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Medusa – In Greek mythology (Greek: Μέδουσα (Médousa), “guardian, protectress”) was a gorgon, a chthonic female monster; gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. She was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon, until giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.

Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, “the jealous aspiration of many suitors,” priestess in Athena’s temple, but when she was raped, or seduced, by the “Lord of the Sea” Poseidon in Athena’s temple, the enraged virgin goddess transformed her beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn a man to stone. In Ovid’s telling, Perseus describes Medusa’s punishment by Athena as just and well-deserved.

In the majority of the versions of the story, while Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus as a gift. With help from Athena and Hermes, who supplied him with winged sandals, Hades’ cap of invisibility, a sword, and a mirrored shield, he accomplished his quest. The hero slew Medusa by looking at her harmless reflection in the mirror instead of directly at her to prevent being turned into stone. When the hero severed Medusa’s head from her neck, two offspring sprang forth: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor who later became the hero wielding the golden sword.

[–wiki, article fairly accurate]