So as part of his twelve labours, Hercules had to clean out an Arcadian pigsty. Instead of using buckets of water and mops he decided to go one better. He supposedly redirected the rivers Pinious and Alphius through the farm and washed out all the muck. An incredible feat of engineering for one man as those two rivers, according to a map of the area, are never any closer than 30 miles apart. Assuming the pigsty was equidistant he channeled the rivers 15 miles. Not an impossibility for a man like Hercules who was obviously bordering on god-like. When he died he was conferred as a god to Mount Olympus with the rest of the capricious gang.
Now let's think about this labour. Imagine you had to clean out a barn in Baldock. It would be like using the rivers Lea at Ware and the Ouse at Bedford. You can imagine how difficult that task would be in the 21st century let alone 3000 years ago. They had no sophisticated canal-digging machinery back then. Unless of course some of the ancient Greeks possessed equipment unknown to us that's been long lost. Maybe redirecting rivers was the norm and it was as easy as stroking a horse's nose. It was such a common thing that it only just got a mention as one of the twelve labours of Hercules. He probably said "blimey Zeus that's a tough one. What do you want me to do next? Turn the kitchen light off?"
There's a possibility that Hercules was thinking about using normal hog washing methods when suddenly a freak tornado caused the two rivers to divert temporarily through that pigsty and he capitalised on the moment. He was an opportunist! Who knows the real truth. They must have been filthy dirty pigs to warrant the diversion of two rivers. Hercules may have employed a bunch of blokes to dig two channels from each river and then claimed sole responsibility after they'd done the job. That's feasible. It does state in the myth that Hercules did it on his Jack Jones, though. No assistance whatsoever. Not even a spaniel! Not even a couple of dung beetles. I wonder if he dug the channels in a sort of Tasmanian Devil style? I wonder what he had on his tea break - that's if he bothered having a tea break halfway through a five minute job. Anyway, tea hadn't been imported from China yet! Then again, with his powers he probably could've conjured up some Typhoo. He probably drank it on the job. Saying that it's bloody hard to drink tea while spinning round like a Tasmanian Devil!
Those pigs must've loved that sudden flood. I imagine your average pig ain't too chuffed with being inundated by river water. They were probably quite surprised by the whole affair, if you can imagine a load of pigs with surprised looks on their faces. I remember seeing the pig from Pipkins looking surprised - maybe a bit like that! "Ere I was fucking eating! Why don't you use a mop?" No Brummy accent, though.
I imagine anyone fishing at the time would've been annoyed too. All of a sudden all the water vanishes. That don't happen every day. And then after a five minutes, the water's back! That must've confused a few perch! I reckon a fisherman on the River Alphius would've performed a little double-take when that happened. He would've been in the pub a bit later, chatting to his mate who was fishing on the other river, the Pinious, and his mate says "yeah exactly the same thing happened to me. Water disappeared for five minutes." The barman shaking his head thinking everyone's going bonkers round here today. "You want tea? Sorry mate we ain't discovered China yet! We got some good Attic wine in the basement. Seems like everyone's been on the hard stuff already, what with all this guff of some mortal diverting two rivers to clean out a barn" A charwoman starts wiping down some tables and the barman says "No Larissa, not that way. Divert two rivers. I want it done properly."
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