like the muzzle, horse. Through strategic fighting, Hercules and his crew win the battle. Diomedes is the son of Aries, the god of war, and is a giant, and is nearly a match for Hercules. Hercules ends up daising the king with his club, and takes him prisoner. Now they need to get these horses and get out of here before the city of Barbarians rises up against them. When he comes to the stable, the mayors are frenzied. Hercules yell at her as a young friend, but the man didn't answer, and then he looked at the mayor that was straining the chain, snapping at Hercules and the king. Its mouth was bloody. Hercules looked at the haze surrounding the mayors, and saw the bloody scraps of the tunic Abduress had been wearing. If he had looked closer at the ground, he would have been able to see more of his friend, but he didn't need to. Hercules yelled out in rage. The horses had been hungry, and usually one man or woman was enough to satisfy them, but they frothed at the mouth when they saw two men before them. Shake him a thanger, Hercules smiles a cruel smile, and shucks the still-dazed king over the short fence. All four mayors pounce and immediately tear into him. His screams are matched for the feral grouse of his mayors as they devour him alive. As an aside, this is a total missed opportunity for one of those cheesy action movie one-liners. As he threw the king, Hercules could have said, "No more horseplay," or "time to stop horseing around." Or, "And this one is a bit of a stretch. Welcome to your worst nightmare." You know, because they were mayors. They were all very none. And now there's virtually no easy way to transition from my stupid dad jokes back to Hercules being crushed because he had lost yet another friend on these labors. But he is, and he's quiet all the way back, anger with himself that he had left another friend in a dangerous situation that had led to his death. After the horses ate the king, they calmed down, and Hercules used this opportunity to bind their mouths. He gives them to Euras Theus as herald when he gets back to my cene. Unknown to Hercules, the young daughter of Euras Theus learned of the Amzonians, warrior woman in a faraway land. The queen had a magic girdle, more belt, from her father, the god of war aries. And the daughter of Euras Theus thought she would really like to have that. Her dad said, "Sure, whatever. I have this guy I'm trying to kill by getting him to do dangerous stuff. So yeah, let's make him do that." Once again, Hercules has a team with him. This time including Iolus and the mythological hero Theesius. And once again, it doesn't matter to Euras Theus for some reason. In the sources, there are a lot of super tangential details, same-achined this little conflict. So I'm just going to say that Hercules, Theesius, Iolus and friends all fight with a lot of people on the way there, win some battles, and win some land. The Amzonians have their kingdom and what is either modern day Ukraine, Turkey or Libya. Really, though, it doesn't matter, and they should just be seen as exotically far away from Greece in ancient times. They have a matriarchal society, so they take their mothers names, not their fathers. Memories given household duties, while women governed and fought. What a crazy backwards world. They had bronze bows, good armor, and more excellent tacticians. Which makes what follows all of the more faceball worthy. The polity, queen of the Amazons, comes to meet Hercules in the gang when they land. She and Hercules hit it off, and they talk privately. So entranced by his manliness and good looks, she offers to hand it right over, because he's really, really good looking. That's right, this woman who's completely powerful in her society will only give up the source of her power to Hercules, because. muscles. You could write a 30-page literary criticism of this event, but I'll just choose not to think about what the story is saying right here about gender, because it'll just make me sad. Worse yet, Hera, who knows what equality is about to do, Spard's rumors among the Amazonians that the Queen has been captured. They attack the ships, and Hercules and Herpology are interrupted in their discussions by the den of battle. Assuming some treachery, Herpology attacks Hercules, since he has her belt, they don't really need anything else, so he stabs her in the stomach and kicks her off the ship. Because he's the hero, they then shove off after killing a number of the women. On the way back, there are more irrelevant battles, with Hercules killing a guy in a wrestling match and inadvertently sowing the seeds for the Trojan War when he rescues a woman. He delivers the belt to Yeristheus' hero outside of my scene. Yeristheus gives it to his daughter, who probably loved it for like two weeks until she got bored with it, put it in the back of a closet, and the belt probably ended up in a garage sale a few years down the road. His tenth labor was to get the famous cattle of Garion, from what is now modern-day Spain, without demand or payment. He makes his way through Europe, killing all manner of dangerous beasts, none of which are discussed. He shoots some errors at the Sun God, and uses his immense strength to join Spain and Africa together. As you can probably tell from my general tone, as the story progresses, it goes right off the rails. I completely bought the pain of him mindlessly killing his family, seek Natomi for a sorrow, and