There are a few lesser known traditions that detail the childhood of one of Greek mythology’s greatest war heroes: Achilles. This may not sound all that thrilling, but really it’s nothing at all what you’d expect, and if you’re like me you’re probably fascinated with the childhoods of various characters just for their psychological merit. I mean so infrequently do we hear about what the rest of the Greek divinities were doing when they were tots. Was Zeus accidentally electrocuting everything he touched? Was Ulysses kept on a child tether, perpetually wandering in circles around his back yard? Was Cassandra running around refusing to do her homework because it was futile to finish anything when the world was ending tomorrow? We may never know. What we do know was what Achilles was up to…

Achilles’ story starts out not too long after his birth. His mother Thetis sought an oracle to know what the fate of her new baby would be and the oracle told her he’d die in battle. She obviously didn’t want this to happen so she brought her screaming little swaddle to the river Styx where held him by the ankle, as one does when handling and infant, and dipped him in river like an old timey candle. This brutal baptism of sorts was supposed to render his flesh unable to be wounded, which it did, except for his ankle where his mama was holding him. She returned home, feeling assured her efforts were not in vain and did not speak to the oracle until a number of years later. To her horror the oracle replied, “Ma’am, the Fates aren’t that easily fooled. Your impromptu swimming lessons didn’t do your son a lick of good. He’s still going to die in battle.” Clearly this called for another harebrained scheme.

So Thetis did what any good mother would do. She slapped a dress on him, renamed him Pyrrah, and sent him to live with a harem of princesses where he’d hide from the draft, or at least until puberty when the other princesses started packing on a mysterious amount of weight.

In this tradition Achilles spends a number of years in his later childhood and adolescent years pretending to be a girl and keeping this secret from everyone around him. I can only imagine how this must have screwed this poor boy up psychologically. It’s bad enough to be raised a girl but to be raised a boy until the age of ten or so and then suddenly expected to be feminine?! I can’t even imagine! That must have been the world’s most blundering puberty experience ever. Especially after he really did knock up one of the princesses in what is probably one of the only lesbian pregnancies ever. Awkward. Funny enough this isn’t what blew his cover. That would only happen when Odysseus waltzed into town with a bunch of shiny things, laid them out on a table, and yelled, “AHA! I KNEW IT!” when Achilles, in drag, picked up one of the swords to admire it. Apparently an interest in shiny sharp things is something that never happens to naturally born girls. Ever. It’s like actually enjoying the Three Stooges. No girl ever has done that. It’s scientific fact. And from there the rest is history. Achilles rips off his wig, leaves behind a very confused and pregnant girlfriend, and starts fighting in the Trojan War. And then he dies from an arrow to the ankle. Tough blow!

If you thought this was funny stick around because tomorrow I will be telling you another story from Greek mythology where a baby girl is raised as a boy… what will happen? Find out here!