In a small town of Ledia there once lived a beautiful maiden with the name Arachne. Arachne was famous in town for being a very skillful weaver and spinner and every day many girls and Nereids were stopping by to see her weave.
Arachne was very vain and couldn’t stop boasting about her talent, claiming that she had learned the skill all by herself and that there was no one else in the world who could weave as delicately as her; she even felt she could compete against Athena, the goddess of the skills, and win her with ease.
When Athena heard these words, she got disappointed and decided to disguise as an old lady and appear in front of Arachne. “My dear”, she told Arachne,” I am old and have much experience from life, so let me give you one advice: don’t ever mess up with a goddess; no mortal can compete against Athena, take back your words and kindly ask for forgiveness.”
Arachne was furious and threw the thread against the old woman, telling her: “I don’t need your advice, I know best what I can do! If Athena really dares, then she should come here and compete against me.”
At that moment, the old woman transformed herself into the radiant goddess Athena. On her sight, everybody in the room kneeled down in awe; not so Arachne who couldn’t wait to compete against her.
So the competition started and both contestants were doing really well; Athena was weaving the Parthenon and her contest with god Poseidon; Arachne, on the other hand, was making fun of the gods by weaving scenes of gods full of weaknesses and fears.
Arachne’s work seemed to be perfect technically, yet was not beautiful because it was showing disregard of the gods. Athena was very offended and told Arachne: “You may be foolish and stubborn, but you love your skill. So why don’t you go ahead and spin forever!”
Having that said, Athena sprinkled her with the juice of magical herbs and the body of Arachne transformed into a small and ugly animal, which nowadays is known as the spider. From that moment on Arachne has been cursed to be trapped inside her own web, weaving constantly and endlessly but having all her works destroyed by man.