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| [[Image:Echidna.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Appolon facing Echidna]]
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| Echidna was called the "Mother of All Monsters" and described by Hesiod as a female monster spawned in a cave, who mothered with her mate Typhoeus or [[Typhon]] every major monster in the Greek mythos.
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| =Nature=
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| ==Etymology==
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| '''Echidna''' from Greek ''ekhis'' means "she viper"
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| ==Description==
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| She was depicted with the face and torso of a beautiful woman, sometimes wings in archaic vase-paintings, and always with the body of a serpent (see also [[Lamia]]). She is also sometimes described as having two serpent's tails. Karl Kerenyi noted an archaic vase-painting with a pair of echidnas performing sacred rites in a vineyard, while on the opposite side of the vessel, goats were attacking the vines (Kerenyi 1951, p 51f). Echidna as protector of the vineyard perhaps.
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| :''the goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days.'' (''[[Theogony]]'', 295-305)
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| ==Family==
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| Usually considered offspring of [[Tartarus]] and [[Gaia]], or of [[Ceto]] and [[Phorcys]] (according to Hesiod) or of Chrysaor and the [[naiad]] Callirhoe, or Peiras and [[Styx]] (according to Pausanias, who did not know who Peiras was aside from her father)
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| ===Echidna and Typhon's offspring===
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| The offspring of Typhon and Echidna were:
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| # [[Nemean Lion]]
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| # [[Cerberus]]
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| # [[Orthrus]]
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| # [[Ladon]]
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| # [[Chimera]]
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| # [[Sphinx]]
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| # [[Lernaean Hydra]]
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| # [[Ethon]]
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| # [[Teumessian fox]]
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| Some sources also include the [[Gorgon]]s and the [[Graeae]] as her children.
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| According to Herodotus (III.108), Hercules had three children by her:
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| # Agathyrsus
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| # Gelonus
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| # Scylla
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| ==Places==
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| The site of her cave, Arima, [[Homer]] calls "the couch of Typhoeus (''Iliad'', II.783). When she and her mate attacked the Olympians, [[Zeus]] beat them back and punished Typhon by sealing him under Mount Etna. However, Zeus allowed Echidna and her children to live as a challenge to future heroes. She was an immortal and ageless nymph to Hesiod (''Theogony'' above), but was killed where she slept by Argus Panopes, the hundred-eyed giant.
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| =History/Beliefs=
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| =Art / Fiction=
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| ==Echidna in popular culture==
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| Echidna was a recurring character in the television series ''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'' as she is played by Bridget Hoffman. This version of her is shown as a multi-tentacled reptilian creature.
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| In the ''Gargoyles (TV series)|Gargoyles'' episode "The New Olympians", a snake woman named Ekidna is presumed to be Echidna's descendant.
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| In Disney's Hercules, Echidna also appeared as the mother of monsters.
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| Echidna appears as a boss monster in ''Final Fantasy III'' and ''Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls''.
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| In Gene Wolfe's ''Book of the Long Sun'', Echidna appears as the Great Queen of the gods and the wife of the chief god Pas.
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| In Tecmo's recent Rygar: The Legendary Adventure, Echidna appears as a titan who was formerly Cleopatra.
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| In Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei series, Echidna occasionally shows up as a demon.
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| In Rick Riordan's the Lightning Thief, Echidna sets her son the Chimaera upon the main character in the Gateway Arch.
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| Echidne of the Snakes [http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com] is a fairly popular liberalism|liberal feminist blog, whose pseudonym, Echidne, has adopted the persona of a part-human snake goddess.
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| Echidna is the name of one of the gates of Radiata City in the role-playing game Radiata Stories.
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| =References—related sources and media=
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| ==Sources==
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| *[http://www.loggia.com/myth/echidna.html Mythography article]
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| *Kark Kerenyi, 1951. ''The Gods of the Greeks'' (Thames and Hudson)
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| {{Wikipedia}}
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| ==See also==
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| * [[Echidna]], a monotreme mammal of Australia and New Guinea.
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| [[Category:Angels and demons]]
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| [[Category:Fabulous beasts]]
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| [[Category:Greek mythology]]
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| [[Category:Snake people]]
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