The plan was to approach the Hydra systematically: Heracles would advance and lop off a head, then Iolaus would step smartly in with a burning torch and sear the fresh stump, preventing any new heads from erupting in its place. Slice, cauterize, slice, that was the system they came up with—and it worked. After hours of exhausting and disgusting effort, there was only one head left, the immortal head, the head that could not die. At last Heracles hacked this off too and buried it far underground. The Hydra’s poisonous vapors breathe up their sulfurous gas by the waters of Lake Lerna to this
...more
