Editing Echidna (mythology) (section)

==The Scythian ''echidna''==
{{further|Snake-Legged Goddess}}
From the fifth century BC historian [[Herodotus]], we learn of a creature who, though Herodotus does not name as Echidna, is called an ''echidna'' ("she-viper") and resembles the Hesiodic Echidna in several respects. She was half woman half snake, lived in a cave, and was known as a mother figure, in this case, as the progenitor of the Scythians (rather than of monsters).<ref>[[Herodotus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D4%3Achapter%3D8 4.8&ndash;10]; Gantz, p. 409; Ogden 2013b, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Vv0Fxm6Amh4C&pg=PA16 pp. 16&ndash;17]; Ogden 2013a, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FQ2pAK9luwkC&pg=PA81 p. 81 with n. 71]; Fontenrose, [https://books.google.com/books?id=wqeVv09Y6hIC&pg=PA97 pp. 97&ndash;100]. While the Scythian ''echidna'' is sometimes identified with the Hesiodic Echidna (e.g.  Grimal, s.vv. Echidna, Scythes, Ogden 2013b describes the Scythian as "seemingly calqued upon" the Hesiodic ([https://books.google.com/books?id=Vv0Fxm6Amh4C&pg=PA13 p. 13]), and asserts that "there is no particular reason to infer" that the two are "fully identifiable" ([https://books.google.com/books?id=Vv0Fxm6Amh4C&pg=PA17 p. 17]). Compare with [[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/2B*.html#43 2.43.3].</ref>

According to Herodotus, Greeks living in [[Pontus (region)|Pontus]], a region on the southern coast of the [[Black Sea]], told a story of an encounter between [[Heracles]] and this snaky creature. Heracles was driving the cattle of [[Geryones]] through what would later become [[Scythia]], when one morning he awoke and discovered that his horses had disappeared. While searching for them, he "found in a cave a creature of double form that was half maiden and half serpent; above the buttocks she was a woman, below them a snake". She had the horses and promised to return them if Heracles would have sex with her. Heracles agreed and she had three sons by him: [[Agathyrsi|Agathyrsus]], [[Gelonus]] and Scythes. She asked Heracles what she should do with his sons: "shall I keep them here (since I am queen of this country), or shall I send them away to you?". And Heracles gave her a bow and belt, and told her, that when the boys were grown, whichever would draw the bow and wear the belt, keep him and banish the others. The youngest son Scythes fulfilled the requirements and became the founder and eponym of the Scythians.