PEGASUS

Pegasus, the flying horse, came about from the severed neck of Medusa after she was decapitated by Perseus. He was a wild horse and would only allow the Muses to come near him. The hero Bellerophon, however, wanted desperately to ride him. One day, Bellerophon threw a magic bridle over Pegasus's head that he had received from the goddess Athena. It made Pegasus so tame that he could ride him.

Bellerophon and Pegasus were a great team. They killed the Chimera in Lycia and became very well known. But Bellerophon grew bigheaded and thought that he should be a god. He began to fly toward Mt. Olympus, but Zeus sent a gadfly that stung Pegasus and he threw the hero off his back. Pegasus went up to Mt. Olympus and became the carrier of Zeus's thunderbolts.