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The Lernean Hydra labor was not to be the hero's only
experience of swamp warfare.
At the Northeast borders of Arcadia there was a marsh near Stymphalus and it was known as
the Stymphalian Lake. There among the dense vegetation and the trees lived some man-eating
birds that looked like chickens. The Stymphalian birds where man-eaters and had beaks of
steel, long pointed nails and used their feathers as arrows. No human was dared to come
close to this lake.
- Have you heard of the Stymphalian birds? asked Eurystheus.
- Who hasn't heart of this man-killers, said Hercules.
- Killing those birds then will be your next labor, said Eurystheus.
Next morning our hero was on his way for his sixth labor. He knew that would not be an
easy task because these birds where protected by the God of war Ares.
As he approached the Stymphalian lake he saw many birds in the sky but the man-eaters
where not to be seeing nowhere. He could not go further into the marsh because the ground
was too swampy to bear his weight and too mucky to wade through. As he stood there
wondering what was going on Goddess Athena appeared to him and asked him what was
bothering him. Hercules explained to the goddess the purpose of his present there. Athena
said to him that the Stymphalian birds where hiding in the trees because they where afraid
of him and she gave Hercules the brazen castanets, which she had received from Hephaestus.
These castanets make the same sound like the Stymphalian birds. Then the goddess
disappeared. |