THE HORN OF PLENTY.
Dejanira was one of the most beautiful of princesses who lived in the long ago days of the Greek gods and goddesses. It seemed as if all the charm of the world in this, its myth time, was hers. Her hair was bright with the yellow of the first spring sunshine, and her eyes were as blue as the skies of spring. Summer had touched Dejanira's cheeks with the pink of rose petals, and the colors of the autumn fruits shone in her jewels, crimson and purple and gold. Her robes were as white and soft as the snows of winter, and all the music of soft winds and bird songs and rippling brooks was in this princess' voice.
Because of her beauty and her goodness, which even surpassed it, princes came from all over the world to ask Dejanira's father, Aeneus, if she might go home to their kingdoms to be their queen. But to all these Aeneus replied that to none but the strongest would he give the princess.
So there were many tests of these strangers' skill and strength in games and wrestling, but one by one they failed. At last there were only two left, Hercules who was strong enough to hold the sky on his broad shoulders, and Achelous, the river-god, who twisted and twined through the fields making them fertile with the brooks and the streams. Each thought himself the greater of the two, and it lay between them which by his prowess should gain the princess to be his wife.
Hercules was massive of limb and of powerful strength. Beneath his shaggy eyebrows, his eyes gleamed like balls of fire. His garment was of lions' skins and his staff was a young tree. But the clever Achelous was able to slip between the huge fingers of Hercules. He was as slender and graceful as a willow tree and his garment was of the green of foliage. He wore a crown of water lilies on his fair hair, and carried a staff made of twined reeds. When Achelous spoke, his voice was like the rippling of a stream.
"The Princess Dejanira shall be mine!" said Achelous. "I will make her the queen of the river lands. The music of the waters shall be always in her ears, and the plenty that follows wherever I go shall make her rich."
"No!" shouted Hercules. "I am the strength of the earth. Dejanira is mine. You shall not have her."
Then the river-god grew very angry. His green robe changed its color to that of the black of the sea in a storm, and his voice was as loud as that of a mountain cataract. Achelous could be almost as powerful as Hercules when he was angered.
"How do you dare claim this royal maiden?" he roared, "you, who have mortal blood in your veins! I am a god and the king of the waters. Wherever I take my way over the earth grains and fruits ripen and flowers bud and bloom. The Princess Dejanira is mine by right."
Hercules frowned as he advanced toward the river-god. "Your strength is only in words," he said scornfully. "My strength is in my arm. If you would win Dejanira, it must be by hand-to-hand combat." So the river-god threw off his garments and Hercules his lion's skin, and the two fought for the hand of the princess.
It was a brave and valorous battle. Neither yielded; both stood their ground. Achelous slipped in and out of Hercules' mighty grasp a dozen times, but at last the hero's powerful strength was too much for this god who had to depend upon adroitness only. Hercules gripped the river-god fast by his neck and held him, panting for breath.
Then Achelous resorted to the trickery that he knew. He suddenly changed his form through the magic arts he could practise to that of a long, slimy serpent. He twisted out of Hercules' grasp and darted a forked tongue out at him, showing his fangs. Hercules was not yet undone. He only laughed scornfully at the serpent and grasped the creature by the back of its neck, ready to strangle it.
Achelous struggled in vain to escape and at last resorted once more to sorcery. In a second the serpent had changed its form to that of a ferocious, roaring bull. It charged upon Hercules with lowered horns. But the hero was still unvanquished. He seized hold of the bull's horns, bent its head, gripped its brawny neck and threw it, burying its horns in the ground. Then he broke off one of the horns with his iron strong hand and held it up in the air shouting,
"Victory! Dejanira is mine!"
Achelous returned to his own shape and, crying with pain, ran from the castle grounds where the combat had taken place and did not stop until he had plunged into a cooling stream. It had been right that Hercules should triumph, for his was the strength of arm, not of trickery.
The Princess Dejanira came to him and with her the goddess of plenty, Ceres, to give the conqueror his reward.
Ceres took the great horn which Hercules had torn from Achelous' head and heaped it full to overflowing with the treasures of the year's harvest. Ripe grain, purple grapes, rosy apples, plums, nuts, pomegranates, olives and figs filled the horn and spilled over the edge. The wood-nymphs and the water-nymphs came and twined the horn with vines and crimson leaves and the last bright flowers of the year. Then they carried this first horn of plenty high above their heads and gave it to Hercules and the beautiful Dejanira as a wedding present. It was the richest gift the gods could make, that of the year's harvest.
And ever since that long-ago story time of the Greeks, the horn of plenty has stood for the year's blessing of us.