Medusa
Medusa is the most famous of the three Gorgon sisters of Greek myth, a winged being with living serpents for hair whose gaze turned all who met it to stone. Once a beautiful maiden punished by Athena, she was beheaded by Perseus, and from her neck sprang Pegasus and Chrysaor. Her severed head, the gorgoneion, became an apotropaic emblem on armor and shields.