The ancient Greeks were great storytellers. They created many stories about gods, goddesses, and other mythical creatures.  Some of these stories tell tales of what happened when magical beings meet mortal man.  

The Greeks loved heroes. One of their heroes was King Odysseus.  The stories of brave Odysseus and his loyal band of men were told over and over by traveling storytellers during the dark ages of ancient Greece. 

A man named Homer lived right at the end of dark ages, in the 8^th century BCE. (During 700 BCE.) Over 2700 years ago, the poet Homer collected and wrote down many of the ancient legends told by the traveling storytellers. Homer took all the stories about King Odysseus and put this collection of stories together in one book, which he named The Odyssey.

The stories told of Odysseus and his men who lived on the island of Ithaca. Odysseus had been away from home, fighting a war. After the battle of Troy, which the Greeks won, King Odysseus and his men finally sailed for home. Ithaca is a little island as far away from Troy as you could get and still be in ancient Greece. 

It was a long trip. It could have taken Odysseus a good month to get home. These were early times, and the ships were not as strongly built as they are today. But because of  the trouble Odysseus faced on the way, it took Odysseus and his men ten long years to get home! 

According to the ancient Greek storytellers, in ten long years, Odysseus and his men had quite a few adventures, and all of them had to do with mythical creatures! 

Loosely based on stories from “The Odyssey”, two of the stories went something like this …  

The Cyclops Cave: After Odysseus and his men had been at sea for a while, their supplies began to dwindle. Odysseus and some of his men landed on shore to look for food. They found a cave, full of sheep! They cooked some sheep and stuffed themselves full. Unfortunately, the sheep belonged to a Cyclops. A Cyclops is a one-eyed giant! 

When the Cyclops returned to his cave, he was furious. He locked Odysseus and his men up so they could not get away. 

Using trickery, Odysseus managed to get the Cyclops drunk. Odysseus sharpened a stick and blinded the Cyclops. The Cyclops tried to find Odysseus and his men, to eat them. But Odysseus and his men crawled under the sheep. Making bah-bah sounds, they crawled safely out of the cave and got away!   

The Sirens:  Not too long after that, Odysseus and his men ran into the Sirens. The Sirens were magical sea creatures that looked rather like mermaids. They were known for their beautiful singing voices. The music they made was so hypnotic that sailors stopped sailing their ships, to listen. With no one in charge, the ships crashed into land, killing everyone on board. 

When Odysseus heard the beautiful music, he was suspicious immediately. He had had quite a few adventures already. He was beginning to be a bit suspicious of everything!  

To be extra safe, he stuffed his crewmen’s ears so they could not hear the music. He tied himself to the ship’s mast. That way, in case the gods decided to be helpful, he wanted to be able to hear them. But, since he was tied tightly, he would not be able to jump off the ship or swim to shore, or to do anything else that might endanger himself or his crew, when he heard the magical music. It worked! Odysseus is still the only man in the world who ever heard the Sirens sing and lived to tell about it! 

After many adventures, the goddess Athena took pity on Odysseus, and helped him find his way home. 

Today, we still enjoy these fantastic adventure tales, first told by ancient Greek storytellers, and then written down by the famous Greek poet, Homer, over 2700 years ago!