The following Monday, Hercules showed up to Eurystheus.
- Listen my will, Hercules. Friendly the Arcadian king sent me a new telegram where he complains of an invasion of unprecedented birds, devastating the surroundings of the city Stymphalia. I honestly do not quite understand what is going on, but it is clear that these birds are undesirable. Go and let the city get rid of the birds, and the king of Arcadia will telegraph me how you coped with the request. And one more piece of advice. Don’t take anyone with you, otherwise your feat will not again be counted.
A week later, Hercules was in place and personally had the opportunity to study the birds and their habits. Hercules had never seen such strange creatures before. Their beaks and claws were of Damascus steel, the feathers of titanium; the eyes of glass, with telescopic lenses. Having chosen the prey, the feathered creatures circled over her and dumped on them rain of their sharp feathers. It is clear that it was impossible to survive - the victim died, pierced by dozens of shots, after which the birds went down, with their steel beaks tore the victim into small pieces and ate, however, the most interesting thing happened then. Once the victim remained only horns and legs, the birds carefully collected their dropped feathers and inserted them back into place. Carefully searching the neighborhood in order to detect the unnoticed feather birds flew croaking.
Asking the local residents, Hercules realized the reason of their occurrence. Each area of the Earth, it may be Greenland, the Himalayas or the island of Sumatra, was divided among gods. Unfortunately, for residents, Arcadia belonged to petty Ares, who immediately brought them to different stupid and unfair wars.
At the peak of the treacherous god, residents refused to appreciate him and began to praise the honest and noble Athena, for who they built a beautiful temple. Ares got terribly angry and planned to take revenge on people. The sneaky god perfectly played cards, especially poker, and bluffed very skillfully. At the same time the greatest blacksmith and mechanic lame Hephaestus adored playing cards, but played extremely badly. Using this fact, the rascal Ares won this poor the performance of any desire and ordered him to make a batch of these birds in the amount of fifty pieces. Nothing could be done - Hephaestus had to mount them, and even from his own material. At the time of departure, the birds settled in Arcadia and began to terrorize residents. The vile creatures were omnivores - they could eat people and animals or peck wheat and oats with the same success.
Hercules long wondered how he could overcome the feathered flock. Finally, he had an idea in his mind: to make a solid metal-plastic shield on the outside where a local artist would paint with oil pets and humans.Even though the hero was strong as an ox , he still could hardly move under the weight of huge shield area of five hundred square feet. The next day, Hercules went to the field and began to walk on it. Of course, the birds arrived at the very minute and showered the hero with rain of titanium arrows as usual which either bounced off the shield, or stabbed him. Abundantly irrigating the victim the creatures went down, anticipating a good breakfast, but without any luck. Discarding the unnecessary put shield Hercules drew his famous bow, presented to him by the radiant Apollo and started to bullet the creatures. It is clear that there was nothing to defend themselves before the pack was able to take off; ten of them were pierced with sharp arrows of the hero.
The battle was watched by treacherous Ares in impotent rage. Oh, how he wanted to hit the hero, but the god was afraid to enter into an open battle with mighty Hercules, whose patron, moreover, was lovely Athena, able to pour any god on the first number. The god wanted to turn to Hephaestus requesting him to repair the remaining birds and restore the size of their population, but did not dare - hardly Hephaestus had forgotten his humiliating defeat.
Hercules gathered the titanium feathers into a large wooden box, begged from grateful citizens of Stymphalia a cart with two horses and set off. Of course, telegrams go faster than a cart, that’s why Eurystheus already knew about the victory.
- Well, I'll probably count this feat but with one condition - you must give these feathers to me. They, you know, should serve to me as a reminder of your feats.
Hercules did not want to part with such treasure. Then the titanium metal had a huge demand and the box of feathers hero could use to get a herd cattle.
- I think Eurystheus, a few feathers, maybe five or six will be enough for the archive.
- No, Hercules, it won’t work. I need all the feathers, all – up to a single. Or do you want me not to count your feat? Well, so will it be take two or three feathers as souvenir, but no more and thank for my generosity.
Reluctantly the hero gave the box with feathers to the king, separated for him three feathers and on the same day sold them to the local moneylender and rolled a grand feast with faithful Iolaus .