Pegasus, The Winged Horse– Part 2, A Greek Mythology Story

Hi,

This is Stefania,

And we continue with the story of Pegasus the Winged Horse.

When we last left Pegasus and Belarifon,

They were on their way to fight the terrible Chimera and save the king's kingdom.

Now they are on their way,

And this is part two and the ending of the story.

Today we are to fight the terrible Chimera.

As soon as they had eaten their morning meal and drank some sparkling water from a spring called Hippocrene,

Pegasus held out his head of his own accord so that his master might put on the bridle.

Then with a great many playful leaps he showed his impatience to be gone,

While Belarifon was putting on his sword and hanging his shield about his neck and preparing for battle.

When everything was ready,

The rider mounted,

And as was his custom when going a long distance,

Ascended five miles straight up,

So as the better to see where he was directing his course.

He then turned the head of Pegasus toward the east and set out for Lycia.

In their flight,

They overtook an eagle and came so near him before he could get out of their way that Belarifon might easily have caught him.

Hastening onward at this rate,

It was still early in the morning when they saw the lofty mountains of Lycia with their deep and shaggy valleys.

If Belarifon had been told,

Truly it was in one of these dismal valleys that the Chimera had taken up its abode.

Being now so near their journey's end,

The winged horse gradually descended with his rider,

And they took advantage of some clouds that were floating over the mountaintops in order to conceal themselves.

Hovering on the upper surface of a cloud and peering over its edge,

Belarifon had a pretty clear view of the mountainous part of Lycia and could look into all its shadowy,

Vales,

Corners at once.

At first,

There appeared to be nothing remarkable.

It was a wild,

Savage,

And rocky area of high and dangerous-looking hills.

In the more level parts of the country,

There were ruins of houses that had been burned.

The Chimera must have done this mischief,

Thought Belarifon,

But where could the monster be?

As I've already said,

There was nothing remarkable to be seen at first sight in any of the valleys that lay among the heights of the mountains.

Nothing at all,

Unless,

Indeed,

It were three spires of black smoke which came from what seemed to be the mouth of a cave and climbed darkly into the atmosphere.

Before reaching the mountaintop,

These three smoke wreaths mingled themselves into one.

The cavern was almost directly beneath the winged horse and his rider at a distance of about a thousand feet.

The smoke,

As it crept heavily upward,

Had an ugly,

Stifling,

Stinky scent which caused Pegasus to snort and Belarifon to sneeze.

So disagreeable was it to the marvelous steed who was accustomed to breathing only the purest air that he waved his wings and shot half a mile out of the range of this offensive smell.

But on looking behind him,

Belarifon saw something that introduced him.

Induced him,

First,

To draw the bridle and then to turn Pegasus about.

He made a sign which the winged horse understood and sunk slowly through the air until his hooves were scarcely more than a man's height above the rocky bottom of the valley.

In the front,

As far off as you could throw a stone,

Was the cave's mouth,

With three smoke wreaths oozing out of it.

And what else did Belarifon say there?

There seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible creatures curled up within the cave.

Their bodies lay so close together that Belarifon could not distinguish them apart,

But judging by their heads,

One of these creatures was a huge snake,

The second a fierce lion,

And the third a goat.

The lion and the goat were asleep,

But the snake was wide awake and kept staring around him with a great pair of fiery eyes.

But this was the most wonderful part of the matter.

The three spires of smoke evidently issued from the nose of these three heads.

So strange was the spectacle that,

Though Belarifon had been all along expecting it,

The truth did not immediately occur to him that here was the three-headed chimera.

He had found the chimera's cave.

The snake,

The lion,

And the goat,

As he supposed them to be,

Were not three separate creatures,

But one.

All at once,

Belarifon started,

Jumped as if from a dream,

And knew it to be the chimera.

Pegasus seemed to know it at the same instance and sent forth a neigh that sounded like the call of a trumpet to battle.

At this sound,

The three heads reared themselves erect and belched out great flashes of flame.