the danger of the first few labors. Now though, it's getting harder and harder to humanize Hercules, and in the case of him and the Amazonians, I really don't want to humanize him, or try to justify his actions. The increasing ridiculousness is putting some distance between us and the Hercules, who was at least marginally relatable in the beginning. Also, the storytellers seem to be phoning in and in a bit more. Upon gaining Spain, he comes upon a two-headed dog and two men watching cattle. One herd he's supposed to obtain, one herd belongs to Hades. The dog charges him, and he swatts it with his club, and kills it. One of the men charges him, and he swats him with his club, and kills him. He lets the man pasturing Hades' cattle run off, though. Hercules once gary on to know, and come after him. The man tells the giant, who's pretty angry, and goes to stop Hercules from stealing his flock. Hercules sees the giant lumber over the hill, and it's not at all what he was expecting. The giant has three torsos, six arms, and three heads. He also has six legs. He was essentially three giants with one waist. Hercules wordlessly challenged the giant, and they took off in a sprint towards one another. During the run, Hercules pulled out his bow and read it in the arrow. When he got closer, he broke to one side, so he had a clear shot at the giant's waist from the side. Pulled back the bow while he was still running, and skewered all three torsos in one shot. The giant flooded, and skidded onto the ground. Dead. Hercules takes the cattle and drives them back to Greece, and if you think that it would take years, well, he also got lost on the way, and walked the length of the Italian peninsula as well. With one of the cows swimming to Sicily, which required yet another doubly wrestling match for retrieval. Hercules went back triumphant, he was done. But this is actually where he learned that the Hydra and cleaning the staples didn't count, according to Eurostheus. He raged at the herald above the city gate, most likely contemplating using one of his Hydra arrows to cut down the herald and storm the city, but decided against it. He was already eight years and one month in, but were two more life-threatening, nearly impossible labor in the big scheme of things. This one is so supernatural that it's almost ridiculous. On Mount Atlas, in the land of the Hyperboreans, was an apple tree with golden apples. It was given a hare by Gaia, who is Zeus's, and Haras' mother for their wedding. It was guarded by a dangerous, multi-headed dragon coiled around the base, and Atlas, the Titan who was cursed to hold up the heavens, had built huge walls, and since he had been tasked with tending to it years and years ago, he was the only one who could get to the garden. The Hyperboreans lived in what is basically the Arctic Circle, but Atlas is in northwest Africa. Hercules didn't know where to go. Hercules' father, Zeus, clued him in to asking the old man to the sea, the god who was the son of the sea in the earth. Hercules very nicely forced him into telling the location of the tree, and he does, but he says he'll need Atlas to help. Hercules travels to the north pole, or northwest Africa, I'm not entirely sure. He kills another guy in a wrestling match on the way. He does a lot of that. When he gets there, he sees Atlas, the Titan, outside of the garden. Atlas chose sides against Zeus when Zeus and his siblings fought against cronus in the Titans, and as a result, Zeus forced him to support the heavens on his shoulders for all time. Despite this, Hercules asks him to go in and get the apples. Atlas laughs. Well, first, there's this dragon around the tree. Before he can finish the sentence, Hercules looks at the wall, feels the direction of the wind, pulls out a hydra arrow in his longbow, and fires it into the air. Moments later, they hear a shriek in the thud inside the garden. The dragon is dead. Next, oh, well, I also have this thing I can't set down, so that's Atlas. It's called the Sky. Hercules offers to help him out. He'll hold it long enough for Atlas to get the apples. Atlas perks up. The weight is constant and crushing, a living hell if they had hell in ancient Greece. The thought of a moment of respite. They switch places, and even with his immense strength as the son of Zeus, Hercules is straining under the weight. Atlas casually walks in and walks out with an apple, happy to actually be able to move, and what literally might have been an eternity. He has the apples, and he sees Hercules, nearly crushed under his curse. He tells Hercules that he would be happy to take the apples to Eurstheus, and Hercules is placed. It would only take him like a few months, a year tops. Hercules shrugged. He said he didn't seem to have much of a choice. And besides, he could hold up the heavens. Imagine the run now and he would win. Hercules said through gritted teeth that he would be happy to do it. He just needs one thing. His lying cloak is bunching on his back. He needs to get it straightened out while there's another person here, because it's super uncomfortable. Atlas totally understands. He had a problem with his cloak early on too. Sure, Atlas is happy to hold the pillar for a few seconds. No problem. He sets down the apples, and resumes holding the pillar while Hercules walked out, straightened his lying cloak, and kept on walking. All right, so are you going to take the pillar now? Atlas