Odysseus and offered to make him immortal, but the hero longed to be reunited with his wife and son. Odysseus was waylaid for seven years and was only released because Athena implored Zeus to do so, the king of the gods then dispatching Hermes to treat with Calypso and see that the hero was indeed allowed to go free. The Pleiades and the Hyades were two groups of nymphs, both of them eventually set into the sky as star clusters.

Atlas had two notable interactions with heroes, one with Perseus and one with Hercules.

Perseus, After slaying Medusa and collecting her severed head, used his winged sandals and took to the skies. Capricious winds blew Perseus so that every sea and every continent passed below him, until finally, overcome by fatigue, Perseus alighted at the world’s end, where Atlas was imprisoned by the weight of the sky bearing down on him. Perseus asked Atlas for hospitality, but Atlas, who had learnt from an oracle that a son of Zeus would despoil his sacred trees by taking their golden apples, refused him. Scorned, Perseus unveiled and held up Medusa’s severed head before Atlas, who was turned to stone when he looked upon the Gorgon’s hideous face.

Atlas also encountered Hercules during the hero's 11th labor, which was to retrieve the golden apples of the Hesperides. Hercules met Atlas, who offered to fetch the apples if Hercules would temporarily hold the sky up in his place. Hercules agreed, but Atlas was reluctant to resume his plight, having already borne the sky for years uncounted. Hercules, though, was able to extricate himself from his predicament with some quick thinking. He asked Atlas if he could briefly hold up the sky for him while he found something to cushion his shoulders with, but of course, after the switch was made, Hercules took the apples and left Atlas imprisoned once more, never returning.

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