drops on invisible man Chevy Chase in Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Historical examples One of the first known fictional depictions of Invisibility is the Ring of Gyges described by Plato. According to the legend, Gyges of Lydia was a shepherd in the service of King Candaules of Lydia. After an earthquake, a cave was revealed in a mountainside where Gyges was feeding his flock. Entering the cave, Gyges discovered that it was in fact a tomb with a bronze horse containing a corpse, larger than that of a man, who wore a golden ring, which Gyges pocketed. He discovered that the ring gave him the power to become invisible by adjusting it. Gyges then arranged to be chosen as one of the messengers who reported to the king as to the status of the flocks. Arriving at the palace, Gyges used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help he murdered the king, and became king of Lydia himself. King Croesus, famous for his wealth, was Gyges' descendant. In the Buddhist tradition, Maudgalyayana - one of the Sakyamuni Buddha's closest disciples - was credited with having the power to make himself invisible, and using this power to save himself from murderous robbers. A Cloak of invisibility appears in such a Fairy tales as The Twelve Dancing Princesses. A more common trope is the cap of invisibility. The cap of invisibility has appeared in Greek myth: Hades was ascribed possession of a cap or helmet that made the wearer invisible. In some versions of the Perseus myth, Perseus borrows this cap from the goddess Athena and uses it to sneak up on the sleeping Medusa when he kills her. The thief Autolycus, grandfather of Odysseus, had a helmet to make him invisible. A similar helmet, the Tarnhelm, is found in Norse mythology - from which it was taken into Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen where it is used by Alberich in Das Rheingold. In the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, one of the important texts of Welsh mythology, Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus) murders Caradog ap Bran and other chieftains left in charge of Britain while wearing a cloak of invisibility. The 14th Century Sir Launfal is provided by his fairy lover Tryamour with an invisible servant called Gyfre. Launfal then defeats the giant Valentyne, thanks to this invisible servant, who picks up his helmet