Having resolved to slay Medusa, Perseus’ next step was to find out just where she was. Since anyone who looked at her turned into stone, this made tracking down eye-witnesses tricky. Also, he needed special weapons with which to kill her, because there aren’t many weapons you can use without looking at someone. The weapons in question were in the Hesperides, which was not a place you could just ask directions to from a passing stranger. He was advised by Athena to ask directions from the Graeae; she could have told him how to get there herself, but she didn’t. Graeae just means “gray,” which was a good name for them because they were gray all over, but no one could explain why their parents had named them Dread, Horror, and Alarm. Why would you give a kid a name like that? They were three crones who lived on an island and shared a single eye and a single tooth and were also Medusa’s sisters. 1 The Graeae were so old, they could not remember their own childhood, but they knew a lot of other stuff, like how to get to the Hesperides. Anyway, Perseus outsmarted them by stealing their eye. He wouldn’t give it back until they gave him the information, which they did. Even though this was thousands of years before
1. It wasn't a very attractive family.
