 From the fifth century BC historian Herodotus, we learn of a creature who, though Herodotus does not name as Echidna, is called an "echidna" ("she-viper") and resembles the Hesiodic Echidna in several respects.She was half woman half snake, lived in a cave, and was known as a mother figure, in this case, as the progenitor of the Scythians (rather than of monsters).According to Herodotus, Greeks living in Pontus, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, told a story of an encounter between Heracles and this snaky creature.