In order to fetch the apples, some say, Heracles 1 visited first the NYMPHS, daughters of Zeus and Themis, who lived by the river Eridanus.
Some affirm that Ladon 4 was immortal, but others tell that Heracles 1 killed him when he, following the orders of his tormentor Eurystheus, came to fetch the Golden Apples and they add that the flies which came to the wounds caused by the poisoned arrows of Heracles 1 (for he had dipped his arrows in the gall of the Hydra) withered and died. Yet some have represented it as a regular snake coiled round the apple-tree. This dragon, called sometimes Ladon 4, was, according to some, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, or according to others, of Phorcus and Ceto 1, and having one hundred heads, it was able to speak with many different voices. However, the HESPERIDES kept picking the Golden Apples from the tree, and that is the reason why Hera decided to place a guardian dragon which was never overcome by sleep, although others say that the HESPERIDES and the dragon guarded the Golden Apples jointly, the monster guarding the tree, and the HESPERIDES singing their lovely songs around it. When Zeus married Hera, Gaia gave them as a wedding gift, the Golden Apples and Hera, feeling great admiration for these wonderful fruits, asked Gaia to plant them in the garden that Hera kept near Mount Atlas, in the region we today may call northwestern Africa, but that was then called Libya.
HESPERIDES are called the women who guarded the Golden Apples that Heracles 1 had to fetch.
"And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides." (Hesiod, Theogony 319). Maioliche di Castelli d'Abruzzo del XVII e XVIII Secolo.
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