Talos- Greek CreatureCreature"Guardian of Crete"

The Bronze Guardian

Talos was a giant automaton made entirely of bronze, fashioned by Hephaestus and given to guard the island of Crete. In one tradition, Zeus gave Talos to Europa after their union on the island, alongside a golden javelin that never missed and the hunting dog Laelaps. Other accounts assign him to Minos. Apollodorus preserves another tradition: that Talos was no automaton but the last survivor of the bronze race of men.

Talos circled the island three times each day on his tireless bronze legs, and when he spotted an unauthorized ship, he hurled boulders to sink it or heated his bronze body in a fire and embraced the intruders, burning them alive. A single vein ran from his neck to his ankle, filled with ichor — the divine fluid that flows in the veins of gods. This vein was sealed at the ankle by a single bronze nail. No weapon could pierce the bronze. Everything depended on that seal.

The Fall of Talos

When Jason and the Argonauts approached Crete on their return from Colchis with the Golden Fleece, Talos confronted them, hurling rocks at the Argo. The crew could not land for water with the bronze giant patrolling the shore. Medea stepped forward and employed her sorcery against the automaton, fixing him with her malevolent gaze and sending visions of madness into his mind. Dazed and stumbling among the rocks, Talos grazed his ankle against a jagged stone, rupturing the seal over his single vein. The divine ichor poured out like molten lead, and the great bronze giant tottered and crashed to earth with a sound like a falling tower. With Talos fallen, the Argonauts landed on the shore of Crete at last. Apollodorus records another version: the archer Poeas shot Talos in the ankle with an arrow, piercing the vein from a distance.