HOW PERSEUS SLEW THE GORGON


So Perseus started on his journey, going dryshod over land and sea,
and his heart was high and joyful, for the sandals bore him each day a
seven days' journey.

And at last by the shore of a freezing sea, beneath the cold winter
moon, he found the Three Gray Sisters. There was no living thing
around them, not a fly, not a moss upon the rocks.

They passed their one eye each to the other, but for all that they
could not see, and they passed the one tooth from one to the other,
but for all that they could not eat, and they sat in the full glare of
the moon, but they were none the warmer for her beams.

And Perseus said, "Tell me, O Venerable Mothers, the path to the
daughters of the Evening Star."

They heard his voice, and then one cried, "Give me the eye that I may
see him," and another, "Give me the tooth that I may bite him," but
they had no answer for his question.

Then Perseus stepped close to them, and watched as they passed the eye
from hand to hand. And as they groped about, he held out his own hand
gently, till one of them put the eye into it, fancying that it was the
hand of her sister.

At that Perseus sprang back and laughed and cried, "Cruel old women,
I have your eye, and I will throw it into the sea, unless you tell me