_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.