13 of the strangest stories from Greek mythology

The birth of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, courage, and warfare, is an unusual story. 

Unlike most gods and goddesses, Athena’s birth did not happen in the usual way. 

She appeared fully grown and wore armour as she emerged from the forehead of her father, Zeus, the king of the gods. 

The story starts with Zeus and his first wife, Metis, the Titan goddess of wisdom and careful thought. 

When Metis became pregnant, a prediction said that the child she carried would grow up to replace Zeus, just as he had replaced his own father, Cronus. 

Worried about this prediction, he swallowed Metis whole, hoping to stop it. 

However, this did not stop Athena’s birth. It only delayed it. 

Eventually, he began to have unbearable headaches, and the pain was so bad that he called for Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths and crafts, to split open his head with an axe. 

When Hephaestus did so, she came out of his forehead fully grown and dressed in armour. Her eyes shone with wisdom and strength. 

Thunder boomed when she was born, shaking the earth and sea. 

Prometheus was different from other Titans. He was known for his wisdom and had a deep care for humans, which set him apart from most gods and Titans. 

Because he cared about humans, he did something bold: he stole fire from the gods and gave it to people. 

In this story, fire was more than just a useful tool. It stood for knowledge, progress, and civilisation. 

By giving fire to humans, he not only gave them a way to survive but also helped them move towards learning and development. 

Despite his good intentions, his act of rebellion did not go unpunished. Zeus, angry at this bold action and the possible threat an enlightened humanity could pose, planned a harsh and never-ending punishment. 

He was chained to a rock in the remote Caucasus Mountains, and every day an eagle, symbol of Zeus, flew down and ate his liver. 

Each night, his liver grew back, only to be eaten again the next day. This cycle of suffering was his fate forever. 

Many years later, Hercules freed him from his suffering by killing the eagle and breaking the chains. 

Arachne was a mortal woman famous for her outstanding weaving talent. She was not just good; she was the best, her skill unmatched by anyone else. 

Her tapestries were so beautiful and her method so perfect that the nymphs themselves would leave their groves and streams to watch her work. 

Despite her talent, her great skill came with great pride. 

She was so sure of her ability that she dared to challenge Athena, the goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest. 

Disguised as an old woman, Athena told her not to be so arrogant and to respect the gods. 

She ignored the warning and said she could make a tapestry more beautiful than anything Athena could make. 

Athena then showed her true form, and the contest began. Both weavers made stunning tapestries, but while Athena’s showed the glory of the gods, her tapestry showed their wrongdoings, including Zeus’s many affairs. 

Athena was furious, not only because she challenged her but also because the tapestry revealed truths about the gods. 

In anger, Athena destroyed the tapestry and loom. She hung herself in shame and sorrow. Athena felt pity and regret, and she decided to save her from death but gave her a different fate. 

She changed her into a spider, doomed to weave forever. 

Narcissus was a young man of such beauty that both men and women were completely taken by him. 

However, he did not care about the love of others. He rejected everyone who loved him. 

One day, when he was hunting, he stopped to drink from a clear pool of water. 

As he leaned over, he saw his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it. 

Because he did not realise it was only an image, he tried to hold it, kiss it, and talk to it, but could not. 

After that, he stopped eating and drinking and slowly wasted away as he stared at the image he could not have. 

Eventually, he died by the pool, taken by his self-obsession. Where he died, a flower grew, which was named Narcissus in his memory. 

Some versions of the story say that the gods turned him into the flower as a reminder of what happened. 

The Labours of Hercules, also known as the Twelve Labours, are among the most well-known stories in Greek mythology. 

They tell the tale of Hercules, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, whom Hera, Zeus’s wife, drove mad so that he killed his own wife and children. 

As punishment for his actions, Hercules was given a series of tasks by King Eurystheus. Hera guided Eurystheus to create tasks that would either kill him or be impossible to complete. 

The tasks included killing dangerous animals like the Nemean Lion and the nine-headed Hydra, and capturing mythical creatures like the Golden Hind of Artemis and the Erymanthian Boar. 

Hercules was also given the job of cleaning the Augean stables in one day, stealing the belt of Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, and even capturing Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to the Underworld. 

Each of these tasks was full of danger and needed great physical strength, clever thinking and courage, and he even received help from some gods who gave him magical tools. 

Hercules often had to find special ways to complete his tasks; for example, he used the river to clean the Augean stables or he offered a golden apple to distract the dragon that guarded the Hesperides' garden. 

As a result of his efforts, Hercules was able to beat the challenges and finish his tasks, showing his bravery and earning a chance to make up for his actions. 

King Midas was a wealthy ruler who loved gold. 

One day, he showed kindness to Silenus, a satyr and friend of Dionysus, the god of wine and celebration. 

Because of Midas’s kindness, Dionysus offered to grant him a single wish. He felt overwhelmed by his desire for wealth and asked that everything he touched would turn to gold. 

Although Dionysus did not want to, he agreed to grant Midas’s wish, and at first, he was thrilled. He touched everything around him, and he watched as it turned to gold. Soon after, he recognized the problem with his golden touch. 

When he tried to eat, his food turned to gold, and similarly, when he tried to drink, his water also turned to gold. 

Next, even his dear daughter became a gold statue when he hugged her. 

Feeling unhappy and upset, Midas begged Dionysus to take back his gift. At that moment, Dionysus felt sorry for him and agreed to remove the curse. 

He told Midas to wash in the river Pactolus to lose his golden touch. He did as he was told, and he was relieved to find that his touch was normal again. 

Later, this river became famous for its golden sands, which people thought to be a gift from the gods. 

Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a skilled craftsman and inventor. They were both locked up in a maze on the island of Crete by King Minos. 

