After the first feat, Eurystheus sent Hercules to kill the Lernaean hydra. It was a monster with the body of a snake and nine heads of a dragon. Like the Nemean lion, the hydra was generated by Typhon and Echidna. The hydra lived in a swamp near the city of Lerna and, crawling out of its lair, destroyed entire herds and devastated the entire surrounding area. The fight with the nine-headed hydra was dangerous because one of its heads was immortal. Hercules set off on the journey to Lerna with Iphicles’ son Iolaus. Arriving at a swamp near the city of Lerna, Hercules left Iolaus with his chariot in a nearby grove, and he himself went to look for the hydra. He found her in a cave surrounded by a swamp. Having heated his arrows red-hot, Hercules began to shoot them one after another into the hydra. The arrows of Hercules enraged the Hydra. She crawled out, wriggling a body covered with shiny scales, from the darkness of the cave, rose menacingly on her huge tail and was about to rush at the hero, but the son of Zeus stepped on her torso with his foot and pressed her to the ground. The hydra wrapped its tail around the legs of Hercules and tried to knock him down. Like an unshakable rock, the hero stood and, with swings of a heavy club, knocked off the heads of the hydra one after another. The club whistled in the air like a whirlwind; The hydra's heads flew off, but the hydra was still alive. Then Hercules noticed that in the hydra, in place of each knocked-down head, two new ones grew. Help for the hydra also appeared. A monstrous cancer crawled out of the swamp and dug its pincers into Hercules’ leg. Then the hero called his friend Iolaus for help. Iolaus killed the monstrous cancer, set fire to part of the nearby grove and, with burning tree trunks, burned the hydra's necks, from which Hercules knocked off the heads with his club. The hydra has stopped growing new heads. She resisted the son of Zeus weaker and weaker. Finally, the immortal head flew off the hydra. The monstrous hydra was defeated and fell dead to the ground. The victor Hercules buried her immortal head deeply and piled a huge rock on it so that it could not come out into the light again. Then the great hero cut open the body of the hydra and plunged his arrows into its poisonous bile. Since then, the wounds from Hercules' arrows have become incurable. Hercules returned to Tiryns with great triumph. But there a new assignment from Eurystheus was waiting for him.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru