Wonder Stories Part 8

Arachne, though, had decided to work something that was forbidden by the G.o.ds. She was going to use her skill of hand and all her art for evil instead of good.

She began embroidering a picture that would be displeasing to the G.o.ds, and she was able to make it seem as if it were alive, because of the figures and scenes she could outline with her needle and fill in with her colored wools. The picture Arachne embroidered was that of the fair Princess Europa tending her father's herds of cattle beside the sea. One of the bulls seemed so tame that Europa mounted his back, and he plunged into the sea with her and carried her far away from her native sh.o.r.es to Greece. Arachne pictured this bull as the great G.o.d Jupiter.

Minerva's embroidery was of a very different pattern from this. She was the G.o.ddess of wisdom and her gift from Mount Olympus to the earth had been the beautiful olive tree that gave mortals shade, and fruit, and oil, and wood for their building. Minerva st.i.tched the pattern of a green olive tree on the tapestry she was embroidering.

Among the leaves of the olive tree Minerva embroidered a b.u.t.terfly. It seemed to live and flutter in and out among the olives. One could almost touch the velvet nap that lay on its wings and the silk down which covered its back; there were its broad, outstretched horns, its gleaming eyes, its glorious colors. Minerva's workmanship was more wonderful than Arachne could ever hope to learn. As they finished she knew that she was outdone.

Minerva looked at Arachne's tapestry, woven of pride and a desire for vain conquest. It could not be allowed to stand beside hers that showed the gift of life to man in the olives and such beauty as that of the b.u.t.terfly. The G.o.ddess struck Arachne's tapestry with her shuttle and tore it in pieces.

Arachne was suddenly filled with an understanding of how she had wasted her skill, and she longed to get away from all sight and sound of her weaving. A vine trailed down to the ground from a near by tree. Arachne twisted it about her body and tried to pull herself up by it to the tree, but Minerva would not allow this. She touched Arachne's form with the juices of aconite and at once her hair came off, and her nose and her ears as well. Her body shrank and shrivelled and her head grew smaller. Her fingers fastened themselves to her side and served for legs. She hung from the vine which changed to a long gray thread.

Arachne, the skilful weaver of Greece, was changed to Arachne, the spider of the forest. Through all the centuries since then she has been spinning her fragile threads and weaving her frail webs that a breath of wind, even, can destroy.

THE HERO WITH A FAIRY G.o.dMOTHER

The prince who was the hero of one of your favorite once-upon-a-time stories was quite sure to have had a fairy G.o.dmother to watch over his ways and help in bringing his adventures to success. But Hercules, the Great, of old Greece than whom we have never known a greater hero, had two fairy G.o.dmothers. They were not known by exactly that name in the days when the myths were made, but there were two very powerful G.o.ddesses who presided over Hercules' destiny, and the odd thing about it was that no one knew which of these was the more important.

Hercules began life just like any other baby except that his father was the mighty Jupiter, a fact which made everyone expect a great deal of him. And just as used to happen in your old fairy tales, he had enemies because of his n.o.ble birth. One of these was the G.o.ddess, Juno.

Hercules lay in his cradle one day before he was able to walk even, and he suddenly saw something that would have frightened anyone much older than he. On each side of his cradle there appeared the green, hissing head of a huge serpent, their poisonous fangs thrust out to sting this child of the G.o.ds to death. Hercules' attendants ran away in terror not daring to give fight to the vipers, but he reached out his tiny hands, gripped a serpent in each by its throat and strangled them.

People began to look at Hercules in wonder after that. They watched him grow up, just like any other boy except that his limbs were stronger and his muscles harder than those of the average boy of Greece. There were still those who admired him and those who hated him, knowing that he was, really, the son of a G.o.d. So his enemies put Hercules in charge of a kind of tutor named Eurystheus who was under orders to give him the most impossible tasks to try and perform.

"The lad will fail and then we shall be well rid of him," the G.o.ddess Juno, who particularly disliked Hercules, said.

Hercules began life in a part of Greece that was known as the valley of Nemea. It was a place of olive orchards and fruit trees and fields of grain, but the terror of the place was the Nemean lion who lived close by in the fastness of the hills. There had never been known so huge a lion, with such wide, blood thirsty jaws. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring him the tawny hide of this monster.

"How shall I slay the Nemean lion?" Hercules asked.

"With your arrows and your club," Eurystheus replied carelessly, but he knew that no arrows in all Greece could pierce the lion's skin and that Hercules' club, made of a stout young tree, would also be powerless against the beast.

"Hercules will never return," the people of the valley said to each other as they watched the young hero start out boldly toward the hills.

But he returned the next day, as fresh and untroubled as when he had started, with the hide of the Nemean lion slung over his shoulder.

"Are yours magic arrows, and is your club charmed as well?" the youths who were Hercules' friends asked, crowding around him.

"I killed the lion with my hands alone, grasping him about his throat,"

Hercules explained to them.

Eurystheus, listening on the edge of the crowd, frowned at these words.

"I must plan a greater labor for him," he thought.

There was a rich and beautiful city of Greece named Argos, but a fearful monster called the Hydra infested a swamp just outside it and one never knew when it would descend upon the well that supplied the people with pure water. It had nine heads and one of these was immortal, so the rumor went.

"Go to Argos and kill the Hydra," Eurystheus commanded Hercules.

