ing himself
and would have liked nothing better than to see some enormous mischief
happen to Danae and her son. The only good man in this unfortunate
island of Seriphus appears to have been the fisherman. As Perseus
walked along, therefore, the people pointed after him and made mouths,
and winked to one another and ridiculed him as loudly as they dared.

"Ho, ho!" cried they; "Medusa's snakes will sting him soundly!"

Now, there were three Gorgons alive at 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 Poly