Before Belarifon had time to consider what to do next,

The monster flung itself out of the cavern,

Out of the cave,

And sprang straight toward him with his claws extended and his snakey tail twisting himself behind.

If Pegasus had not been as nimble as a bird,

Both he and his rider would have been overthrown by the chimera's headlong rush,

And thus the battle had been ended before it was well begun.

But the winged horse was not to be caught,

So in the twinkling of an eye he was up and aloft,

Halfway to the clouds,

And snorting with anger.

He shuddered,

Too,

Not with fright but with utter disgust at the grossness of this thing with three heads.

The chimera,

On the other hand,

Raised itself up so as to stand absolutely on the tip end of its tail with his claws pawing fiercely in the air and his three heads sputtering at Pegasus and his rider.

My,

How it roared!

Belarifon,

Meanwhile,

Was putting on his shield,

Onto his arm,

And drawing his sword.

Now,

My beloved Pegasus,

He whispered in the winged horse's ear,

Thou must help me to slay this monster,

Or thy shalt fly back to thy solitary mountain peak without thy friend Belarifon.

For either the chimera dies,

Or these three mouths shall get me.

Pegasus whinnied,

And turning back his head,

Rubbed his nose tenderly against his rider's cheek.

It was his way of telling him that,

Though he had wings and was an immortal horse,

He would perish if it were possible for immortality to perish,

Rather than leave Belarifon behind.

I thank you,

Pegasus,

Answered Belarifon.

Now,

Then let us make a dash at the monster.

Using these words,

He shook the bridle,

And Pegasus darted down as swift as the flight of an arrow,

Right towards the chimera's three heads,

Which all this time was poking itself as high as it could into the air.

As he came within arm's length,

Belarifon tried to take a blow,

But before he could see whether it had been successful,

Pegasus continued his course,

But soon wheeled around at about the same distance from the chimera as before.

Belarifon then perceived he had knocked the goat's head.

But the other two,

The snake and the lion,

Were very angry,

And they roared and hissed.

Never mind my brave Pegasus,

Cried Belarifon.

With another stroke like that,

We will either stop its hissing or its roaring.

The snake or the lion?

And again,

He shook the bridle,

Dashing as before the winged horse made another arrow flight toward the chimera,

And Belarifon aimed another downward stroke at one of the heads.

But this time,

Neither he nor Pegasus escaped so well as the first.

With one of his claws,

The chimera had given the young man a scratch in his shoulder,

And it slightly damaged the left wing of the flying steed with the other.

On his part,

Belarifon had struck the lion in his head.

The snake,

However,

The only one left,

Was twice as angry as before.

It belched forth shoots of fire so loud that King Ayobates heard them fifty miles off and trembled till the throne shook under him.

Well,

Thought the poor king,

The chimera is certainly coming to devour me.

Meanwhile,

Pegasus had again paused in the air and neighed angrily while sparks of a pure crystal flame darted out of his eyes.

How unlike the fire of the chimera!

The steed's spirit was all aroused,

And so was that of Belarifon.

"'Dost thou bleed,

My immortal horse?

' cried the young man,

Caring less for his own hurt than for the anguish of this gorgeous creature,

Which never,

Ought never,

To have tasted pain.

"'The chimera shall pay for this mischief with his last head!

' Then he shook the bridle,

Shouted loudly,

And guided Pegasus straight at the monster.

So rapid was the onset,

It seemed but a dazzle and a flash before Belarifon was at close grips with his enemy.

The chimera by this time,

Having one head,

Had got into a red-hot passion of rage.

It flounced about half on earth and partly in the air,

It was impossible to say which element it rested upon.

It opened his jaws to such a width that Pegasus might almost,

I was going to say,

Almost have flown right down his throat,

Wings outspread right here and all.

At their approach he shot out a tremendous blast of fiery breath and enveloped Belarifon and his steed in a perfect atmosphere of flame,

Singeing the wings of Pegasus and scorching off one whole side of the young man's golden curls and making them far hotter than was comfortable from head to foot.

