Ekhidna-The-Legend-Of-Yunani

Ekhidna-The-Legend-Of-Yunani
























Ekhidna-The-Legend-Of-Yunani






 
EKHIDNA (or Echidna) was a monstrous she-dragon (drakaina) with the head and breast of a woman. She probably represented or presided over the corruptions of the earth : rot, slime, fetid waters, illness and disease..

She was often equated with Python (the rotting one), a dragon born of the fetid slime left behind by the great Deluge. Others call her the Tartarean lamprey, and assigned her to the dark, swampy pit of Tartaros beneath the earth. Hesiod, makes her a daughter of monstrous sea-gods, and presumably associates her with rotting sea-scum and fetid salt-marshes..

Echidna is best known for being the mother of monsters. There's not a huge library of "Echidna mythology" laying around somewhere where she does a bunch of other things. She is sometimes confused with Python of Greek mythology who guards the Garden of Hesperides, though that role is actually that of her child Ladon..

Like many of history's mothers, Echidna's legacy is destined to be carried on by the children she left behind. She herself was thought to preside over the corruption, rotting, and pestilence of the lower dregs of the earth. Most myths have her residing in Tartarus (Greek mythology), who is both a storm-pit of the underworld and father to Typhon..


The Children of Typhon and Echidna:

There are still debates on which monsters are, in fact, the children of Typhon and Echidna, so I basically went through them all and took the most commonly attributed ones, being:

Cerberus - the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades.
Chimera - Part-lion, part-goat, part-snake - all monster.
Gorgon - the snake-haired and snake-bodied humanoid that was created in its mother's image. Its stare could turn a person to stone. Medusa became one of these creatures in a later myth.
Hydra - the nine-headed serpent who grew two new heads for every one that was cut off.
Ladon (Python) - the snake that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides.
The Nemean Lion - the giant lion with impenetrable hide who becomes the constellation Leo.
Orthros - the two-headed dog that lived with giants.
The Sphinx - the half-human, half-lion that forces those its meet to answer its riddles, or die.


for more information, please visit these webs:
http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakainaEkhidna1.html
http://www.gods-and-monsters.com/echidna-mythology.html