Hades and the River Styx
River Styx Myth
Ancient Greeks believed that there was life after death, like the egyptians but they had a different way of things on how they prepared their deceased person to get ready for the after life. They would honour the Greek god Hades, god of the underworld but hades was not the person who took them to the after life it was Hermes who led their soul to the river of styx.
The river styx is led to be believed that it seperated the living world and the world of the dead, it is believed that this river had trecherous and dangerous things when the soul tried crossing it, but the souls were not expected to swim across there was a ferryman called Charon who would give them a boat ride across. But not for free they were expected to pay one greek coin for the trip thats why often families leave a coin on their deceased family member so that they could pay for the trip.
Often they put it under their deceased family members tounge so that nobody could steal the coin. They were only given the one coin because they were expecting to be reborn but this depended on their family caring for them by putting food and drink out at special times of the year, thats why they were only left that one coin.