Greek Mythology : Hades

As mythological figures go, Hades has always been one of my favorites. Not the Disney one (though he’s also quite entertaining) - Hades for the most part was just a guy with an underworld to run. He doesn’t get directly involved in a lot of myths, partly because he mostly just did his job and didn’t go running around the world of mortals sleeping with everything that moved, and partly because even the Olympians don’t like to spend too much time thinking about death.

My favorite story about him, then, has to be Heracles’ Twelfth Labor, in which Heracles was tasked with bringing back Cerberus, Hades’ vicious three-headed guard dog. Now, getting to Hades’ throne in and of itself was no easy task, but once Heracles managed to get there, he just stated his case and asked nicely if he could please borrow the dog.

And Hades, being a reasonable sort of being, agreed. His conditions were simple: Heracles had to subdue Cerberus without the use of weapons (please don’t hurt my dog), and would have to send him back when he was done with him. Which he did, and all was well.

Also, one of the possibly etymologies for the name Cerberus? From a word meaning ‘spotted’. If that’s correct, the Greek lord of the underworld had a dog named Spot, and this is why I love Hades.