shows how Athena could calm down and moderate her punishments.
The one thing she couldn’t stand, however, were guys flirting with her. Which brings us to the story of her and Hephaestus. Okay, deep breath, because things are about to get weird.
So, Hephaestus was the crippled blacksmith god. More on him later.
Right now, all you need to know is that ever since he helped Athena get out of Zeus’ forehead, Hephaestus had had a crush on her. This made sense, because they were both into crafts and tools. They were both deep thinkers and enjoyed solving mechanical problems.
The problem was that Athena hated romance and never even wanted to hold hands with a guy, much less marry one. Even if Hephaestus had been handsome, Athena would have turned him down. But Hephaestus was most definitely ugly: Grade-A Industrial-Strength Ugly with Extra Gross.
He tried in his own way to flirt with her, like, Hey, baby, want to see my hammer collection? And stuff like that.
Athena power walked away from him, but Hephaestus limped after her. Athena didn’t want to scream and run, because she wasn’t a helpless mortal girl, or one of those silly “pink princess” goddesses who fainted and fluttered their eyelashes or whatever. She was the goddess of war!
She just kept moving away from Hephaestus, snapping at him to leave her alone. Finally the poor guy was sweating and panting like crazy, because it wasn’t easy for him to move on his crippled legs. He flung himself at Athena, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Please,” he begged. “You’re the perfect woman for me!”
He buried his face in her skirt and sobbed and sniveled, and some of his godly sweat and snot rubbed off on her bare leg where the skirt was parted, and Athena was like, “Gross!”
She kicked Hephaestus away and snatched up the nearest piece of cloth she could find—maybe a handkerchief or a napkin or something. She wiped the godly moisture off her leg and tossed the gross piece of cloth off Olympus, where it fluttered slowly down to the earth.
Then she ran away.
That should’ve been the end of the story, but something weird happened to that piece of cloth. It contained the essence of both Athena and Hephaestus, and somehow, when it hit the earth, it grew into a mortal baby boy.
Up on Olympus, Athena heard the baby crying. She tried to ignore it, but to her surprise, motherly instinct stirred inside her. She flew down to the earth and picked up the child. She understood how he had been born, and though the whole thing was still totally disgusting to her, she couldn’t blame the little boy.
“I suppose technically you are my son,” she decided, “even though I am still a maiden goddess. I will claim you as my own, and name you Erikthonius.”
(She gets one chance to name a kid, and that’s what she picks? Don’t ask me.)
“If I’m going to raise you,” she continued, “I should first make you immortal. I know just the thing….”
She got a wooden chest and put the baby inside. Then she created a magical serpent and put it in there too. (By the way, this is really not something you should try at home.) The baby boy Erikthonius fell asleep contentedly with the snake curled around him.
“There,” Athena said. “A few days in that box, and the serpent will enhance your godly qualities. You will cease to be mortal and you’ll become one of the gods!”
She closed the chest and took it to the Acropolis in Athens, which was, of course, her most sacred place. She gave the box to the daughters of Kekrops, the first king of Athens.
“Don’t open this box!” she warned the princesses. “It has to stay closed, or bad things will happen.”
The princesses promised, but after only one night, they got curious. They were pretty sure they heard a baby in there, cooing and gurgling, and they were afraid the kid was in trouble.
“What kind of goddess puts a baby in a box?” one of them muttered. “We’d better check.”
The princesses opened the box and saw the snake curled around the baby. I’m not sure why it freaked them out so badly. Maybe they saw godly light in there or something, but the girls went insane. They dropped the box and ran straight off the side of the Acropolis’s cliffs, plummeting to their deaths.
As for the baby, he was fine, but the spell was broken before he could become immortal. The snake slithered away and