Hercules was a great hero who had been given twelve difficult tasks to perform by his cousin, the king. He came with his bow and a quiver full of arrows, and wearing a great lion-skin to search for the golden apples from the garden of Hesperides, which was guarded by a hundred-headed dragon. Fifty heads were always awake and watching.
While searching for the garden, he came upon a group of women making garlands on the banks of a river; he asked them the way. They were amazed and asked him, “Haven’t you heard of the hundred-headed dragon?”
Hercules told them about the various feats he had already performed. As a baby, he had strangled two serpents to death. As a boy, he had killed a lion and it was the skin of that lion he wore now. He had killed the nine-headed hydra, and chased a stag and caught it alive by its antlers. He had fought against centaurs who were half-men and half-horses! He had cleaned the Augean stables by diverting the course of a river and had shot down monstrous birds. He had taken a bull alive and spared his life and tamed wild horses. He had conquered Hippolyta, the Queen of the ferocious tribe of Amazons. He had even fought against Geryon, the six-legged giant and defeated him.
Hearing about his heroic deeds, the women told him to go to the seashore and ask the Old Man of the Sea to tell him the way. “But hold him fast till he tells you!” they warned him.
When Hercules reached the seashore, he found an old man sleeping on a green patch on a cliff. He had a greenish beard, and his hands and feet were webbed like a duck’s and he had fish-like scale on his arms and legs. Hercules had grabbed him and held him hard before he awoke.
The old man kept changing shape, becoming a stag, a bird, a three-headed dog and a serpent, but Hercules held on! Finally, the old man told Hercules that he (Hercules) must reach the giant, Atlas, who held up the sky. He would get him the apples.
Atlas asked Hercules to hold the sky while he fetched the apples; when Atlas returned, Hercules didn’t want to hold the sky again. Hercules tricked him saying he had to adjust the lion-skin. When Atlas held the sky, Hercules thanked him and ran away with the three golden apples.
