The Nemean Lion

The Nemean Lion terrorised the valley of Nemea, and its distinction was defensive rather than offensive. Its golden fur could not be pierced by iron, bronze or stone, which made every conventional approach useless. Some sources make it another child of Typhon and Echidna; others say it fell from the moon.

It was the first labour of Heracles, and it began with a demonstration of the problem. He shot it with arrows and watched them bounce off. He struck it with his club, and the club broke. Nothing in a hero's standard kit worked at all.

So he changed the terms. He chased the lion into its cave, which had two entrances, and blocked one — a detail worth noticing, because it is tactics rather than strength. Then he went in through the other in the dark and strangled it with his bare arms, where the hide's invulnerability was irrelevant because he was not trying to cut it.

Skinning it presented the same problem in reverse. No blade would go through. Athena suggested using one of the lion's own claws, which cut the hide easily, and Heracles wore the pelt afterwards as armour no weapon could penetrate. Every later depiction of him — club, beard, lion skin over the shoulders — comes from this one labour.

Eurystheus was so frightened when Heracles brought the carcass back that he had a bronze jar sunk in the ground to hide in, and from then on delivered his instructions through a herald rather than in person.