Who was Medusa? A Beginner's Guide to the famous Gorgon

Ask most people to name a Greek Monster from Ancient Greek mythology and they’ll likely imagine a horrifying scaled creature with blood red and eyes and writhing snakes for hair, a woman so terrifying that just one peek at her will turn the looker into stone. That’s right, the name they’ll likely come up with will be Medusa!

A Roman mosaic of Medusa. Just imagine this on your bathroom floor.

This being Greek Mythology, there isn’t just one version of Medusa. Over hundreds of years, and numerous retellings, the story of Medusa has changed humongously. In the Theogony – written by a dude named Hesiod around 2800 years ago – Medusa was a straight up monster. Daughter of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, Medusa lived beyond the ocean and enjoyed being all ‘monstery’ (my word, not Hesiod's), that is until the hero Perseus chopped off her head. A straightforward action-packed tale-then, but not a lot else.

Uma Thurman as Medusa in the film 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'.

It wasn’t until the Classical period of Ancient Greek history – so around 2000ish years ago – that Medusa was given a tragic backstory. The story was most famously told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here, we are told, Medusa used to be a mortal, a regular human being like you and I (assuming you’re not an eighteen eared alien reading this, that is). In fact, she wasn’t just ‘regular’, she was considered incredibly beautiful. With long flowing hair and a face so pretty that people would visit her from every city-state just to look at her and say, ‘coooooooooooooor blimey’.

Unfortunately for Medusa, her outstanding beauty meant she was spotted by Poseidon – he with the seaweed infested beard, pointy trident, and slightly repugnant fishy odour. Poseidon attacked Medusa whilst she was visiting the temple of Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom. Athena, understandably, was very cross about this, though less understandably, the person she was cross with was poor Medusa. That’s right, not Poseidon, who did all the attacking, but the person who was attacked, the victim, Medusa.

Poseidon from the video game Hades 2. Definitely not this friendly in the original myth.

Why did Athena take out her rage on Medusa? Well, the Greek gods often blamed mortals for stuff that wasn’t really their fault and then punished them for it. There was Ariadne, a really great weaver, who was turned into a spider for beating Athena in a competitive weave-off. Then there was Sisyphus, who’s great crime was dobbing in Zeus, the King of the Gods. Zeus had kidnapped a goddess called Aegina, and Sisyphus told her dad where to find and rescue her. These days Sisyphus would be hailed as a hero and probably start his own Twitch channel, but not so in Ancient Greece. Zeus was so furious with being told on that Sisyphus was sentenced to death. However, being particularly cunning, Sisyphus avoided death and even escaped from the underworld too. For his defiance, Sisyphus was stuck in Tartarus, pushing a huge heavy boulder up a hill for all eternity.

So, as you can see, the gods liked punishing mortals when they got too big for their sandals. Athena’s punishment for Medusa was a particularly nasty one. She transformed Medusa into a monstrous gorgon, that probably looked just like this:

Medusa, as seen in the video game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. She can definitely see in the dark with those eyes.

Worse, Medusa was so scary that anyone who looked at her was turned to stone, frozen like a statue. Could you imagine that happening to you? One moment, you’re on your way to Tesco (other Supermarkets are available) to buy a ham sandwich (other sandwiches are available), when suddenly you’re turned into a gorgon (other monsters are available)? Driven mad by the divine cruelty, Medusa fled into the mountains, accidently on purpose killing everyone around her as she went. Athena, meanwhile, perhaps in a moment of calm after losing her temper, realised she might have, only ever so slightly, got a bit carried away with the whole gorgon thing.

Someone would have to stop Medusa before she turned anyone else to stone. Someone would have to slay her. And Athena had the perfect someone in mind, a hero called Perseus. But that, my friends, is a story for another blog. Keep a look out for it, it’ll be on the site soon!