The Greek Halloween Myth

Hallowenocles, long favored by the gods, knew no fear. He had been born during a ferocious thunderstorm without crying. Some said that he was because Zeus was actually his father. Others said his house had very good walls and they didn’t make them like that anymore.

During his youth, the fearless Hallowenocles ducked into a cave one day to avoid school and walked straight down to the gates of underworld, where he teased the mighty Cerberus before Hades came to the gate shaking his fist and urging Hallowenocles return to the world of men.

When he was a young man, Hallowenocles talked politics freely with the fathers of the people he was dating and showed a sort of complete indifference to the challenge of killing people in physical combat that the word began to spread that he was the bravest man in all of the Mediterranean.

As it happened one breezy autumn day, Hallowenocles was playing his lyre in a limestone quarry when Hermes the messenger appeared to him.

“Hallowenocles,” the Prowler of the Night said, “I have come from Mount Olympus bearing a message from Zeus.”

Most people became afraid and supplicated themselves when the gods appeared. Not Hallowenocles.

“Is he finally going to own up to being my father?”

Hermes rolled his eyes, pulled a little scroll out of his pocket, and read it aloud.

“In his capacity as an omniscient, omnipotent super being, Lord Zeus could easily be interpreted as the father of all, regardless of the participants in the reproductive act. He does not now, nor has he ever, engaged in the creation of so-called ‘heroes,’ and the vengeful shape-shifting of human women by he or his rightfully exclusive wife Hera does not in any way constitute the legal admission of any wrongdoing.”

“Coward,” Hallowenocles said, plucking a minor chord on the lyre.

Hermes held out his open palm, and the lyre flew into it.

“You should listen. Most of the people who get these messages tend to die or suffer highly ironic punishments, and those are the ones who listen.”

“I’m not scared of irony.”

“Give it a few millennia,” Hermes said, playing a short melody on the lyre. Suddenly, Hallowenocles couldn’t speak or move. “Listen up: your whole No Fear t-shirt from Mervyn’s deal is not cute by the standards of the Olympian set. Zeus wants you to know, via the divine intercession of yours truly, that Hephaestus himself has fashioned a torture chamber of intense physical and spiritual anguish, into which he plans to trap you.”

Hallowenocles rolled his eyes like, “So what?”

“Suit yourself,” Hermes said, playing a few more notes and disappearing into thin air.

Hallowenocles wasn’t scared, but he was a little disoriented. He was relieved he could speak and move again, but Hermes had made off with his lyre.

Just outside the city gates, Hallowenocles came upon something that had not been there when he left that morning. It was a massive bronze cube with a single door. It was situated in such a way that the only way back into the city was straight through it. Unafraid, Hallowenocles entered.

When he shut the door behind him, he was surrounded in darkness. One by one, a few candles strewn about the room burst into spontaneous flame, illuminating a table with three smaller bronze cubes on it.

“Hallowenocles,” a voice boomed in the emptiness. “You will be scared.”

“Try me.”

“Put your hand in the first box.”

He lifted the bronze lid and obliged. It was squishy and mucusy in there.

“Those are the intestines of your forefathers! Extracted in Tartarus by birds as they lay chained upon cliffs.”

“These are noodles,” Hallowenocles said with a laugh. “You’re going to have to do better to scare me!”

“Open the next box,” the voice said, booming through the room.

Hallowenocles obliged and put his hand it. He could feel grapes.

“These are the eyeballs of your fallen comrades from battle. Cower in fear at the thought of your mortality!”

“They’re grapes, and they have an awful lot of seeds,” Hallowenocles said, picking his teeth.

“Fool, if you really fancy yourself brave, then inspect the contents of the third box.” As Hallowenocles reached in, the voice shouted, “Behold your own severed head!”

“This is an orange squash with a face carved in it,” Hallowenocles said, not scared at all. “Is this the best artifice the high and mighty Hephaestus can muster? You should give up smithing and start planning children’s parties.”

The disembodied voice groaned, and a bronze door slide open, beckoning Hallowenocles to a deeper chamber.

Hallowenocles crossed over into an even darker chamber, with only faint ominous red light emanating from the corners of the room. The outlines in the darkness told him the room had been configured into a sort of maze.

Two steps in, someone wearing a grotesque theatre mask jumped out in front of him, prompting Hallowenocles to punch them directly in the face.

“Ouch!” cried the distinct voice of one of Hephaestus’ nymphs. “What the heck? I was just trying to scare you.”

“My apologies. Brave manly reflexes.”

As Hallowenocles walked through the chamber, no fewer than five nymphs in scary costumes jumped out of the darkness and tried to grab him, but each time, he dropped them to the floor with a single punch.

Finally, he reached the end of the maze and another bronze door, which slid open begrudgingly.

The innermost sanctum was the darkest of all. Hallowenocles couldn’t see his hand in front of his face after the door shut behind him.

“You are not the son of Zeus,” the voice from the first room says.

“Easy for you to say, Hephaestus. You’re just jealous you don’t have a dad.”

“He may deny me yet, but I know him. I have met in his chambers, presented him with ceremonial arms to great reverie. I know his look and his smell and his marks, and you have none of them.”

“But I was born during the greatest thunderstorm of a generation and never cried.”

“What other proof have you?”

“I am unafraid. I feel no fear. It is a mark of his favor and parentage.”

“Ha! You have no fear because you have no understanding.”

Hallowenocles’ eyes should’ve adjusted to the darkness by then, but everything was still blackness. He turned his head left and right, trying to find just a sliver of light that would indicate a door, but he saw nothing. He couldn’t even tell where he’d entered the room. It was trying his patience.

“Listen, can we just get to your grandiose jump scare so I can get through that door and back to the city or into the next chamber of whatever the opposite of horrors is or whatever?”

“You are not the son of Zeus,” the voice said again.

“I don’t get why you’re so hung up on this. I clearly am.”

“But what if you aren’t?”

“What do you mean? That’s a pointless question because I am.”

“But if you weren’t, wouldn’t that erode your entire entity?”

“No, not at all.”

“Do you think ‘Normal Man Who is Less Scared than Average’ is a marketable skillset if people knew you weren’t a hero?”

“Look, I’m obviously a hero.”

“Zeus denies the existence of heroes.”

“That’s just for his marriage,” Hallowenocles said. “I’m special. I know I am.”

“But what if you weren’t?”

It was scary to think about.

Suddenly, the lights came on.

“I got you! I got you so bad!” Hephaestus said, appearing in physical form in the middle of the empty room. “You were all, ‘Oh no, I’m so scared I might be a normal person! Waaaaah!’”

“I wasn’t scared!” Hallowenocles said. “I was just thinking.”

One by one, the other gods appeared, filling the bronze chamber with their powerful presence.

“We all saw,” Diana, the huntress, said. “You were so scared. You should’ve seen your face!”

“Was not!” Hallowenocles insisted.

Hermes played a few notes on the lyre, and the entire bronze cube disappeared, leaving Hallowenocles lying in shame at the city gates, having been humbled.

This story is part of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days. Each entry in the series was written and published in a single day during October of 2020. This idea was completely stolen from Mark Macyk.

Day 1: The Devil’s Diphthong

Day 2: The Podcasting Ghost

Day 3: The Portal Potties

Day 4: The Household Accident

Day 5: The Scarecrow Competition

Day 6: The Cursed Father

Day 7: When the Car Hits the Tree

Day 8: Thank Christ It’s Halloween

Day 9: The Greek Halloween Myth

Day 10: The Ghost & The Cockroach

Day 11: Pampered