Because I cannot begin any project without a few caveats, let’s start with those. One: I can promise you right now that these stories are NOT “e for everyone” or “g for general audience”. Mythology is PG-13 at BEST and XXX at worst. There’s gonna be rape, incest, beastiality, violence, language, sex, all of it. Personally, I do believe that myths should be tales we tell to children - that’s where I learned them! - but I also believe in talking to kids like they are adults. And that it’s up to parents how and when you cover these sorts of subjects (but you definitely should!) I'm trying my best to make this the LEAST rape-filled version I can, because I want to believe in love. Just… know that literally anyone Zeus sleeps with including his wife may or may not be a willing participant in the encounter. Zeus is a serial rapist. Those he didn’t rape he seduced. And it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. So it's not a great start. Just bear in mind the general 18+ rating of some of this stuff. Also sorry in advance for any vulgar language on my part. Two: What I’m publishing here is going to be a REAL rough cut. Because if I try spending time polishing it, I will never publish it. So it’s gonna be a bit stream of conscious like the rest of my stuff. If I ever edit it, it might become a podcast or something, who knows. Three: This is going to be 90% from memory! I may be looking up a few details, but I’m really trying to make this my own telling. So I’m not going to be citing sources or any of that. Maybe I totally made some of this stuff up! Who knows? The only thing I will be looking up is some of the name meanings, esp for the Titans. Because my greek is not that good. (Oh and four: I may get a bit buckwild with the spelling of names. Specifically, all c's should be k's. But sometimes I forget to change them. Bear with. A lot of the names we know have been first 'latinized' and then Anglicized.)
Remember that you asked for this, and know that it’s going to be a buck wild ride.
There are a few places I could start. Because of my work in The Liberal Aren’ts, I actually have an entire speech about My Philosophy of Mythology, which I think is actually really interesting and good. But it might be better to just try and mix that in as we go. And I don’t want any more ado. So. Are you ready for a story? It’s a tale of long, long ago in Hellas (Greece). Or, perhaps, in the whole world. Maybe Hellas is the whole world. Who knows.
We’ll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). In the beginning was Gaia, or as she was otherwise known, Mother Earth. Where Gaia came from, no one knows. Perhaps she has always been here. But she found that she was not alone. Far above her, yet close enough to touch, ever constant and ever changing, shining beautifully was Ouranos (Also known as Uranus), or Heaven. We could call him Father Sky. Father Heaven? Whatever. Ouranos and Gaia fell in love, and by Heaven the Earth bore many mighty children. They had six daughter and six sons, and as no one else was around, these twelve children each mostly wed one another. (We’re starting the incest early. It will continue, I warn you now). Gaia's children were the Titans. And each of these Titans bore mighty children of their own, whom we know as the Gods.
Of the Titans there was deep dwelling Oceanus and Tethys - whose children are the many oceans and rivers of the world. There was astral Coeus and Pheobe - whose children are Asteria and Leto (she’ll come back later). There was celestial Hyperion and Theia, whose three children, Helios (sun), Selene (moon), and Eos (dawn) traverse the sky every day and give light to those below. There was Iaptus, who married one of Oceanus’ daughters and sired Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, among others (we’ll get to these rowdy boys soon). And most importantly, there was Kronos and Rhea.
There were also a few Titans who wed others. For Gaia took another lover, as primordial and eternal as herself and the sky (or quite possibly her own son. Mythology is weird like that), Pontus, the sea. With him she had other children, each sea gods in turn, who in their own turn had children of the sea. One of these was Eurybia, who married the Titan Crius. Their children and grandchildren are an interesting crew with a lot of intermarriage with other Titans and Gods, and includes the four Winds; Boreas (N), Notus (S), Eurus (E), and Zephyrus (W), the goddess of witchcraft, Hekate, and several warlike gods like Kratos (Strength), Nike (Victory), Zelus (Zeal), and Bia (Rage). This mix also includes Styx, possibly the most important River in the Greek world, which flows through Hades, the underworld. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves in all this…
You don't have to remember all of these names, of course. These Titans, as you can see, tend to be more ideas than people. And most of them, while divine, are not part of the Pantheon. You’re probably wondering when we get to the “important” ones.
