The Hydra

The Monster with Growing Heads

The Lernaean Hydra was a gigantic water serpent that lived in the marshes near Lerna in Greece. It was a child of Typhon and Echidna and was raised by Hera to become an enemy of Heracles. Ancient writers and artists disagreed about exactly how many heads it had. Nine became a popular number later, but some pictures show fewer and some stories give it many more. One of the heads was immortal. Even worse, when Heracles cut off one of the ordinary heads, new ones could grow in its place. It was a monster specifically designed to make the obvious solution a terrible idea.

Fighting the Hydra was Heracles’ second Labour. He forced the creature out of its lair and tried cutting away the heads, but quickly discovered the regrowing problem. His nephew Iolaus came up with the solution. Each time Heracles removed a head, Iolaus burned the open neck with a torch so another could not grow. Hera even sent a giant crab to attack Heracles during the fight, because apparently the many-headed poisonous serpent was not difficult enough already. Heracles crushed the crab, and later stories placed it in the sky as the constellation Cancer. Finally, Heracles buried the Hydra’s immortal head beneath a huge rock.

The Hydra continued causing problems even after it was dead. Heracles dipped his arrows into its poisonous blood, making them incredibly dangerous. Those arrows later appear in several stories and eventually contribute to Heracles’ own death. King Eurystheus also refused to count the Hydra Labour because Iolaus had helped, which is one reason Heracles ended up completing twelve tasks instead of the original ten. I think Eurystheus completely missed the point. The Hydra is memorable precisely because teamwork solves something brute strength cannot. Lerna was a real watery place with springs and marshes, so a monster that keeps growing back fits it brilliantly. Even today we use ‘Hydra’ for things that seem to multiply when one part is removed. Heracles discovered that lesson the hard way.

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