The reapers are the goddesses of fate.
They are three spinners who embody birth, marriage and death.
They wrote the fate of men on the walls of a huge bronze wall. And no one could erase what they wrote.
They were called Clothus, Lachesis, and Atropes.
All three of them were spinning. Then they cut the thread measuring the length of life with a scissors. That court fixed the time of death.
They spun white wool and intermingled gold threads and black wool threads.
Gold threads would mean the blissful moments in people's lives. And black wool would mean sad periods.
They were beautiful girls endowed with eternal youth. They spent the day singing melodic songs in chorus.
Many say that the muses were daughters of Zeus, but others do not match and attribute their fatherhood to other gods.
In the palace of Olympus there were nine muses who sang in the banquet hall to delight the gods. The gods stopped eating and kept silent in enchanted order to hear them.
They are thought to have prophetic virtues. That means they could guess the future.
It was also believed that they had the capacity to inspire all kinds of poetry and would be protective of all forms of art.
They are not spoken of individually, but are always grouped together forming the group of Las Muses.
They wore ethereal tunics and wore little flower crowns over their hair.
They are beautiful young men endowed with eternal youth. So they never got old.
They loved dance and music.
The nymphs are believed to be the daughters of Zeus, the supreme god of Olympus.
They are given different names depending on where they live.
If they live on the mountain they are called Oreades.
Náyades if they live in the rivers.
agronomists if they live in the countryside.
Nereids if they live in the sea.
Alseides to plants and flowers.
Hamadriades to those who live in the woods.
To those who take care of herds of sheep, Epimelides.
And so many more names according to each place.
If any mortal wanted to bathe in a river or cut down a tree, he first had to offer a sacrifice to the Nymphs or ask their permission.
Pegasus was a large winged white steed, who lived on a mountain inhabited by the nine muses. There was a fountain that Pegasus opened with a strong blow with his paw upon the earth.
The Centaurs were monstrous beings. Mix of man and horse. The torso was male and the waist down were like a horse. So they had six limbs. Two arms and four legs. But there are also depictions of the Centaurs as men standing and that from the bottom there is a half horse.
According to legends they lived in the woods and in the mountains. It is not known whether they were sons of Ixion and Nefele or Apollo and Stylbe.
The Centaurs are spoken of as if they were a group, a tribe or a people. The females of the Centaurs were called Centaures.
They had brutal habits like eating raw meat and getting drunk. They got drunk very easily because they didn't usually drink wine.
The Gorgona or Medusa, was a horrible being ravaged the region.
She had been a beauty, proud of her hair. But she dared to compare her beauty with that of the goddess Athena, then the goddess punished her by changing her beautiful blond loops for snakes.
The Medusa Drawing by Mirta Croxatto He then became a creepy being. Everyone who looked at it was automatically turned to stone.
He lived near a cave and around you could see the figures of men turned into a stone statue because they wanted to look at it.
Legend has it that Perseus annihilated her. He was helped by the goddess Athena who lent him his shield, and by Hermes who gave him his winged sandals. That's how he approached his cave, looking at it through the image reflected on the shield, he could approach when he slept and cut off his head. Then he gave the head to the goddess Athena.
The city of Thebes was alarmed by a fearsome being called The Sphinx.
He was a terrible monster that ravaged a road and no one dared to pass.
The lower part of his body was like a lion, with four legs and a lion's tail and at the top had a woman's head and chest. Wings came out like an eagle.
The Sphinx Drawing by Mirta Croxatto
Every time someone tried to cross the road, the Sphinx would appear behind a rock and offer them a riddle. The one who did not give the right answer was thrown to the precipice.
So far no one has been able to solve it.
Legend has it that Oedipus, who was very brave, encouraged himself to pass.
The Sphinx appeared and asked him, “What is the animal that walks on all fours in the morning, at noon in two and at night in three?”
Oedipus answered him, “It is the Man. In his childhood he walks on all fours, in adulthood, stands upright and in old age he helps with a cane.
The Sphinx felt so hurt in her self-love that in her anguish she threw herself to the precipice and died.
The Sirens were sea divinities.
It has a woman's head and chest and the rest of the body in the shape of a bird.
They were possessed of a lovely voice. So much that they dared to compete with the muses. But the muses won the contest and ripped off their feathers.
Then they settled on the coast of Sicily, on some rocks.
When a ship passed by, they sang and attracted the sailors, who subjugated by the sweet melody, were hypnotized, crashing the ships into the rocks.
He was a monstrous dog with three heads. He was the guardian of the Tartar. (see Mythological Places).
The Can Cerbero guarding the entrance to the Tatar Drawing by Mirta Croxatto
He liked to howl at the moon, especially if there was a full moon.
He ate corpse meat.
He waited at the gates of Tartarus, that some deceased would want to pass without paying a ticket, and devoured him.
He was a monster with a bull's head and a man's body, wreaking havoc on the island of Crete.
He was the son of Pasiphae, wife of King Minos and the bull of Crete
King Minos locked him in a maze and eventually Theseus killed him.
Jorge Luis Borges in his story The House of Asterion shows us a new facet of this monster.
They are deities of forests and mountains.
They are also known as Silenos. Some say they're half men, half male goats, others that were half men and half horses. In all cases they have a long tail like horses.
The Satyrs belonged to the courtship of Dionysius. They participated in all their parties dancing and drinking until they got drunk.
The Nymphs were on continuous alert to escape from them, as they persecuted them as they were never sexually satisfied enough.
Pygmies were a village of tiny men. They were called that, because of a Greek word that means elbow or measure of thirteen inches. Each inch is about 2.5 centimeters. And it is said that that was the height of those men.
Some say they lived near the Nile and others say they lived in India.
Homer tells in his stories that the cranes migrated during the winter to the country of the Pygmies and that they were braided in a fierce struggle with these small inhabitants, who had to arm themselves to defend the wheat plantations of those voracious visitors.
The Griffins were fabulous animals. With wings and eagle beak and lion body.
The Griffins could find gold in the mountains, and as birds built their nests with threads of precious metal. Instead of eggs they lay agate.
They lived in the country of the Hyperboreans. They had long claws and the foot was so large that many inhabitants of the country made drinking glasses with it.
Many hunters encouraged themselves to go in search of the tempting golden nests, but the Griffins knew how to keep away thieves and gold looters thanks to their instinct.
Scyla was a fantastic monster with twelve legs and six heads from whose mouths pointed sharp fangs. He barked day and night like a rabid dog.
He lived in a cave, hidden in a very high rock next to a strait that ships had to cross to reach the sea.
He devoured as much animal as he could approach, and every time a ship passed through the place a banquet was made, as each of its heads could swallow a sailor.
In front of the rock that served as the dwelling of Scyla, there was another high rock at whose foot grew a leafy tree. Among its roots, there was a cave and there lived Caribdis, another terrible monster.
Caribdis absorbed the sea water three times a day, making it penetrate into his cave. Then he would return him back to the sea, but everything that penetrated the cave, Caribdis would tear him to pieces.