Well, youngest of the sons of Gaia by Ouranos was Kronos (Sometimes spelled Cronus - Roman name: Saturn), or Time. (Unfortunately this isn’t about to turn into a cool time travel story). Kronos took as his wife Rhea, who would come to be known as the Mother of Gods. This is because her children by Kronos include Hestia, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, and last of all Zeus.
Now there are two notable things about Kronos: First, He was a terrible son, and second, he was a terrible father. The first of these is debatable. The second is DEFINITELY not.
This story starts with the THIRD set of Children which Gaia had (the second set by Ouranos). You see, after giving birth to the many Titans by both Ouranos and Pontus, Gaia had a few more kids by Ouranos. But these were… different. They were not tall and noble Stars and Oceans, not astral like their father but earthy like their mother, and, well, “monstrous”. They were the Hekatoncheires, so called because each of them had fifty heads and one hundred arms! And the Cyclops... Cyclopses? Cyclopoi? Whatever. You know the ones: Giants who had only one great eye. Gaia loved all of her children including these, but her husband Ouranos could not stand to look at them. He trapped them - within Gaia more or less. There is a sense in which he prevented them from being born, trapping them in her womb. Which sounds extremely uncomfortable for both them and for Gaia. Definitely a form of torture. Anyway, Gaia needed help, both to save her children and free her from Ouranos’ grasp. And who stepped up? Kronos.
Now Kronos’ job was simple, but gruesome. And it was not to kill Ouranos as you might guess. Instead he was given a giant sickle, and with it he was to castrate his father. I’m not going to speculate on how this was to free Gaia. But that was her plan: Have her husband’s genitals cut off and thrown into the sea. (Remember these. They are a secret tool that will help us later). And Kronos, although he was youngest, was the only one brave enough to attempt the task and rebel against mighty Heaven. He was successful. And apparently, having your dick and balls cut off and thrown into the sea means you can’t be king of the universe anymore. And we are playing by Elder Wand rules I guess, which made his son Kronos king! But unfortunately he wasn’t a very good one. Remember the entire reason Gaia wanted her sons help? To free the Hekatoncheires and Cyclops? Well, Kronos did… And then immediately re-imprisoned them, because he couldn’t stand them either, and he even stationed a dragon to guard them all. This, understandably, made Gaia. Really. Mad.
So let’s review. The man castrated his father and deposed him, and then did the exact opposite of what his mother wanted him to do and imprisoned his ugliest siblings. So bad son, all around.
Kronos was also the world’s actual worst father. He had six children by Rhea, and you know what he did with them, as soon as they were born? He ate them. Whole. Just swallowed the suckers. You see, as it turns out, committing an act of treason and also patri… well it wasn’t patricide. But basically. Doing horrible things to your father, it turns out, can make one VERY scared of having children of their own who might do the same to you. Especially with Gaia still mad at him. Kronos knew that if anyone could depose him in turn, it would be a child of his own. (Why he kept having kids is beyond me. Like. That's preventable, Kronos. Guess he was hungry. Uhg. I’m gonna go vomit now). Speaking of vomiting…
Rhea, the mother of Kronos’ rather edible children, was understandably distraught by all of this. And she made it her life goal to have a kid who didn’t get eaten (doesn't seem like too much to ask). She tried a few tricks in this regard. At one point, when her second son Poseidon was born, she presented her husband instead with a newborn foal, like an actual baby horse, and was like well here’s the kid… turns out he’s a horse. And Kronos was like ‘Huh...yeah guess that checks out as a thing which could be true. Why not? Gonna eat him now.” and he did. But he must have found out later, and heard the cries of a baby not too skilfully hidden, because Poseidon got eaten too not long after. Finally, though, when Zeus was born, Rhea managed to really trick her husband. Instead of a baby, she gave him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, and told him that it was his son. Kronos - who somehow hadn’t learned to CHECK these things even after the stunt with the horse - swallowed the rock, and Rhea hid Zeus away (and did a better job this time) by sending the child to be raised elsewhere. Specifically, in Crete. There he was raised in a cave by a goat… who apparently did an okay job. And when he was old enough, Zeus came back to FIGHT his father on Rhea’s behalf, just as Kronos had fought Uranus.
Helping him along with this task was Zeus’ first lover, Metis, a Titaness, who gave him some stuff that would make Kronos throw up (one of the oldest ‘medicines’ known to man). Remember Metis, as she’ll be back.