says? Yeah, no, I am not doing that. Hercules says. The thing is, it's really, really heavy. I mean, that's literally the weight of the world on your shoulders. Besides, that has to be really batting her back. Anyway, I really need to be going, what, with my freedom, and not needing to support the sky. Bye. The stories don't say what Atlas said, but I can't imagine I could say it without marking the episode explicit. When he gives the apples to Eurystheus, the king gives them back to Hercules, who gives them to Athena, who takes them back to the garden, and places them back on the tree, presumably going past a very angry Atlas, and a very dead dragon, essentially nullifying the whole process. Eurystheus is fretting in his big bronze jar. Hercules just has one labor left. They would need to pull out all the stops on this one. It would be the last and most dangerous. It would involve Hercules literally descending into the underworld to bring back the three headed hellhound, Cerberus. Maybe, just maybe, he'd get Hercules to stay there. Eurystheus thought he had Hercules in a technicality, too. Since Hercules had killed so many centars a few years back, he wouldn't be able to be initiated into the mysteries that allowed him to safely descend into the underworld. And if someone understands this, please let me know. You'd think that the many people he killed would also count against him, but they don't seem to. For the 95% of the world not familiar with the Illusinean mysteries, which included me before researching for this podcast, they are essentially the initiations into the cult of Demeter and Persephone. And as the name implies, they were kept secret. Talking all about the mysteries as well as the story of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades would add about 10 more minutes onto this already overstuffed podcast. So this is another one I'll have to save for a future date. Regardless, Hercules uses some loopholes to get initiated into the cult. He descends into Tardarus, the underworld, by way of Lakonia and Southern Greece. He comes to Karyan, the fairy man of the river Stix, who ferries people into the underworld, and the old man demands Payman. Hercules is in precisely no mood. He scales at the man and Karyan, wowed by Hercules' impressive negotiating skills, and also not wanting to have his head indecoriously removed by a club, says Payman, "I meant hop in and takes Hercules across the river." He runs into many gods and goddesses down here as well as the shades of dead people in monsters, and he comes to Hades' orchards, where he finds his friend Theesius and another guy, both captured and chained up after a botched mission to get Persephone. Hades is not at all consensual bride. Hercules frees Theesius, but he can't free the other one. He comes to the orchard and sees Hades' cattle. Never mind that the orchard is missing small trivial details like sunlight and arable land. Hercules gets in a fight with the herdsmen. and yet another wrestling match ensues. The man, or demon, or God, it's not really clear, his ribs start cracking in her Hercules' legendary vicious hug when Hercules hears a woman. He looks up and sees the pale, somber form of Persephone near her husband, Hades. Hades, a dark and serious figure, the older brother of Zeus, and technically Hercules' uncle, chuckled. He took the gall of this mortal to break into his room, free a captive, and assault his herdsman. And now he wanted Cerberus? Sure, he could borrow the three headed guard dog. He just had to master it without the use of any weapons he carried, behind Hades, from the shadows, six eyes glowed in the darkness. Hercules put his club away and charged the hound. Weeks later, in my scene, Earsthius was sweating in his bronze jar. It was rumored that Hercules was near, but the king didn't wait to confirm. He did this from time to time, and would sometimes spend the night in the jar for fear of his demigog cousin. Then he heard it, the pounding from far off, and then barking, Cecil's barking that got closer and closer until it was right outside. There were screams and crashes and snorls, then silence. Then a deafening clang and blinding light. Hercules was standing over Earsthius, who was cowering in his jar. All three heads of Cerberus were snapping at him, and Hercules held it back with a chain. Hercules set up the labors were finished. He was finished. He stood there, Cerberus snapping at the king, and the king half-screened in the Hercules that completed all the labors. He had served his penance for his crime. Take the thing and go. Hercules stood there for a few minutes longer. He wouldn't kill the high king, but he could save her this position of watching Earsthius tremble before him. Hercules had completed everything that Earsthius and Herra had thrown at him, and he was now absolved of this horrible crime before God's in men. As he walked out of my scene, he thought about what the oral clad said. He didn't know if the immortality was literal or figurative. If she just meant that his name will live on forever. But he wasn't about to test it. He felt different, though. The world felt different. In seeking to atone for a horrifying crime that he wasn't even to blame for, he inadvertently became the most powerful, most renowned man in all the world. As he looked at across the mountains and down to the sea, he could see homes in the city, and farms dotting the hillside, and he