Olympian Week, Day 2!

Are you having fun with our Olympian Scavenger Hunt?  Remember, there is a hidden item related to each labor that Hercules had to complete!

The Erymanthian Boar

By the time his fourth task came, it seems that Hercules was in the mood to have some fun.  Cruel King Eurystheus ordered him to capture a wild boar that was terrorizing the countryside near Mount Erymanthus.  On his way to the mountain, Hercules stopped off for a party with some friendly centaurs, the half-men, half-horse creatures of legend.  After leaving the centaurs, Hercules made quick work of the Erymanthian boar, but decided that he’d take it back to King Eurystheus as a kind of ancient Greek gag gift.  Upon seeing the menacing boar, Eurystheus ran away and hid himself in a giant storage jar!  For all his cruelty, he was a coward king.

The Augean Stables

Hercules’ fifth task was one of his least pleasant experiences.  He was tasked with cleaning the stables of a neighboring king named Augeias.  King Augeias owned thousands and thousands of cattle and kept them in giant stables, which he had not bothered to have cleaned for many years.  As you can imagine, the stables were filthy, piled high with dirt and manure.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, Hercules was ordered to clean all of the stables in one day!  Fortunately, Hercules was more than simply the strongest man on earth; he was also very clever.  Using his muscle and his mind, he blocked off two rivers with boulders so that their waters would flow directly through the stables, washing away the accumulated filth in a matter of minutes.  No one could believe that Hercules was able to accomplish such a monumental task, and his labors continued.

The Stymphalian Birds

For his sixth task, Hercules was sent to Stymphalus to deal with a flock of birds that were terrorizing the locals.  When he arrived, he found an ancient Greek predecessor to the famous Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds.  The Stymphalian birds attacked and ate every human they came across, shredding them with beaks and talons of iron and beating them with metal wings.  There were so many of them that the sky would go dark when they took to the air.  Hercules startled them with a loud rattle given to him by Hephaestus, god of the forge, then shot many of them down with his arrows as they tried to fly away.  King Eurystheus realized that he would have to find far more dangerous tasks if he wanted to bring down a hero like Hercules.