When Medusa was slain, the winged horse Pegasus spang from her blood. The Greeks portray Medusa as a horrifying gorgon, an ugly woman with snakes for hair; anyone who looked at her face was turned to stone. Yet her name has the same root as medicine and measure, and derives from the Greek word meaning "to protect, to rule over." Medusa is a moon goddess, the triple-headed Great Goddess in her death aspect. She is associated with blood, so to meet her is to meet the mysteries of moon-blood or menstrual blood, sacred and terrible, in many mythologies the source of life.

Medusa is a serpent energy, enlivening, terrifying, impersonal. Somehow Medusa, a symbol of growth and generation that dies so that from death may come life, became a symbol of fear, for to look directly upon the divine is to face a terrifying reality.

Pegasus is instinct, wisdom, imagination, life force, and intuitive understanding.