Talk:Lernaean Hydra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since January 2007. |
 |
WikiProject Echo has identified Lernaean Hydra as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Chinese language Wikipedia. |
Whose versions are being followed in this entry? Wetman 00:27, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- What do you mean? ··gracefool |☺ 01:16, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Exactly how is the sentence "In an alternate version, Hera sent a crab to bite his feet and bother him, hoping to cause his death" relevant? It doesn't seem to match the rest of the article. - Mike Rosoft 20:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
- Okay, I have found out. But the sentence needs to be moved (and perhaps rewritten) since it doesn't make sense in its current place. - Mike Rosoft 21:03, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I removed this text: Mythology about fighting giant snakes, and snake-like animals, that are invincible, appear to be a general archetype in reference to a solid extensive battle line with an indefatigable opposing army, (e.g. the Lambton worm represents the mediaeval Scottish army's raids into England). Since Lerna is in the direction of Sparta, the most war-like of all nations, tales of Sparta's might (from the point of view of a victim) may have formed such a snake myth, making the choice of the location for the story.
Though a chthonic supernatural serpent is indeed an archtype, the Lernaean Hydra is a great deal older than the founding of Sparta. It is a pre-Olympic death creature that Heracles overcomes. For similar approaches to explaining myth from human experiences, a late rationalization, see Euhemerus. --Wetman 02:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Swamp thing
I read somewhere that it was a mythologization of the desecation of the swamp, the "upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back" meaning that after a canal was dug to dry a parcel, water flowed from elsewhere.
