There were few monsters as horrendous in their torture as the Furies. All three sisters, Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, punished without mercy those who had committed any kind of crime, following them and torturing the criminals with madness. They were cruel but fair, punishing only those who had committed a wrongdoing.
None faced the Furies by choice. When a mortal man named Dandrae unintentionally caused the miscarriage of his child, he was to suffer for the mistake, but the Furies decided that he would be given a second chance, if he could prove that he deserved it. The most cunning of the sisters, Alecto, came up with a task that was almost impossible to complete, to test if Dandrae’s love for his wife Maliha was true and that his crime was truly accidental.
While Dandrae and Maliha were sleeping, Tisiphone crept into their house and poured a tincture from Hephaestus’s forge, causing Maliha to fall into a deep sleep so that Tisiphone could carry her out to her sisters. The sisters then brought her to a secret location, a cave deep within Mount Etna and set up a number of traps, with monsters preventing Dandrae from reaching Maliha.
When Dandrae woke the next morning, he found his wife gone, with only a small pile of ash resting in her place. He frantically looked everywhere for her, but there was no clue as to where she had been taken. He finally fell into an exhausted sleep, only to find Athena, the goddess of wisdom waiting for him in his dream. She told him that the Furies took Maliha to punish him for accidentally causing a miscarriage for their would-be child. Then she said that if he was to get her back, he must travel to Mount Etna and battle a number of monsters to retrieve her. In his dream-like state, Dandrae asked the goddess, “If I try to save Maliha and fail, what will happen to her?”
Athena’s heart went out to Dandrae at this mention. “If you try and die in the process, I will know that your heart is true and I give you my word that I will save her. I will tell you to the best of my knowledge how to conquer all of the monsters so you can save Maliha.”
Consoled but no less frightened, Dandrae quickly agreed to the formidable task, and accepted the gift Athena gave him, a sword that could slice through any magic, with a jewel in its hilt that glowed when a monster was near.
Setting off in a ship across the ocean toward the mountains, Dandrae first came across the Sirens, a group of young women who sung a beautiful song that lured sailors to their deaths. But remembering what Athena said to him, Dandrae knew how to ignore their song with wool stuffed in his ears, and a sketch of his wife in his hand.
Next, as Dandrae trekked over the plains of Sudhir, the jewel in the hilt of his sword started to glow, getting stronger and stronger. He set down his pack and tried to prepare himself for the Griffon, who flew over the plains to scare off people who could disturb his nest. Because Athena warned him that Griffons had a weak spot, Dandrae pierced it just under its neck with the sword, causing him to be severely wounded. He quickly left the beast and travelled on to the mountains.
Dandrae got to the base of the mountain where he found a sphinx guarding a door that lead to the cave where Maliha was being held. He couldn’t get around the sphinx without harming it, so he challenged it to a riddle contest. The sphinx agreed, asking “What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?”
Dandrae thought about this for a moment, and then remembered Athena giving him her word that she would save Maliha if he failed. “Your word.” He replied smugly.
“Oh you are fine, but can you get this one? ‘The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?”
But remembering Maliha asking this riddle of him while they were walking on the beach, Dandrae told the Sphinx, “Footsteps.”
The Sphinx, quite frustrated by now, asked the hardest riddle he could come up with, “What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?”
Dandrae paused, racking his brain for the answer. Becoming anxious, he muttered “Mmmm. Wait! M! The answer is the letter M, one in minute, and two in moment!”
The Sphinx, seeing that he had been defeated, allowed Dandrae to pass. He wound his way up the stone stairs to where his wife lay, chained to the wall. He used his sword to cut through the chains, not noticing the jewel that glowed in the sword. Dandrae suddenly heard a faint whoosh sound of wings, and turned in time to see the three Furies fly toward him, infuriated that he had managed to finish the task. Tisiphone flew forward, saying, “Although you have completed the task and proven that you should get a second chance, you still have to be punished for your wrongdoing.”
So from then on, the Furies didn’t bother Dandrae and Maliha, but they had to live with the punishment of never being able to bear a child.