PART ONE

_In which a brave young man shows wit as well as courage._

Perseus was a brave young man who lived with the king of Greece. The king decided to send him on some dangerous mission. So he said to him one day: “Perseus, you must find the Gorgons. They are three terrible demon sisters who live in Africa. Their bodies are covered with scales, their hands are like claws, and the worst of all is that they have snakes on their heads instead of hair. Be careful for if you look at them you will be turned to stone. The most dreadful is named Medusa.” Then the king told Perseus to go to Africa and cut off the Medusa’s head.

Perseus lay down to sleep before starting on his journey. When he awoke he found by his bedside a helmet, a shield of polished steel, a scythe-shaped dagger, and a pair of winged sandals. He put the helmet on his head, the shield on his arm, took the dagger in his hand and stepped into the sandals.

At once the sandals took him high up in the air, for they were winged sandals, and flew over land and sea with the one who wore them. After a few hours he found himself descending into a strange country. The sandals let him down on a hot, dusty desert.

Perseus walked all day long and at night came to a little cluster of palm trees, in which he saw a wooden hut. He marched up to the hut very boldly and knocked at the door with his sword. A cracked voice said, “Come in.” Perseus went in and found three old women warming their hands over a fire, though it was already so hot that Perseus could hardly endure it. They were very old and wrinkled.

Perseus saw that one old woman had one eye, and no tooth; that another one had one tooth and no eye; and that the third had neither eye nor tooth. Perseus said, “I have lost my way and wish to stay here for the night.” But the one with the eye looked at him and said, “I hear a voice but see no one.” Then she took out her eye and passed it to the other two sisters in turn, who put it in their eye sockets, but they also said, “No, we see nothing.”

Then Perseus took off his helmet and said, “Perhaps you see me now.” Then the old women looked at him one at a time and saw him. His helmet had made him invisible. Then the old woman asked him to wait while they ate. They passed the eye and the tooth from one to another and each one ate until all had enough. Then they took the eye and the tooth and locked them up in a box and asked Perseus to go to bed.

But Perseus seized the box and said, “Now, you can never see, nor eat again, unless you tell me where the Gorgons live, and where I can find Medusa. I have come to cut off her head.”

The old women cried and stumbled around blind and toothless, but they finally promised to tell Perseus the hiding place of the demon sisters if he would return the eye and the tooth. To-morrow we shall see what happened.

THE ADVENTURES OF PERSEUS