Hippocampus

The Hippocampus was a sea-horse.

It had the head and two front legs of a horse,

and the tail and body of a snake or a fish.

There were many Hippocampi.

Their job was to pull the chariot of Poseidon,

the Greek god of the sea,

who was also the god of horses.

Centaurs

Centaurs were half-man half-horse.

Their upper half was human and their lower half was of a horse.

This means that they had one head, two arms and four legs!

Centaurs were usually loud and not very polite.

However, one Centaur named Chiron was very intelligent.

He trained many of the Greek heroes,

including Achilles and Jason of the Argonauts.

Cerberus

Cerberus was a giant, scary dog, with three heads!

Cerberus guarded the gates of the world of the dead,

which was under the ground.

Cerberus didn’t let any dead soul

walk out of the world of the dead.

However,

when a human soul came to the gates,

and it wasn’t its time to die yet,

Cerberus would not let her in!

Scylla and Charybdis

Scylla and Charybdis were two terrible sea monsters.

Scylla had twelve long arms and six dog-like heads.

Each dog-head had three rows of sharp teeth.

Charybdis was a giant whirlpool.

These monsters sat in front of each other,

one on each side of a narrow sea passage, called a strait.

Ships that passed through the narrow strait

had to either pass by Scylla or by Charybdis.

When a ship sailed too close to Scylla,

it would attack the ship and eat the sailors alive.

But when a ship sailed too close to Charybdis,

it pulled the ship and the sailors down to the bottom of the sea.

The Chimera

The Chimera was a giant monster with three heads.

It’s body had parts of many animals,

including a goat, a lion and a dragon.

The Chimera lived in a place called Anatolia, today’s Turkey.

It was very strong, moved very fast,

and could breathe out burning fire.

The Griffin

The Griffin was part lion-part eagle.

It had the body of a lion and the head,

wings, and talons of an eagle.

Griffins were said to live in northern Greece,

where they guarded a huge treasure of gold.

The Harpies

A Harpy had a woman’s face and a body of a bird.

Most of the times the Harpies had ugly faces.

The Harpies flew as fast as the wind,

and made people very frustrated.

For example, just when someone sat down at the table to eat,

the Harpies suddenly came flying down from the sky,

and took his food away!

Sometimes, the Harpies even took away people!

The Hydra

The Hydra was a gigantic water snake that lived in a swamp.

Some say it looked more like a dragon than a snake.

The Hydra was nearly impossible to kill,

because it had nine heads!

Even if you managed to cut one of its heads off,

two new heads grew instead!

The Sphinx

The Sphinx had the body of a lion,

the head of a woman,

and the wings of an eagle.

In one famous story,

the Sphinx terrified the Greek city of Thebes,

killing all those who could not solve its riddle.

Finally, a young man named Oedipus

solved the Sphinx’s riddle,

and the city was saved.

The Minotaur

The Minotaur lived on the island of Crete.

It had the head of bull and the body of a man.

The Minotaur was named after Minos, the king of Crete.

It lived underground in a maze called a Labyrinth.

Each year, the Greek city of Athens,

who lost in the war with Crete,

had to send seven boys and seven girls

as a sacrifice to the Minotaur.