Hercules was ready to dare this adventure. He started out again with no other arms than he had carried before and when he came to the well of Argos which kept the country from drought, he found the Hydra stationed there. Going up to it, Hercules struck off one of its heads with his club. What was his surprise to see two heads grow in the place of this one! It was going to be a task to destroy this creature, Hercules understood, as he laid on with his club against the menacing and increasing heads, hitting right and left and with no time between his telling blows. He struck off all of the Hydra's heads at last except the undying one. Finally Hercules thought of a plan for destroying this. He wrenched it off with his mighty hands and buried it deeply underneath a rock.

"Hercules shall be put to a task he will not like so well as encountering wild beasts," Eurystheus decided then. "He shall clean the Augean stables. We will see if a son of the G.o.ds has the will to accomplish that labor."

This was indeed a labor with very little of the spirit of adventure in it. Old King Augeus, of Elis in Greece had a herd of three thousand cattle and their stalls in his many stables had not been cleaned for thirty years. The cattle, all of them of blooded stock, were dying off because they were not properly cared for, and there was no hero of the king's train but felt the work of cleaning the stables to be too menial for him.

Hercules had no such thought as this, however. He was ready to attempt the labor; his only idea was how to accomplish it, and thoroughly. At last he had a very novel idea.

There were scarcely any of the lesser G.o.ds of outdoors who had not, by this time, felt the strength of Hercules. There had been the river G.o.d who took delight in leading the waters of the streams over their banks and inundating the farms in the spring when the fields had just been planted. Hercules had wrestled with this river G.o.d and had broken off one of his horns, on account of which he had to keep the streams between their banks. Hercules made up his mind that he would take advantage of his power over the river G.o.d in his present need.

So what did Hercules do but lead the courses of two streams, the Alpheus and the Peneus, right through the Augean stables cleansing them thoroughly. When he finished this labor, the result was so fine that he had quite as much reason to be proud of it as he had over his other prowess. It was as splendid to use one's strength in cleaning as in any other way, Hercules discovered.

He went on from one adventure to another with the years, always successful although everyone prophesied that some day his strength would fail and he would have to give up. Eurystheus wanted a new yoke of oxen, and none would do except those who lived in the land of the setting sun, in the western part of Greece and were guarded by a giant who had three bodies. Hercules set out for the place and when he reached it he discovered that not only the giant, but a huge dog that had two heads guarded the oxen. Hercules killed the giant and his dog and drove the oxen home to Eurystheus.

Victor over wild beasts and giants, and able to accomplish any work which he attempted! What labor was there left for this son of Mount Olympus? Eurystheus knew. He sent Hercules on what seemed indeed a wild goose search. He commanded him to bring back to Greece the golden apples of the Hesperides without telling him where they were to be found.

They were very plump and beautiful apples made altogether of solid gold.

It is said that they were the first oranges the world had ever known.

However that may be the Greeks wanted them very much. Juno had received them for a wedding present from the G.o.ddess of Earth, and had hung some on a golden tree in the fair garden of the daughters of Hesperis who kept a dragon to guard them. It would have been a task to pick them even if one had known where to go for them. Hercules started out, though, without route or chart and it was the most difficult of all his adventures.

He met Antaeus, a son of the Earth, who was a mighty giant and wrestler.

Hercules encountered this son of the Earth and threw him countless times, but each time the giant rose from the ground with renewed strength. It was like magic, but Hercules found out at last the secret of Antaeus' strength, as you, also, will in the next story, and did battle with him. Then, on went Hercules, for the Earth could no longer stop him, and after awhile he found himself at Mount Atlas in Africa.

The bent old giant, Atlas, stood on the top of this, holding up the sky on his shoulders. He was as ancient as the mountain itself and doomed by the G.o.ds to stand there through the seasons and never go home to the garden of the Hesperides where his daughters lived.

"If you will but bring me the golden apples of the Hesperides, old Atlas, I will take your place on the mountain top for a s.p.a.ce,"

Hercules said to the giant.

"The sky is heavier than you imagine, my son," Atlas replied. "I doubt if you can bear it."

"Let me but try," Hercules urged him.

So Atlas shifted the burden of the heavens from his shoulders to those of Hercules and the hero held them securely. When Atlas returned, his arms full of the precious golden b.a.l.l.s, Hercules still held the sky as if he scarcely felt its weight. Atlas wanted to have him hold it always, but Hercules was of no mind to do that. He gave back his load to Atlas and took the apples of the Hesperides home to Greece.

Hercules had conquered the earth even in this last adventure, and it seemed as if there was no great deed left for this hero. But he continued using his mighty strength, even to descending to Pluto's realm of darkness and bringing back the heroic Theseus who was a prisoner there. At last even his enemies on Mount Olympus were forced to grant him a place of honor in their midst and Jupiter wrapped him in a cloud and sent a four horse chariot to bring him home along the road of the stars. When Hercules reached the Olympian Heights it is said that old Atlas bent still lower with the weight on his shoulders, for this hero had added new strength to the heavens.

But how about those two G.o.ddesses, you ask, who presided like fairy G.o.dmothers over the destiny of Hercules? The ancients asked that same question, and Hercules answered it just before Jupiter called him away from Greece.

One of these G.o.ddesses was named Virtue, and the other Pleasure, but it was the first whom Hercules followed all his life.

[2]THE PYGMIES.

A great while ago, in the days of the myths, there lived an earth-born Giant named Antaeus, and a race of little earth-born people who were called Pygmies. This Giant and these Pygmies, being children of the same Mother Earth, lived together in a very friendly way far off in the middle of hot Africa.

It must have been very curious to behold the Pygmies' little cities with streets two or three feet wide paved with the smallest pebbles and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. If one of the Pygmies grew to the height of six or eight inches he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man and there were so many sandy deserts and high mountains between them and the rest of mankind that n.o.body could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years.