that period, and they were the
most strange and terrible monsters that had ever been since the world
was made, or that have been seen in after days, or that are likely to be
seen in all time to come. I hardly know what sort of creature or
hobgoblin to call them. They were three sisters and seem to have borne
some distant resemblance to women, but were really a very frightful and
mischievous species of dragon. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine what
hideous beings these three sisters were. Why, instead of locks of hair,
if you can believe men, they had each of them a hundred enormous snakes
growing on their heads, all alive, twisting, wriggling, curling and
thrusting out their venomous tongues, with forked stings at the end! The
teeth of the Gorgons were terribly long tusks, their hands were made of
brass, and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron, were
something as hard and impenetrable. They had wings, too, and exceedingly
splendid ones, I can assure you, for every feather in them was pure,
bright, glittering, burnished gold; and they looked very dazzling, no
doubt, when the Gorgons were flying about in the sunshine.

But when people happened to catch a glimpse of their glittering
brightness, aloft in the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran and
hid themselves as speedily as they could. You will think, perhaps, that
they were afraid of being stung by the serpents that served the Gorgons
instead of hair--or of having their heads bitten off by their ugly
tusks--or of being torn all to pieces by their brazen claws. Well, to be
sure, these were some of the dangers, but by no means the greatest nor
the most difficult to avoid. For the worst thing about these abominable
Gorgons was that if once a poor mortal fixed his eyes full upon one of
their faces, he was certain that very instant to be changed from warm
flesh and blood into cold and lifeless stone!

Thus, as you will easily perceive, it was a very dangerous adventure
that the wicked King Polydectes had contrived for this innocent young
man. Perseus himself, when he had thought over the matter, could not
help seeing that he had very little chance of coming safely through it,
and that he was far more likely to become a stone image than to bring
back the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. For, not to speak of other
difficulties, there was one which it would have puzzled an older man
than Perseus to get over. Not only must he fight with and slay thi