The maze was a complicated network of passages that Daedalus had made to keep the Minotaur, a monster with a man’s body and a bull’s head. 

Daedalus was trapped and eager to escape, so he came up with a plan and made two pairs of wings out of feathers and wax, one for himself and one for Icarus. 

Before they flew, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sea, because the wet wings would fail, and not too close to the sun, because the heat would melt the wax. 

Despite his father’s advice, Icarus felt excited by flying and flew higher and higher toward the sun. 

Tragically, his choice proved fatal. The sun melted the wax in his wings, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. 

The story of Icarus’s flight shows human ambition and the tragic result of ignoring good advice. 

Oedipus was the son of Laius, the king of Thebes, and his wife, Jocasta. Before he was born, an oracle said that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. 

Horrified by this warning, Laius and Jocasta decided to kill their newborn son. They told a servant to leave the baby on a mountain to die. 

However, the servant felt pity for the baby and gave him to a shepherd from nearby Corinth. 

Then, the shepherd gave the baby to the childless king and queen of Corinth, who raised him as their own. 

He did not know his true parents. He grew up in Corinth. As a young man, he visited an oracle and heard the same warning his real parents had heard. 

He believed that his adoptive parents were his birth parents, and he left Corinth to avoid making the warning come true. 

During his journey, he met Laius, his real father, and killed him in a fight without knowing the man’s identity, which fulfilled the first part of the warning. 

Next, he came to Thebes, which was being troubled by the Sphinx, a creature with a lion’s body and a woman’s head. 

The Sphinx offered a riddle and said she would leave Thebes if he could answer it. 

He answered the riddle correctly. The Sphinx killed herself, and people praised him as a hero. 

As a reward, he was made king of Thebes and given the hand of the widowed queen, Jocasta, his real mother. In this way, the oracle’s warning came true. 

Pandora was made by the gods as part of a punishment for humans because Prometheus, a Titan, had stolen fire from the gods and given it to humans. 

Zeus, the king of the gods, told Hephaestus, the god of making things, to form a woman out of clay. 

Each god gave her a gift, giving her the name Pandora, which means ‘all gifts’. Athena taught her crafts, Aphrodite gave her beauty, Hermes gave her speech, and so on. 

Zeus sent Pandora to Earth as a present for Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother. Despite a warning from Prometheus not to accept any gifts from the gods, he was impressed by her beauty and agreed to marry her. 

She brought a jar (often called a box) that Zeus had given her, telling her never to open it. 

She felt curious and unable to resist, so she finally opened the jar. 

When she lifted the lid, all the bad things in the world (disease, sadness, poverty, war) flew out and spread across the Earth. 

After that, she felt frightened and quickly tried to close the jar, but it was too late. Only Hope stayed inside the jar, ready to comfort people in their troubles. 

Pygmalion was a skilled sculptor from the island of Cyprus who, disappointed by the faults he saw in the women around him, decided to create a statue of the perfect woman. 

He carved her from ivory with such care that she looked almost alive. He named her Galatea, and she was so lovely and lifelike that he fell in love with her. 

He adored her. He dressed her in nice clothes, gave her jewels, and acted as if she were a living woman. 

Despite his deep love for her, he felt troubled because he knew that she was only a statue and could not love him back. 

At the festival of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, he made a heartfelt request. 

He asked Aphrodite for a wife like his statue, and the goddess, moved by his sincere love and wish, decided to fulfil his request. 

When he returned home and kissed her, he was amazed that her lips felt warm, and then the ivory of her skin turned to flesh, her eyes opened, and she became a living woman. 

She returned his love, and they soon married. 

Orpheus was a famous musician whose music could charm wild animals, make trees seem to dance, and even change the path of rivers. 

He was deeply in love with a beautiful nymph named Eurydice. They were happily married, but their happiness did not last long. 

Eurydice was chased by a satyr on their wedding day. As she fled, she stepped on a poisonous snake and died. 

Heartbroken by her death, Orpheus played such sad songs that all the gods and nymphs cried. 

In response to his grief, the gods told him to go to the Underworld and ask Hades, the god of the dead, to bring Eurydice back, so Orpheus held his lyre as he went into the Underworld, and his music moved him and his wife, Persephone. 

Hades agreed to let Eurydice go on one condition: Orpheus must walk ahead of her without looking back until they reached the upper world. 

Orpheus agreed and set off with Eurydice following him. However, in his worry, he looked back at her just as they were about to reach the exit. She was then pulled back into the Underworld forever. 

Sisyphus was the king of Corinth, who was so clever and deceitful that he managed to cheat death twice.

He tricked Thanatos, the god of death, and even captured him, and as a consequence, mortals could not die. 

The gods were angry at this act, and when Sisyphus died at last, they gave him a special punishment. 

In the Underworld, Sisyphus was forced to push a very large boulder up a steep hill. 

Just before he reached the top, the boulder became too heavy and rolled back down. 

Sisyphus then had to start his task all over again. This cycle was his fate for ever, a pointless task with no hope of ending or relief. 

Tantalus was a king whom the gods liked and often invited to eat with them on Mount Olympus. 

However, Tantalus misused this opportunity in several ways. He stole ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink that gave the gods eternal life, to share with his mortal friends. 

He also did a terrible thing by killing his own son, Pelops, and serving him as a meal to the gods to test if they knew everything. 

The gods were shocked by Tantalus's actions. As punishment, they brought Pelops back to life and sent him to Tartarus, the deepest part of the Underworld kept for the most evil. 

There, Tantalus had to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. 

Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches moved it out of his reach. 

Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water moved away before he could reach it, and, ultimately, he was left with an eternal hunger and thirst, always close to food and drink but unable to have any.