realized that he had inadvertently tamed the world for his kind. He had wrenched the world from the hands of the gods, and from the dark things of old to make way for civilization. For man. He was now purified of what he had done, and had risen higher than any man ever had. Still, I would imagine his wife and children still occupied some space in his mind, even after the adventure packed decade. He may be this mighty hero, but I can imagine he still takes the memory of them, of what happened to them, with him, everywhere he goes. Regardless, as he walked Cerberus back to the underworld, he felt the sun shining on his skin. For the first time since he woke up, chained in the dark room, after his madness nearly a decade ago, he felt free. For not, I'm making him much, much more introspective than he was in the myths, trying to wrap up the story and understand his possible feelings and motivations, so maybe I'm taking one too many liberties. That's where we'll leave Hercules for now. He has many more adventures, and the next time we meet up with him, we'll probably be with Jason and the Arcanauts, if I ever attempt to tackle that. Next week, it's a few Japanese fairy tales. These are bizarre, interesting, and touching, and I'm surprised these stories can pack so much into spite being so short. My favorite so far is about a little boy who loves cat pictures. Thank you so much to CitySmasher, MissMals, CJ Down Under, TechSyke, Flipper6767, Allianne, Alana Crow, Eric Alcock, Gemini Lee, Solar AZN, ReChina81, and MadxMom for leaving reviews on iTunes. I know I just kinda blow through everyone's names each week, but I just wanted to say that I'm so grateful for you for not only taking the time out of your day to navigate the podcast app, RyeTunes, which in itself can be a labor, but that you take the time to write long and thoughtful comments telling me what you think of the show. I read every single one of them from every country. I can't really communicate how much I appreciate it, and I just want you to know that I'm really glad you like it. If you want to leave a review, you can go to iTunes.mithpodcast.com. You all have told me quite a bit that you want to hear some stuff from other cultures, and I agree, and I'm working on getting outside of the Western canon, so to speak. The thing is, I'm blown away by the fact that people listen to this podcast from all around the world. And there are stories from your own places and cultures that I, a primarily Western educated American living in upstate New York, may never encounter. So what I'm proposing is this. If you would like to record yourself telling some local folklore or story, or maybe a creature of the week sort of thing, I'd love to hear it. Over 80% of the people download this podcast on a smartphone, and it's super easy to record yourself and send it via email, a drop-ox link that I set up, or through the website. I'll put detailed instructions on how to do that on the site. I would mix and edit these, so don't worry if it isn't perfect. If you only knew what my raw recording sounded like. Anyway, I would just release them as bonus episodes, and you would get as much credit as you wanted. So I could say your full name and anything else you wanted to, or you could just stay anonymous. These wouldn't take the place of the main show, so no worries about that, that wouldn't change. These would just be bonus episodes where everyone could have a chance to tell their story. If you're interested, there's a link in the show notes, or you can just go to stories.mithpodcast.com. The creature of this week is the Kamatachi from Japanese folklore, the name, which I am certainly mispronouncing, means "cyclo-weasel." They are not one sickle-weasel, but three. Like all triplet weasels, they have wings and large razor-sharp nails that are like sickles. They fly and they're fast. Faster than you can believe. There's fast as the wind, and the family works together very well. The first sickle-weasel will knock you down. The second weasel will use his sickles to slice at your legs, leaving sometimes hundreds of little cuts all over you. The third will help you, in a way. He applies some magical medicine so you don't feel any pain. And this medicine will actually heal some of the wounds. All this happens in an instant, so you'll be walking down an mountain path. A strong wind will come. Something will knock you down on the ground, and then you'll find that you cut yourself in the fall. I mean, maybe it was just that straight branch, thorn, or rock, but it's also equally likely that it's three sickle-weasel-weasel-rothers riding the wind. I don't know why they do this, but they live in the mountains of Japan, or, and I quote, "anyplace with weasels." They fly on the cold winds, but they also live in the puddles after a rain, and sometimes attack people who jump in puddles. So this could be yet another way to terrify children into behaving. The cuts range from little nicks and scratches to entire chunks of your leg being removed. The sickles are so sharp, and they're so quick with the medicine that you might not notice until you're getting into the shower that night that, "Hey, you're missing most of your thigh." That's it for this week. The theme music is by the band "Broke for Free," and the creature of the week music is by the convivial Steve Corms. Links to other music I used during the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.