ヘーラーはゼウスの息子に対する怒りを抑えられず、まだ幼くベッドに横たわるヘーラークレースを殺そうと2匹の蛇を送り込んだ。ヘーラークレースは素手で蛇の喉を鳴らし、そのぐったりした体を子供のおもちゃのように遊んでいるところを乳母に発見された<ref name=":2">https://books.google.com/books?id=cZATs1x4BnsC&q=Galanthis+greek+mythology, Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology, Evslin, Bernard, 2012-10-30, Open Road Media, isbn:9781453264386</ref>。
天の川の起源は、ゼウスがヘーラーを騙して幼いヘーラークレースを授乳させ、その正体を見破ったヘーラーがヘーラークレースを乳房から引き離し、その乳が空に飛び散ってできたシミが今日まで見られるという説がある<ref>jstor:867195, The Origin of the Milky Way in the National Gallery, Mandowsky Erna, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 1938, volume72, issue419, pages88–93</ref>。ギリシャ人とは異なり、エトルリア人は成長した髭の生えたヘーラークレースをヘーラーの胸に抱く姿を描いているが、これは彼が不死身になったときにヘーラーに養子に出されたことを意味するのかもしれない。。ギリシャ人とは異なり、エトルリア人は成長した髭の生えたヘーラークレースをヘーラーの胸に抱く姿を描いているが、これは彼が不死身になったときにヘーラーに養子に出されたことを意味するのかもしれない。ヘーラークレースは以前、彼女の胸に重傷を負わせたことがあるのだ。
One account of the origin of the [[Milky Way]] is that Zeus had tricked Hera into nursing the infant Heracles: discovering who he was, she pulled him from her breast, and a spurt of her milk formed the smear across the sky that can be seen to this day. Unlike any Greeks, the [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]]s instead pictured a full-grown bearded Heracles at Hera's breast: this may refer to his adoption by her when he became an Immortal. He had previously wounded her severely in the breast.
When Heracles reached adulthood, Hera [[Insanity|drove him mad]], which led him to murder his family and this later led to him undertaking his famous labours. Hera assigned Heracles to labour for King [[Eurystheus]] at Mycenae. She attempted to make almost all of Heracles' twelve labours more difficult. When he fought the [[Lernaean Hydra]], she sent a [[Karkinos|crab]] to bite at his feet in the hopes of distracting him. Later Hera stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests. When Heracles took the cattle of [[Geryon]], he shot Hera in the right breast with a triple-barbed arrow: the wound was incurable and left her in constant pain, as [[Dione (mythology)|Dione]] tells [[Aphrodite]] in the ''[[Iliad]]'', Book V. Afterwards, Hera sent a [[gadfly (mythology)|gadfly]] to bite the cattle, irritate them and scatter them. Hera then sent a flood which raised the water level of a river so much that Heracles could not ford the river with the cattle. He piled stones into the river to make the water shallower. When he finally reached the court of Eurystheus, the cattle were sacrificed to Hera.