Ladon (mythology)

Ladon (Greek Λάδων ) In Greek mythology, a more -headed dragon that guarded the Hera command the Golden apples of the Hesperides.

To different sources, he has two, often three and one hundred heads. Accordingly, he speaks in many voices. He never sleeps. However defeated by Heracles when he has to fetch the apples of the Hesperides. Again, there are different versions: Ladon is slain by Heracles, the apples are voluntarily ago or is this - or Atlas - helping to win the apples. As a constellation Draco, he was eventually displaced by Zeus in the sky.

His parents are, according to Hesiod Phorkys and Keto, after the Libraries of Apollodorus and Hyginus Echidna and Typhon. In the former case, he is the brother of Echidna, the Gorgons and the Graeae.

According to Pausanias, was in the third treasure house in Olympia a cedar relief, Heracles, the apple tree and Ladon, who was curled around the trunk showed. It was a work of Theocles, son of Hegylos.

According to Karl Kerényi Ladon is often mentioned as a snake as a dragon. The figure of Ladon could be due to distorted and exaggerated reports about the giant lizards of the Canary Islands, one of which is extinct in the Holocene only way reached a length of 1.5 meters. In the islands of the Hesperides, it could well have been one of the Canary Islands. True dragons are rare in Greek mythology, and are usually represented as snakes.