homer wrote about the gorgon on four occasions, but only about the head, as if the creature had no body. jane ellen harrison notes that "medusa is a head and nothing more...a mask." the body was added many years later. up to the 5th century bc, the head was shown as being very ugly, with her tongue sticking out, boar tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring straight ahead and the snakes twisting all around her.