Page 11 stymphalian birds-SFTLOH Travel Guide

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ERASMUS+ KA2
Searching for the Labours of Hercules
2014-1-TR01-KA201-012990
Hungary – Slay the Stymphalian Birds
You can see on old vases how
Hercules attacked the birds
waving his slingshot or he is
struggling with them using his club
although his most important
weapon was bow and arrows
against the birds. Hercules took
the carcass of the birds to
Mycenae as a prove the
completion of this labour.
The travel writer, Pausanias, trying
to discover what kind of birds they
might have been, wrote that
during his time a type of bird from
the Arabian desert was called
„Stymphalian”, describing them as
equal to lions or leopards in their
fierceness. He speculated that the
birds Hercules encountered in the
legend were similar to these
Arabian birds.
„These fly against those who
come to hunt them, wounding and
killing them with their beaks. All
armor of bronze or iron that men
wear is pierced by the birds; but if
they weave a garment of thick
cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian
birds are caught in the cork
garment... These birds are of the
size of a crane, and are like the
ibis, but their beaks are more
powerful, and not crooked like
that of the ibis.”
(Pausanias)
Stymphalian lake is located next to
Stymphal in north-east of Arcadia.
It is surrounded by dense forests
and covered in reed.
Uncountably lot birds was
dwelling there. When they set to
fly, they darkened the sky. These
multitude of birds could not be
subdued by force because of their
great number.
Another labour of Hercules was to
attack and chase away again
something deathly. When all birds
of Stymphalian Lake set to fly,
they darkened the sky just like
countless souls arriving at swampy
Acheron at the border of
Underworld. On the west where
Helios sets starts the empire of
the dead. Statues of bird legged
virgins were standing here and
these man eating birds were
thought to have been deathly
sirens of the swamp.
Their feathers and beaks were of
hard metal therefore the person
they fell got injured. It is hopeless
to fight them as when someone
shot an arrow on them, they
dropped thousands of sharp
feathers on him.
So climbing a tree in the
forest of Stymphalos,
Hercules clashed a bronze
krotala loudly, scaring the
birds out of the trees,
then shot them with bow
and arrow when they
were circling around him.
Those that survived had
been frightened so badly
that they flew away and
never troubled Lake
Stymphalia again.