I remember being frightened of Medusa in a movie I saw (I can't remember the name atm), but I was terrified that any second, she'd turn up and turn me to stone.
Fun little note in the annals of greek mythology; Medusa was once considered a beautiful woman, even on par with the Greek Goddess Aphrodite. So as it happens, the god Poseidon takes a liking to Medusa, and as gods are wont to do, takes her to the Temple of Athena and proceeds to rape the fuck out of her.
Right, so then after a few hours of that, Poseidon steps out to take a quick smoke break, again as gods are wont to do. Meanwhile, Athena appears, sees the raped Medusa lying on her temple ground, and being the gigantic bitch that she is, decides to then curse Medusa into the ugly creature with snake hair that she's normally portrayed as.
So, cut to years later, once again a god, this time Zeus, rapes another woman, this time a queen, just to piss of her king. King goes mad, tosses his wife and child into the sea, and if you've seen the movie, Perceus survives, and is then told to go kill Medusa-the-raped-and-disfigured. He does so gallantly, and chops her head off, stuffing it in a sack. Mind you, not the way it's portrayed in the movie; for you see, Medusa doesn't go all around the countryside turning people to stone, no, instead, she actually sought out comfort from the only two beings she wouldn't turn into stone on sight; her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, who were already snake-haired monsters with the added benefit of being immortal. (Medusa, obviously, wasn't.) So in one of the most misinterpreted, anti-heroic acts in the entirety of Greek mythology, Perceus walks into the cave where the three are
sleeping, and lops her head clean off without a second thought. And not only does her head simply come off, but something else springs out as well; the god-horse Pegasus. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, as it turns out, Poseidon's parting gift to his rape victim turned out to be, yes, a motherfucking horse with god damned wings. Jumping out her de-cap-i-ma-tated head. So, giddy with his heroic venture, he leaps upon the horse-child of Medusa and Poseidon, and rides off to fuck around with its mom's head by randomly showing it to people just to be a twat.