But that was nothing to what followed.

When the airy rush of the winged horse had brought him within the distance of one hundred yards,

The chimera gave a spring and flung his huge,

Yucky carcass right on poor Pegasus,

The horse's back,

And clung to the horse with all his might.

Up flew the aerial steed,

Higher,

Higher,

Higher above the mountain peaks,

Above the clouds and almost out of sight of the solid earth.

But still,

The earth-borne monster kept its hold and was carried upward along with the creature of light and air.

Belarifon,

Meanwhile,

Turning about whilst on Pegasus' back,

Found himself face to face with the ugly chimera's face.

Holding up his shield to protect himself from the fire,

He looked sternly into the savage eyes of the monster.

But the chimera was so mad and wild it didn't guard itself as well as it might have done,

Ordinarily.

Maybe the best way to fight a chimera is by getting as close to it as you can.

In its own efforts to stick its claws into its enemy,

It left himself exposed.

Belarifon thrust his sword.

The monster let go and fell down,

Down,

Down,

Down,

Down.

Many people thought that was a shooting star or a comet.

But in the early sunrise,

Some cottage people going about their labor saw to their astonishment that several acres of ground were strewn with black ashes.

And then nothing else was ever seen of the dreadful chimera.

And when Belarifon had won the victory,

He bent forward and kissed Pegasus while the tears stood in his eyes.

Back now,

My beloved steed,

Said he,

Back to the Fountain of Tyraine.

Pegasus skimmed through the air quicker than ever he did before and reached the fountain in a very short time.

There he found the old man leaning on his staff and the country fellow watering his cow and the pretty maiden filling her pitcher.

I remember now,

Said the old man.

I saw this winged horse once before when I was quite a lad,

But he was ten times handsomer in those days.

I own a cart horse worth three of him,

Said the country fellow.

If this pony were mine,

The first thing I should do would be to clip his wings.

But the poor maiden,

She said nothing,

For she always had the luck to be afraid at the wrong time.

So she ran away and let her pitcher tumble down and broke it.

Where is the gentle child?

Asked Bellerophon,

Who used to keep me company and never lost his faith and never was weary of looking into the fountain.

Here am I,

Dear Bellerophon,

Said the child softly,

For the little boy had spent day after day on the margin of Piraene waiting for his friend to come back.

But when he perceived Bellerophon descending through the clouds mounted on the winged horse,

He had shrunk back into the shrubbery.

He was a delicate and tender child and dreaded lest the old man and the country fellow should see the tears gushing from his eyes.

Bel has won the victory,

Said he joyfully running to the knee of Bellerophon,

Who still sat on the back of Pegasus.

I knew thou wouldest.

Yes dear child,

Replied Bellerophon,

Alighting from the winged horse,

But if thy faith had not helped me,

I should never have waited for Pegasus and never have gone up above the clouds and never have conquered the terrible Chimera.

Thou my beloved little friend has done it all.

And now let us give Pegasus his liberty,

His freedom.

So he slipped off the enchanted bridle from the head of the marvelous steed.

Be free forevermore my Pegasus,

Cried he with a shade of sadness in his tone.

Be free as thou art,

Fleet and vast.

But Pegasus rested his head on Bellerophon's shoulder and would not be persuaded to take flight.

Well then,

Said Bellerophon caressing the airy horse,

Thou shalt be with me as long as thy wilt and we will go together forthwith and tell King Iobatus that the Chimera is destroyed.

Then Bellerophon embraced the gentle child and promised to come to him again and departed.

But in later years that child took higher flights upon the aerial steed than ever did Bellerophon and achieved more honorable deeds than his friend's victory over the Chimera.

For gentle and tender as he was,

He grew to be a mighty poet.

And that's the end of our story about Pegasus the winged horse.

Together with Pegasus,

Bellerophon was able to overcome the terrible Chimera and bring freedom to the king and his court and the people of the land.

We hope you enjoyed the story.

We'll be back again with another one.

Bye for now.