Medusa

Medusa, originally a beautiful young woman whose crowning glory was her magnificent long hair, was desired and courted by many suitors. Medusa was a priestess for the temple of Athena. Because she was a priestess for the virgin god Athena she had to stay a virgin as well and couldn’t take a husband. Yet before she could be betrothed to a husband, Poseidon found her worshipping in the temple of Athena and ravished and raped her. Athena was outraged at her sacred temple being violated but was not mad at Poseidon but instead was mad at Medusa. Because this sort of behavior was expected from Poseidon and Athena was a god herself, she sided with Poseidon. She punished Medusa by turning her beautiful tresses into snakes and giving her the destructive power to turn anyone who looked directly at her into stone. One of the best-known legends about her tells of how the Greek hero Perseus killed her. Once there was a king named Acrisius, he had a beautiful daughter named Danae. The oracle of Apollo told Acrisius that Danae's son would one day kill him. Acrisius could not let that happen, so he locked Danae in a bronze tower so that she would never marry nor have children. The tower had no doors, but it had one very small window. Danae was very sad, but one day a bright shower of gold came through the small window. Having not heard from his daughter in a while, Acrisius decided to check on her to see what she was up too. He walked into the tower and saw Danae with a baby on her lap, smiling her said, "I have named him Perseus." Acrisius was furious; his first reaction was to kill both mother and child but decided against it in fear for the wrath of Zeus so he decided to shut Danae and baby Perseus up in a large chest and cast them out to sea. Somehow they got safely to the island of Seriphos where Polydectes was king. The king wanted to marry Danaë, but Perseus opposed the marriage. Polydectes decided on a plan to get rid of Perseus. Polydectes pretended to be marrying a