Mythic l

Mythical Creatures LEVELED BOOK • S

CoreAncient
tures
of Ancient Greece
A Reading A–Z Level S Leveled Book
Word Count: 1,045

Connections
Writing
Write a short play about one of the GREECE
mythical creatures from the book.
Perform your play in a small group.
Art
Make a decorative mask of one of the
mythical creatures from the book.

•V
P• S
Written by Elizabeth Jane Pustilnik
Illustrated by Timothy Truman
Visit www.readinga-z.com
for thousands of books and materials. www.readinga-z.com
 Mythic l
CoreAncient
tures
Words to Know
civilized immortal
creatures lure
cultures myths
defeat sacred
drought symbolized
hybrid will
GREECE Page 3: There were many city-states in ancient Greece. They were located
in the modern countries of Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Crete, and Turkey.

Photo Credits:
Page 4 (top): © DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images;
page 4 (bottom): Lekythos, detail of Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra, 700-480
BC (ceramic), Greek School/Louvre, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images; page 6:
David Lyons/Alamy Stock Photo; page 8: © Leemage/Universal Images Group/
Getty Images; page 10: Peter Horree/Alamy Stock Photo; page 15 (left): © Kirstin
Sinclair/Getty Images; page 15 (top right): © Americanspirit/Dreamstime.com;
page 15 (bottom right): © iStock/dontree_m

Written by Elizabeth Jane Pustilnik

Illustrated by Timothy Truman
www.readinga-z.com

Focus Question
Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece

What are some mythical creatures

Level S Leveled Book
© Learning A–Z Correlation
Written by Elizabeth Jane Pustilnik LEVEL S
of ancient Greece, and what do Illustrated by Timothy Truman
Fountas & Pinnell O
they represent in that culture? All rights reserved. Reading Recovery
DRA
34
34
www.readinga-z.com
 Ancient Greece AROUND 750 bce

Macedonia

Troy

AE
Greece

GE
ASIA MINOR

AN
EA

S
Delphi
Athens
Mycenae
M

EUROPE Heracles (HAIR-uh-kleez), a Greek hero, greets Cerberus, the two-

ED

Sparta or three-headed guardian dog of the underworld on this vase from

IT SE
ER

A AN the fifth century bce.

R

EA
N AFRICA
Introduction
Crete
People in many cultures have myths .
Table of Contents Myths are stories that explain important ideas,
such as good and evil, in ways people can
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
understand . A myth can be a lesson, a story
Centaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 about history, or a tale
about a natural wonder .
Sirens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
It can even be a warning .
Medusa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 In ancient Greece, myths
were an important part
The Minotaur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
of religion . Fantastic
Typhon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 creatures often played
a central role in Greek
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
myths, along with gods, On this vase, the goddess Athena
helps Heracles attack the Hydra,
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 goddesses, and heroes . a monster made of many snakes.

Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S 3 4

 Centaurs
Centaurs had the head and chest of a
human and the body of a horse . Their animal
side was more powerful than their human
side . To the Greeks, the Centaurs were animal-
like and driven by their feelings, while the
Greeks were civilized .
The story of the Centaurs began with a
Greek king named Ixion . Zeus had allowed
Ixion to live on Mount Olympus . Zeus heard
that Ixion had fallen in love with Hera, Zeus’s
wife . As a test for Ixion, Zeus created a cloud
that looked like Hera .
Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S
Ixion fell in love
with the cloud,
thinking it was Hera .
The cloud gave birth
to the first Centaur .
Zeus punished Ixion
by forcing him to
spin on a burning
wheel forever .
In this sculpture from the Parthenon,
a fifth-century bce temple in Athens, a
Ancient Greeks Centaur battles a fallen Greek warrior.
put pictures of battles
showing themselves fighting Centaurs on many
objects, from drinking cups to stone temples .
The Greeks did not often show current events
in their art . Rather, they used pictures of myths
to show how they felt about what was going
on in the world around them . For example,
the Greeks connected one of their greatest
enemies, the Persians, with the Centaurs .
Do You Know?
The relationship between a guest and his or her host was
an important part of ancient Greek culture. The myth about Ixion
and the first Centaur shows the importance of this relationship
through Ixion’s disrespect of Zeus, his host. Zeus’s punishment was
a lesson about the consequences of breaking this accepted custom.
5 6
 Sirens
Like Centaurs, Sirens were also hybrid
creatures . Sirens were women with the wings,
legs, and bodies of birds . They stood for the
importance of self-control . They lived on an
island in the middle of the sea, where they
sang beautiful songs to lure sailors . The sailors
would lose control of their ships and crash
onto the rocky shores of the island .
The myth about the Sirens says that
they had once been human maids to the
goddess Persephone (pur-SE-fuh-nee) . One
day the god of the underworld took Persephone
while she was picking flowers . Their wings
helped the Sirens search for Persephone .
The Sirens never found her and settled on
the island .
Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S
The Sirens drew many sailors to them, but
a few were able to pass them by . One played
music so loud that it blocked out the Sirens’
song . Another told his sailors to tie him tightly
to his boat . His sailors plugged their ears so
they could not hear the song . Being able to
avoid the Sirens’ song stood for the strength
of will that Greek people valued .
This vase from the
fifth century bce shows
Odysseus tied to his
ship so he can hear the
Sirens’ song . . . and stay alive.
Word W ise
The Sirens are connected to the word siren,
which is a device that gives off a loud warning sound.
They also inspired the meaning of a siren song —
something so appealing that it makes you want it,
even if it is dangerous.
7 8
 The myth about Medusa began with an
evil king who was in love with the mother of
a boy named Perseus . To get Perseus out of
his way, the king tricked him into promising
he would bring anything the king wanted .
The king sent
Perseus to get the
head of Medusa—
a deed he thought
would be impossible .
Medusa
With the help of
While the Sirens were known for their gods and goddesses,
beauty, Medusa was famous for her scary Perseus cut off the
appearance . Ancient Greek artists usually head of Medusa . Two
showed the Gorgons—Medusa and her two creatures came out
sisters—with large, round heads and huge of her body . Some
eyes . They often had snakes instead of hair, people think the killing of Medusa symbolized
pointed tusks, and tongues sticking out of the ending of a drought . The creatures stood
their mouths . for the good things that came after—crops
Although Medusa’s sisters were immortal, and water .
she was mortal . It was possible for humans
to defeat her . Medusa had her own defense Wowser!
The Greeks believed that the frightening
against attacks, though . She could turn faces of the Gorgons would protect them
people to stone once they looked directly and ward off evil. They put pictures of
into her eyes . Gorgons everywhere, including on their shields.

Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S 9 10

 The princess didn’t want the Minotaur to
hurt Theseus . She asked the man who built
the Labyrinth how Theseus could escape . She
was told that she should give Theseus a ball of
yarn to tie to a door . He was to unwind it as he
made his way through the Labyrinth . She also
gave Theseus a sword . After Theseus defeated
the Minotaur, he followed the trail of yarn
The Minotaur
back out of the maze .
The Minotaur was another hybrid creature .
It had a bull’s head and a man’s body . The The Minotaur myth was popular after the
monster was so scary that it was kept in a Greeks took over Crete . Just as Centaurs often
maze called the Labyrinth beneath the palace symbolized the
of Minos, where the king of Crete lived . Persians, bulls
often stood
After boys from the city of Athens killed for Crete . Bulls
the son of Minos, the king wanted revenge . were sacred to
He began to attack Athens . He agreed to stop an important
if the people of Athens sent seven boys and goddess in Crete .
seven girls to the Minotaur . Some people
A brave boy from Athens named Theseus think that
volunteered to be one of the victims . When Theseus beating
Theseus arrived in Crete, he was put in a cage the Minotaur
with the other victims . It was then that the stood for the
princess of Crete, Ariadne (ah-ree-AHD-nee), Greeks taking
saw Theseus and fell in love with him . over Crete .

Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S 11 12


Typhon
The Minotaur was tiny compared to
the giant Typhon (TY-fon) . It was a monster
with wings, snakes for legs, and one hundred
heads—one human and the rest different
creatures . Typhon stood for the harmful forces
of nature .
Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S
Only Zeus, the king of the gods, could
match Typhon . Their battle shook the whole
world . Zeus set all one hundred of the
monster’s heads on fire . He then locked
Typhon away inside Earth .
The ancient Greeks blamed Typhon for the
strong winds that spread across land and sea
during great storms . People were comforted
by the idea that Zeus could defeat the natural
forces of weather that Typhon represented .
13 14
 Conclusion
The ancient Greeks did not tell stories about
mythical creatures simply to entertain or scare
people . These creatures and the myths about
them had meanings that helped people
understand the world around them at the time .
While mythical creatures played important
roles in ancient Greek culture, they are also
popular today . Children and adults are still
excited by their amazing stories .
Some famous companies use mythical
creatures of ancient Greece as their
logos—including Medusa’s head for
the fashion label Versace (vur-SAH-chee),
Pegasus, Perseus’s winged horse, for
Mobil Gas, and a Siren for Starbucks
Coffee Company.
Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece • Level S
Glossary
civilized having an advanced level of social
(adj.) order and cultural development (p . 5)
creatures animals, especially ones that are
(n.) strange or unusual (p . 4)
cultures (n.) particular societies with their own
ideas and customs (p . 4)
defeat (v.) to win a victory over another (p . 9)
drought (n.) a dry spell with little or no rainfall (p . 10)
hybrid (adj.) made from a variety of different things
(p . 7)
immortal living forever; not subject to death
(adj.) (p . 9)
lure (v.) to convince another to go somewhere
or do something with the offer of
something pleasant or rewarding (p . 7)
myths (n.) stories that explain historical events,
natural occurrences, or customs, and
often involve supernatural elements (p . 4)
sacred (adj.) of or relating to a god, religion,
or spiritual purpose; holy (p . 12)
symbolized represented an idea with an object,
(v.) picture, or sign (p . 10)
will (n.) strong determination or resolve
to accomplish something (p . 8)
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