Tuesday 3 May 2011

Heracles vs the Lernaen Hydra

In the swamps of Lerna, during the age of heroes, there lived a great and poisonous serpent, a monstrous offspring of the union of Typhon and Echidna. The destruction of this beast, called the Lernaen Hydra,  became the second Labor of the greatest of all Greek Heroes, Heracles. Every time the Glory of Hera knocked off a head of this creature, two more grew to take its place. It was not until his nephew, Iolaus, had the idea to cauterize the stumps that the son of Zeus was able to vanquish his foe.



Believe it or not, today's topic was not chosen by me, but rather by the lovely Natalie, whose drawing is elsewhere on this page.  For this piece, I recycled my own designs for both the Hydra and Heracles from my upcoming book Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory (coming out in July!) but the drawing is all new-- took me about a half hour, from pencils to scan. Consider it a preview.

Follow george_oconnor_ on Twitter

6 comments:

  1. Who knew Hercules visited Arrakis...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah and Simon, I had to look up both of your references, you big nerds. And it turns out I even knew who the Fomori were, so I'm a big nerd too. Unless the Fomoeri are something from Dr Who, and not just a race of mythological creatures from Ireland, in which case, Simon, you are a big nerd and I'm just awesome sauce.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow that hydra is terrifying. Would love to see this one up close

    ReplyDelete
  4. I didn't know Herc was in a 1990 movie directed by Ron Underwood!

    ReplyDelete