Zeus needed Kronos to throw up because you see, it’s not that easy to kill a god. Those four infants he had swallowed? They weren’t dead. So when Metis and Zeus made Kronos vomit, back came Poseidon, back came Hades, back came Hera, Demeter, and Hestia too. And with the help of his late-born yet older siblings, Zeus then finally freed the Hekatoncheires and Cyclops, who joined them in a rebellion against Kronos and the Titans. The Cyclops and Hekatoncheires, it turned out, were very good with their hands, and made for the gods mighty weapons, including Zeus’ lightning bolts, Poseidon's trident, and Hades’ helm of darkness (invisibility). They waged a war, one generation against another, and the gods, Gaia’s grandchildren, though younger, won.
Zeus, then, having learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from the errors of his father and grandfather’s ways, imprisoned the Titans (most of them, or at least Kronos anyway) in Tartarus (like the lowest level of Hell). Forever. And he set their former prisoners, the Hekatoncheires, as their prison guards. He did all of this forgetting, of course, that Mother Gaia loves all of her children, no matter how naughty, and doesn’t want any of them locked away. After this, all of Gaia’s children grew increasingly monstrous, like Typhoon, the storm, and increasingly bent on resisting Zeus’ reign. But none ever managed to overthrow him.
There are of course a ton of other stories I could tell about these Titans and their godly spawn. And we’re certainly not done with them. But I think the origins of the world and it’s ruler are enough for now.
One of the most interesting things to me about these myths is the message they give, and how at odds they seem already to the culture which produced them. The gods, it can already be seen, are very very far away from moral Paragons. And they were never assumed to be so. The idea that the gods define what is right and wrong is not largely a part of paganism. Of course the gods aren’t good. But they are gods. Sometimes might makes right. Zeus’ action does not make it morally right for a man to rebel against and overthrow his father. But it doesn’t make Zeus wrong either. The gods have their own morals. It’s also interesting that one of the things this myth did NOT lead to was the primacy of youngest sons. Both Zeus and Kronos were youngest sons, but Grecian culture still honored the Firstborn above all.
The other thing that is really notable about these opening myths is how… I don’t know the word. Universal? Natural? Detailed? What i mean is… Greek Myths cover EVERY aspect of greek life. Rivers? Gods. Stars? Gods. Time? God. Sun? God. Moon? God. Dawn? God. Ocean? Like a million gods. Strength and Victory are gods too - it is as if every important Noun in the Greek language is also a Proper Noun, and has a story. Every concept can be honored, and the Hellenistic people could see gods everywhere, every time they opened their eyes or closed them. We’ll get even more into this if I go into Ovid’s Metamorphoses. But it’s something I love about mythology, Greek and otherwise. Everything has a story. Everything can honor the gods, or offend them. Everything matters, divinely matters, and should be honored as such.
This idea gets really interesting in how it impacted culture. Not only were there little shrines and prayers everywhere and to everything - you may remember the Biblical reference where Paul, in Athens, finds a shrine “to an unknown god” - because there’s such a big possibility of leaving one out, or there being more than you know. But also, when big ideas were talked about, those ideas were gods. It’s why Socrates was put on trial for impiety. It’s also why Plato (well, Plato’s Socrates), in his dialog with Phaedrus, after theorizing much on the evils of love stops, chides himself, and does an about face because he realizes that while he has been talking on the nature of love he has forgotten that Love is a God, and must be honored as such. (Socrates’ views on the gods are super interesting and not ones shared by many Athenians, if his death is anything to go by. Because Socrates wanted to believe that the gods were in fact good. But that’s hard when you’re starting with Zeus).
I hope you have enjoyed this first addition of Story Time. I should probably think of a nice title for this. If I ever do make a podcast or something that’s just me telling these stories, what should I name it? Because Rissa’s Ramblings is all I’ve got right now.
I have a rough outline of some of the stories I wish to tell. This was on the Beginning of things. Next I will likely cover the Pantheon, and some of their related stories. I’ll come to the origin of mankind, and some of the human heroes. The many conquests of Zeus, and his progeny. There’s the Trojan war, the Argonauts, the trials of Herakles, etc. Oedipus and Elektra, and other plays. There’s a whooooole lot. So stick around. And thanks again for reading and asking. ANY questions (or title suggestions) throughout this series of posts will be MOST welcome.
Thanks again. I don't have a specific schedule for posting thought up, but I've already begun work on my next post!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
R
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