First Labor: The Nemean Lion

Hercules arrived in the region of Nemea, and what he saw amazed him. Whole villages stood empty, houses abandoned, fields untended. An old man told him to flee while he still could.

"The Lion devours everyone it finds, stranger. Our weapons are useless against it."

"Where is the beast?" asked Hercules.

"In a cave, up in the mountains. But no one who climbs there comes back alive."

Hercules climbed the mountain. And there it was: the Nemean Lion, as big as a bull, with claws long as swords and teeth that gleamed in the sun. Hercules shot an arrow, and the arrow bounced off the lion's hide as if it had struck stone. He shot another, and another. Every one bounced away.

The lion roared and charged. Hercules dodged at the last second and thought: if weapons would not work, he would use his own hands. When the lion charged again, Hercules seized it by the neck with his divine strength.

The lion thrashed, clawed, and bit. But Hercules would not let go. Minutes passed, and little by little the beast grew weak, then still, until it died. Hercules had beaten the unbeatable with his bare hands.

One problem remained: how could he carry proof back home, when the hide could not be pierced, and not even his knife would cut it? Then Hercules had an idea. He used the lion's own claws to cut the pelt, for they were the only things sharp enough. He wore the skin like a cloak, and the lion's head became his helmet. From that day on, Hercules always wore the pelt of the Nemean Lion, which made him nearly invulnerable.

Second Labor: The Lernaean Hydra

Eurystheus was terrified when Hercules came back alive, wearing, on top of everything, a hide no weapon could pierce.

"Your next labor," the king stammered, "is to slay the Hydra of Lerna."

The Hydra lived in a poisonous swamp. It was a gigantic serpent with nine heads, and every head spat deadly venom. Worse still: when someone cut off one head, two grew back in its place.

Hercules took his nephew Iolaus to help him. They reached the swamp of dark water and heavy air.

"Uncle, look!" cried Iolaus.

The Hydra rose from the water, its nine heads hissing, fangs dripping venom, wicked eyes gleaming in every one of them.

Hercules attacked with his club of hard wood and cut off one head. At once, two new heads grew in its place. He cut off another, and two more sprouted. The more he fought, the more heads the Hydra gained.

"Uncle, this isn't working," shouted Iolaus. "What if we burn the necks before the heads can grow back?"

"Brilliant!" Hercules answered.

Iolaus lit torches. From then on, each time Hercules cut off a head, Iolaus seared the neck at once, and the fire closed the wound before anything new could grow. One by one, the heads fell.

Only the central head remained, which was immortal and could not be killed. Hercules cut it off and buried it beneath an enormous rock. Then he dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood. From that day forward, Hercules' arrows were deadly: a single scratch was enough.

Third Labor: The Ceryneian Hind

"Capture the Ceryneian Hind," ordered Eurystheus. "Alive, and without hurting her."

It sounded like a simple task, for a hind is only a deer. But this was no ordinary hind. She had horns of gold and hooves of bronze, she was sacred to the goddess Artemis, and she ran faster than any arrow.

Hercules chased her over hills, valleys, and mountains. Whenever he drew near, she sprang away faster still. A month passed, then two, then three. Hercules pursued the hind for a whole year, crossing all of Greece to the far lands of the north.

At last, exhausted, he did what he had not wanted to do: he shot an arrow. But his aim was perfect. The arrow passed through the hind's legs between bone and tendon, pinning her without drawing a single drop of blood.

But when Hercules took hold of the hind, the goddess Artemis appeared before him, furious.

"You dare touch my sacred animal?"

"Goddess Artemis," said Hercules respectfully, "forgive me. Eurystheus commanded it. But look: I did not hurt her. Not one drop of blood."

Artemis examined the hind and saw that she was truly unharmed.

"Very well," said the goddess. "You are skilled and respectful. Take her to Eurystheus, but afterward let her go free."

Hercules did just that. He showed the hind to the king, who nearly fainted with fear of her, and then released her in the mountains. In that labor, Hercules learned that strength is not everything: patience and respect win battles too.

Fourth Labor: The Erymanthian Boar

"Capture the Erymanthian Boar," ordered Eurystheus. "Alive."

The boar was gigantic, the size of a bull, with tusks that could run a man through. It terrorized Mount Erymanthus and destroyed the villages around it.

Hercules climbed the snow-covered mountain. He could not simply kill the beast: he had to bring it back alive. So he made a plan. He shouted and made noise until the boar bolted, then drove the chase toward where the snow lay deepest. There the boar sank in and could not move. Hercules bound it with strong chains and carried it on his back, alive and furious, all the way to Tiryns.

When Eurystheus saw Hercules coming with the snarling boar over his shoulders, he was so terrified that he jumped into a great bronze jar and hid inside it.

"Get that thing out of here!" the king shouted, his voice muffled by the metal.

Hercules laughed. The coward who gave him impossible orders was trembling inside a jar. From then on, whenever Hercules returned from a labor, Eurystheus ran to the jar and gave his next orders from inside it.

Fifth Labor: The Stymphalian Birds

"Rid Lake Stymphalus of the killer birds," came the order from inside the jar.

Hercules traveled to the lake, and what he found was frightening. Thousands of giant birds, with bronze beaks that could pierce armor, covered the shores. Their feathers were sharp as knives, and they hurled them like arrows. They had turned the region into a nightmare, devouring animals and people. And there were so many that, if Hercules hunted them one by one with his bow, it would take years.

The goddess Athena appeared to help. She handed Hercules a pair of magical castanets, made by the smith-god Hephaestus.

"Sound these instruments," said Athena. "The noise will frighten the birds."

Hercules shook the castanets, and the metallic clatter echoed through the whole valley. The sound was so loud and so strange that the birds took off in a panic, rising from the lake in dark clouds. As they flew, Hercules loosed his arrows, poisoned with the Hydra's blood. Dozens fell, then hundreds. The survivors fled, never to return, and the people of Stymphalus could live in peace again.

Sixth Labor: The Augean Stables

Inside his jar, Eurystheus smiled slyly. The next labor would be different: no glory, no battle, only humiliation.

"Clean the stables of King Augeas," he ordered. "In a single day."

Augeas was an enormously rich king who owned three thousand oxen. But his stables had not been cleaned in thirty years. The piled-up dung formed veritable mountains, the smell was unbearable, and clouds of flies covered everything.

"Cleaning this in one day is impossible," laughed Augeas when Hercules arrived.

"I can do it," Hercules replied. "But if I succeed, you will give me a tenth of your cattle."

"It's a deal," laughed the king, certain that Hercules would fail.

Hercules picked up neither shovel nor broom. Instead, he used his wits. He had noticed that two rivers, the Alpheus and the Peneus, ran close by the stables. With his divine strength, he felled trees, moved enormous rocks, and dug channels, turning both rivers straight through the stables.

The force of the two currents together swept through like a mighty flood. In a few hours, thirty years of filth was washed far away, and the stables stood completely clean. Hercules had done the impossible using his muscles and his brain.

But Augeas refused to pay what he had promised, saying it was the rivers that had done the cleaning, and that in any case Hercules had only been following Eurystheus's orders. Hercules was outraged, but there was nothing he could do just then, for labors still lay ahead of him. Years later he would return to collect that debt, and he would conquer Augeas's kingdom.

Eurystheus, for his part, refused to count this labor, claiming Hercules had done it for payment, and he refused to count the Hydra as well, because Iolaus had helped. So two labors "did not count," and Hercules would have to perform others in their place. He did not complain. He was on the road to redemption, and he would do as many labors as it took.