[3] According to the Bibliotheca, when Hephaestus unsuccessfully attempted to rape Athena, she wiped his semen off her leg with wool and threw it on the ground, impregnating Gaia.

Athena wished to make the resulting infant Erichthonius immortal and to raise it, so she gave it to three sisters, Herse, Aglauros and Pandrosos, in a willow basket and warned them to never open it.

Aglauros and Herse disobeyed her and opened the basket which contained the infant and future king, Erichthonius, who was somehow mixed or intertwined with a snake.

is that, while Athena was gone bringing a limestone mountain from the Pallene peninsula to use in the Acropolis, the sisters, minus Pandrosos again, opened the box with Erichthonius inside.

A crow witnessed the opening and flew away to tell Athena, who fell into a rage and dropped the mountain (now Mt.