Oh Hello there, this is Let's Talk About Myths Baby

And I am your host, Liv

There are very few Greek myths that I don't know with at least a decent amount of detail at this point

Even if the nitty gritty details don't stay in my head forever

I'm pretty proud of how many myths I at least know like the idea behind the basic story

or even if I can't tell you the whole thing off the top of my head, I know some of it

The myth of hero and Leander though?

Man, it turns out I had actually no idea what it was about

Hero and Leander is one of those stories that I knew the names of

knew the names super well and so completely assumed that I just knew the story itself

or that it was something I would recognize immediately as I began to read the sources

But nope, actually the story of Hero and Leander is fascinating for whole host of reasons

but I would argue very few of those reasons are actually found in the ancient sources that survive

That part is ultimately what interests me

I finally decided to look into this myth because of this week's upcoming conversation episode

On Friday you'll hear me speaking with Professor Karen Carr

who has just written a book on the history of swimming

and so she came on the show to talk about Hero and Leander and swimming

swimming though so far beyond Hero and Leander and into the wider world and the Mediterranean beyond

It's really fascinating, I'm excited for you to listen to that episode

But today, today I'm giving you the background, the Hero and Leander background

at least the story of Hero and Leander as it appears in the ancient surviving sources

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