Sutherland Senior Staff WriterĬopyright © All rights reserved.
However, immortality is only available to the gods and never to ordinary people, even if they are kings and nobles. The Golden Apples were kept in a garden at the northern edge of the world, and were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon, named Ladon. The Golden Apples of the Hesperides remind us of the Golden Apples we encounter in Norse mythology. The apples protected by Idun grant immortality to the Aesir gods living in Asgard. Golden Apples – A Popular Motif In Ancient Myths The task seemed quite simple to Herakles except that he did not. The creature was slain by Herakles when he was sent to recover the golden apples as one of his twelve labours. They grew on a tree in the Garden of Hesperides and were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon. THE DRAKON HESPERION (Hesperian Dragon) was a hundred-headed serpent named Ladon tasked with guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides and tormenting the heavens-bearing Titan Atlas. The king did not want the divine apples of immortality he understood they belonged to the gods, especially to the goddess Hera, so eventually, the apples returned to the Garden of Hesperides. Ladon the Hesperian Dragon, Athenian red-figure amphora C5th B.C., State Hermitage Museum. Heracles tricked Atlas, walked away with the apples, and could now give them to Eurystheus. He offered to deliver the apples himself, hoping to regain his freedom. After returning with the apples, Atlas surprisingly refused to retake his job as the eternal holder of the heavens. To prevent them from being stolen, Hera placed an immortal dragon of one hundred heads at the gate of the garden, although the dragon depicted here has only one. The most popular version of this story is that Herakles asked for Atlas's help obtaining them and even held up the sky while Atlas was retrieving the apples. According to another, he did it with the help of Atlas. According to one version, Heracles stole the apples after killing the dragon Ladon. Usually, myths are remembered in different versions.