| In the Japanese version of the game the hydra spews green blood when a head is cut off, similar to the movie. However in the American version it is replaced with purple smoke.
About that Hydra. In Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra (Greek: ? ) was an ancient nameless serpent-like chthonic water beast that possessed numerous heads? the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint? and poisonous breath (Hyginus, 30). The Hydra of Lerna was killed by Hercules as one of his Twelve Labours. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, though archaeology has borne out the myth that the sacred site was older even than the Mycenaean city of Argos, for Lerna was the site of the myth of the Danaids. Beneath the waters was an entrance to the Underworld, and the Hydra was its guardian (Kerenyi 1959, p. 143).
The Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna (Theogony, 313), noisome offspring of the earth goddess, Gaia. It was said to be the sibling of the Nemean Lion, the Chimaera and Cerberus.
The Second Labour of Heracles
Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes and fired flaming arrows into its lair, the spring of Amymone, to draw it out. He then confronted it, wielding a harvesting sickle in some early vase-paintings; Ruck and Staples (p. 170) have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero, Hercules.
The details of the confrontation are explicit in Apollodorus (2.5.2): realising that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Hercules called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a burning firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after decapitation, and handed him the blazing brand. Hercules cut off each head and Iolaus burned the open stump leaving the hydra dead; its one immortal head Hercules placed under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius (Kerenyi1959 p 144), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete. The alternative to this is that after cutting off one head he dipped his sword in it and used its venom to burn each head so it couldn't grow back.
Hercules later used an arrow dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus's tainted blood applied to the Tunic of Nessus.
Continuing with Pegasus:
In his later life, Pegasus took a mate, Euippe (or Ocyrrhoe), and had two children Celeris and Melanippe. This family is the origin of the winged horses. Celeris is associated with the constellation Equuleus.
Pegasus was not immortal. Because of his faithful service Zeus honoured him with a constellation.[2] On the last day of his life, when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to the earth near the city of Tarsus.
In modern terminology, the word "pegasus" (plural "pegasi") has come to refer to any winged horse, though the term "pterippus" (meaning winged horse, plural "pterippi") is also used. Pegasus is also the symbol of the Mobil brand of gas and oil, marketed by the Exxon Mobil Corporation. As such, it has also been a symbol of Dallas, Texas, gracing its skyline atop the Magnolia building, since the 1930s.
During WW2, the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus, was adopted by the United Kingdom's newly-raised parachute troops in 1941 as their upper sleeve insignia. The image clearly symbolized a warrior arriving at a battle by air, the same tactics used by paratroopers. The square upper-sleeve insignia comprised Bellerophon/Pegasus in light blue on a maroon background. The insignia was designed by famous English novelist Daphne Du Maurier, who was married to the commander of the British parachute forces (and later the expanded British Airborne Forces), General Frederick "Boy" Browning. The maroon background on the insignia was later used again by the Airborne Forces when they adopted the famous maroon beret in Summer 1942. The beret was the origin of the German nicknam |
