and dread, she herself retains some portion of her parents' beauty. CHAP.
Like the French Melusina, from the waist upwards she is a beautiful ^'
maiden,^ the rest of her body being that of a huge snake. Her
abode, according to Hesiod, is among the Arimoi, where Typhoeus
slumbers, or according to Herodotos, far away in the icy Scythia.
Among her children, of some of whom Typhaon, " the terrible and
wanton wind," is the father, are the dogs Orthros and Kerberos, the
Lernaian Hydra, the Chimaira, and the deadly Phix or Sphinx which
brings drought and plague on Thebes. But whether in Hesiod,
Apollodoros, or Herodotos, the story of Echidna is interwined with
chat of Geryones, who like herself is not only a child of Chrysaor
and Kallirhoe, but a monster, who has the bodies of three men
united at the waist. This being lived in Er}'theia, the red land,
which, in some versions, was on the coast of Epeiros, in others, near
Gadeira or Gades beyond the Pillars of Herakles. In either case, he
abode in the western regions, and there kept his herds of red oxen.
In other words, the myth of Gerj'ones exhibits a fiery and stormy sun-
set, in which the red or purple oxen are the flaming clouds which
gather in the western horizon. These herds are guarded by the
shepherd Eurytion and the two-headed dog Orthros, the offspring
of Echidna and Typhon. These herds Herakles is charged to bring
to Eurystheus, and accordingly he journeys westward, receiving from
Helios the golden cup in which HeUos himself journeys every night
from the west to the east. Having slain Orthros and Eurytion,
Herakles has a final struggle with Geryones, in which he wins a
victory answering to that of Indra over Vritra; and placing the
purple oxen in the golden cup he conveys them across the Ocean
stream, and begins his journey westward.^ The stories of Alebion
and Derkynos, and again of Eryx, as noted by Apollodoros,^ are only
fresh versions of the myth of the Panis, while the final incident of the
gadfly sent by Here to scatter the herds reproduces the legend of
the same gadfly as sent to torment the heifer 16. The myth as related
by Herodotos has a greater interest, although he starts with speaking
of o:«en and ends with a story of stolen horses. Here the events
occur in the wintry Scythian land, where Herakles coming himself
with his lionskin goes to sleep, and his horses straying away are
caught by Echidna and imprisoned in her cave. Thither Herakles
comes in search of them, and her reply to his question is that the
animals cannot be restored to him until he should have sojourned
with her for a time. Herakles must fare as Odysseus fared in the
palace of Kirke and the cave of Kalypso ; and Echidna becomes
- Hes. Theog. 297. * Max Muller, Chips, ii. 1S4. ' ii. 5, 10.
