Daily Deity #61 Twelve Labors: Cattle of Geryon

Hercules gets no rest after he returns from his battle with the Amazons to get the late Queen Hippolyta's girdle. Eurystheus decides that the hero must go and get the cattle of Geryon and bring them back to him.

There are just a handful of issues with this. One, Geryon is a giant with three bodies, and was widely considered to be the strongest thing alive (which, to my knowledge, Hercules did not contest.) On top of that, the cattle were guarded by Eurytion, just an average old demigod child of Ares, and the two-headed dog Orthus, who was one of the many monstrous spawn of Echinda and Typhon.

Oh, and not to mention, that the location of Geryon's very special herd of red cattle were located on Erytheia, which was an island way, way, way west of the rest of Greece.

Hercules heads out quick after getting assigned the task. The reason is because the island was so far away from everything else that it was going to take Hercules an incredible long time to get to the location, not to mention whatever the he had to deal with when he got there.

This journey to Erytheia actually takes Hercules across the Libyan desert. As Hercules is walking across he gets so angry at the heat and constant sunlight that he nocks an arrow and looses it at the sun. Helios, the sun god (well, one of the sun gods) sees this and is very impressed at the hero. He then gifts Hercules with a vessel of some kind. It may have been a boat or a bowl or cup, just something that Hercules was able to travel in to the island where Geryon lived.

Once at the island, Orthus comes running to defend the herd. Hercules, totally done and annoyed with this, gives the double-headed dog one quick crack with his club and no more Orthus. Eurytion then comes to help Orthus, but arrives too late, and also is whacked on the head by Hercules and taken out in a matter of seconds.

The confrontation between him and Geryon doesn't take too long either. Even though Geryon was super strong and did put up a very good fight, Hercules was armed with some serious Hydra-grade poisoned arrows and super strength. The demigod gets one good shot, right through the three bodies, and takes out Geryon.

So... now Hercules has a bunch of cows.

Actually, Hercules is pretty lucky this time. These are just cows... that are red. That's it. They act like cows. Just eat and moo and eat and moo and do what cows do. However, he isn't that lucky. As he is heading back with the cattle he takes a rest and as he sleeps someone sneaks into the spot where he was keeping the herd and stole some.

This thief happens to be a giant called Cacus. Now Cacus is a really smart guy. When he dragged the cattle away he dragged them by their tails so that their hoof prints would be facing the opposite direction of where they were actually being taken. The trick worked and Hercules was very confused when he woke up. Hercules did figure out just what in the Underworld was going on and bopped Cacus around for a bit and got his cows back.

His trials and tribulations on this labor aren't done yet!

After all this, Hera sends down a gadfly to bite and annoy the cows to the point that they all run away. Hercules then has to travel all around and round up all the cattle once again and drive them to Eurystheus.

Once Eurystheus has the herd he sacrifices them to Hera.

Can't imagine that Hercules was too pleased about that.