Legends! Beasts and Monsters (2 page)

The young man was called Oedipus. He was quite a complex character. He was not really a bad man, despite his temper. He genuinely wanted to be a hero but didn’t know how to go about it.
Anyway, he now turned up outside the city of Thebes and confronted the Sphinx.

‘Stand where you are!’ the Sphinx cried. ‘And tell me – if you value your life – what creature has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three
legs in the evening?’

Oedipus thought about it while the Sphinx licked its lips and practised curling and uncurling its claws. But this time it was not to be so lucky.

‘I have it,’ Oedipus said at last. ‘The answer is man. For in the morning, when he is a baby, he crawls on all fours. In the afternoon of his life, he walks upright on two
legs. And when he is old, in the evening, he walks with the aid of a stick.’

When the Sphinx heard that its riddle had at last been guessed, it went red with anger. Its woman’s head screamed, its lion’s body writhed, the feathers fell out of its eagle’s
wings and its serpent’s tail shrivelled up. Then it leaped into the air and exploded, and that was the end of it.

As for Oedipus, he was given the crown of Thebes as his reward and married Queen Jocasta. He never suspected for a single minute that she was in actual fact his long-lost mother and that it was
his father whom he had killed on the road . . .

But that is very definitely another story.

The Cheyenne Indians, who rode the plains of North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had a strange custom. Whenever they came to a wide stretch of water
– a lake or a river, perhaps – they would throw some food or tobacco in before they rode across. Nobody asked the Cheyennes why they did this, but then, of course, nobody asked the
Cheyennes anything. If you met a Cheyenne in eighteenth-century America, it was safer just to run away.

But there was a reason. It was to be found in a tale told by the Cheyenne storytellers, a tale about a great river monster and two brothers who discovered an incredible spotted egg.

The two brothers were known simply as Elder and Younger and they had managed to get themselves lost on the prairie. The sun was beating down and the horizon formed a great big circle all around
them with nothing – not a tree, not a building – to interrupt the unbroken line. They were surrounded by wild grass waving in the wind, and here and there they stumbled across the
bleached-out bones of animals that had had the misfortune to wander into this desolate place. The brothers had a little water, but they had no food. They could feel their strength beginning to run
out.

They walked a few miles and they got hungrier and hungrier, and soon the rumble of their stomachs was as loud as the rustle of the wind. Then all of a sudden, and completely unexpectedly, they
came upon an egg, just lying on the ground with no sign of a bird or a nest anywhere near.

‘The Great Spirit has been good to us,’ Younger said. ‘Look at that egg. I reckon it will last the two of us a whole week.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Elder growled. ‘It doesn’t look good to me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Younger cried. ‘It’s just an egg.’

But if it was just an egg, it was certainly a very peculiar one. For a start, it was bright green with red spots. Also it was enormous – much bigger than a chicken’s egg. Much
bigger, in fact, than a chicken. And how had it got there? It was, after all, in the middle of nowhere.

‘It looks bad magic to me,’ Elder said. ‘I say we don’t touch it.’

‘Where is your courage?’ Younger replied. ‘This egg was laid by a great bird, or perhaps a turtle. You are right, my brother. It is a strange, a funny colour. But my stomach is
empty. If I do not eat soon, I will be joining my ancestors. I would eat this egg if it was the colour of a tiger beetle. In fact, I would eat a tiger beetle too, cooked on a fire with cactus juice
. . .’

So while Elder watched, Younger lit a bonfire and roasted the egg. Then he cracked the shell and began to eat.

‘Are you sure you do not want to eat some of this, my brother?’ he asked.

‘No, thank you,’ Elder said.

‘It is powerful good. You cannot imagine what you’re missing.’

In fact, Younger was lying when he said that. The egg was hard and rubbery. The yolk was green, the same colour as the shell, and the white wasn’t white but a sort of pink. And it
didn’t taste like an egg should. It tasted of fish.

Even as Younger ate he began to feel sick, but something made him go on eating. He couldn’t stop. Faster and faster he spooned the egg down until it had all gone and only the shell was
left.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Elder muttered.

The next morning, when they woke up, Younger was feeling really ill. His stomach was like a funfair merry-go-round and his eyes were as big as ping-pong balls. Worst of all, he was really
thirsty. He drank all the water in his bottle, but it could have been a thimbleful for all the good it did him. Elder looked at him and sighed.

‘You look terrible,’ he said.

‘I feel terrible,’ Younger agreed.

‘You’re green!’

‘Green?’

‘And you’ve got red spots.’

Younger stood up. ‘Let’s go!’ he said. ‘The sooner we find water, the better. I need a drink.’

They walked until sunset, by which time Younger’s skin had turned a brilliant shade of green and his red spots had got larger and more distinctive too. All his hair had fallen out and he
seemed to be having trouble talking.

‘Ssssso,’ he hissed. ‘Do you think I made a missssstake eating that egg?’

‘I think so, my brother,’ Elder replied.

‘I supposssse it was ssssstupid. But I will feel better when I get to water. I really want a ssssswim.’

The next morning Younger was worse. His arms had somehow glued themselves to his sides and his nose had dropped off. He was a vivid green and red and his skin was slimy. Like a toad’s.

‘I feel worssssse,’ he moaned.

‘You look worse,’ Elder said.

‘Water!’

They reached water at sunset. It was a river, frothing and bubbling, twisting through the hostile landscape. Shrubs and flowers were sprouting close to its banks. There would have to be a
settlement close by. Their people would choose to live close to a river like this.

Younger, whose legs had almost melted into one another, decided that he would rather sleep in the river while Elder curled up on land beside a bonfire. Elder hadn’t eaten for five days now
and he was weak and tired. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep.

He was woken up by the sound of a strange, unearthly singing. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was a great heap of fish lying on the bank, waiting to be cooked. Then he looked
beyond, in the water, and saw his brother.

Except that it wasn’t really his brother any more. Younger had become an enormous sea-monster with pointed teeth, bright silver scales and a forked tail. He was swimming to and fro,
stopping now and then to fork another fish with the point of his tail and flip it on to the bank.

‘Good morning, my brother!’ Elder called out. ‘How are you feeling today?’

‘Sssstrong!’ Younger replied. ‘It’sssss not ssssso bad being a sssssea-ssssserpent. And I’ve caught a whole lot of fisssssh!’

‘You have my thanks!’ Elder said.

‘Then – lisssssten,’ Younger continued. ‘Don’t you forget about me. I got you food, ssssso you get me food. I don’t want to eat fisssssh all my
life.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Elder promised.

‘And tobacco too. Just because I’m a monssssster, it don’t mean I can’t sssssmoke!’

And that is why the Cheyennes always stopped and threw food or tobacco into the water before they crossed it (even when they were being chased by the cavalry). It was to keep the sea-serpent
singing.

There are no dragons today – mainly thanks to the knights and heroes who so thoughtlessly rode about the place killing them off. This is a pity, for dragons must have
been astonishing creatures: part snake and part crocodile, with bits of lion, eagle and hawk thrown in for good measure. Not only could they leap into the air and fly (a tremendous feat when you
think how heavy their scales must have been) but they could also run at great speed. Not that a dragon would ever run away. Dragons were generally very brave creatures. When they were angry or
frightened, smoke would come hissing out of their nostrils. When things got really rough, flames would rush out of their mouths. But there was no such thing as a cowardly dragon.