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Greek mythology

Greek Creation Myth


At the beginning there was Chaos. Nothing. From those dark churning masses a goddess emerged. The first being. Gaia, the earth. Gaia was alone in the nothingness and sad and lonely she desired company, so she created Ouranos, the sky. Eager to end her loneliness she took him and toguether they created the world. They created Erebos, the underworld, Nyx, night, Hemera, day, Aether, light, Pontos, water, Thalassa, the seafloor, Ourea, mountains & Nesoi, islands. Each of them married each other and they became the embodiment of their elements. They were the Primordials. The first race of gods. Gaia & Ouranos married and had the 3 Cyclopes: Brontes ("thunderer"), Steropes ("lightning") and the "bright" Arges. The 3 Hecatoncheires: Briareus also called Aegaeon, Cottus, and Gyges also called Gyes, and the last of her children: the Titans: Okeanos, the ocean, Tethys, the sea, Iapetus, the rocks, Mnemosyne, memory, Krios, the stars, Themis, justice, Polos, ice, Phoebe, moonlight, Hyperion, sunlight, Theia, the planets, Kronos, time & Rhea, the earth & civilization.

But Ouranos in fear that one of his sons would overthrow him loked the Cyclopes & the Hecatoncheires in Tartaros (a fiery prison under the earth very much like Hell). Gaia, heartbroken, gave his youngest son, Kronos, a scythe to cut his father open, That way, he would not be able to do anything as he would allready have the thrown . Kronos did what his mother told him to do. But then fearing the power that his brothers had, kept them loked away. Gaining Gaia's  hate for ever.

The Rule of Kronos

Kronos became lord of the world. But heartbroken Gaia issued a prophecy he would never forget:
A child of his would overthrow him just like he had overthrown his father.
Kronos was horrified, and when his queen Rhea had a child he picked it up in his hand (the Titans were giants) & swallowed it. This happened 5 times & when it was the time for the 6th child to be born Rhea could not bear another loss. She escaped from the palace. She hid the baby in a cave and picked up a stone giving it to Kronos telling him it was the baby. Kronos didin't notice that in a nearby cave a baby was sleeping. The baby's name was Zeus.

The Titan War (Titanomochy)   
                                                                                                                         
Zeus grew up in a cave in Mount Ida, on the island of Crete. There the goat Almatheia nurtured him with her milk. Zeus's friend was Metis. The daughter of Okeanos & Thetys. Gaia every night would tell him of his brothers & sisters, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades & Poseidon, and how they lived inside Kronos. One day, Zeus with the help of Metis, sneaked into the palace of Kronos & mixed poison in his nectar (the drink of the gods). Kronos drank it and vomited all of his brothers. They all teamed up againsts Kronos and then, the war between the Gods & the Titans started.
There war raged for 999 years and none of the sides semed to have the upper hand. Then Gaia recommended Zeus to go to Tartaros & free her other sons: the Cyclopes & the Hechatonchieres. Zeus agreed and went to Tartaros to free them. There he fought Kampe: a woman with dragon legs and a scorpion sting coming out of her back. Although she didn't serve Kronos it was just her duty to make sure that nobody escaped. Once freed they in return fought on his side & the Cyclopes built Zeus his thunderbolts, Poseidon his trident (with the help of the telkhines,creatures half dog & half seal) & Hades bident & his helm of invisibiliy .The gods won, loked the Titans in Tartaros and became the new lords of Creation.

Zeus's 1st Wife (...of ten thousand)

Zeus now the king of the gods was looking for a wife. So he invited Metis to Olympus (his new palace) with the excuse that he needed advice with the decoration. Metis but went. She noticed that after some weeks he brushed her shoulders with his, touched her hands... That night she fled Olympus but discovered Zeus was following. She turned into a bird but he turned into an eagle. She morphed into a fish but he transformed into a shark. In panic she turned into a snake but he transformed into a python. Exausted she fainted to the ground and woke up in Zeus's bed. They came to like each other but when Zeus learnt of a prophecy that said that Zeus's & Metis's children would overthrow him (the first one would be ten times as smart, which was easy, and the second ten times more powerful) he thought up an evil plan. So perfectly normal Zeus swallowed his wife, paranoid, don't even think about it! He told her Poseidon & Hera were fighting and were coming to explain why. So that he didn't have to explain later to Metis she just had to tearn into a fly. So she did what he told her to do. Then Zeus caught the fly that was his wife...and swallowed it.

Zeus & Hera

Zeus had no queen and desired one. He allready new who he wanted, Hera. He tried to swoo her with gifts, deeds, declarations of love...But she would denie him every time he asked her if she wanted to be his queen. So he decide to do something he still hadn't done: trickery. He wipped up a mighty storm and turned into a little bird. He went to Hera's windosil with a broken wing & chirped to get her attention. She looked after the little bird for seven days until one day she told the little bird: "What a wonderful companion you are, I would love to stay with you for ever." Then Zeus revaled who he was and now that Hera had said that she wanted to be his companion she would have to complete her prmise. She agreed with the condition that she would not only be his queen but also his wife. And the first wedding was celebrated. There were many gifts but the best was the gift of Gaia: A beautiful garden and in the center a beautiful tree that gave golden apples. The Garden of the Hesperides.


The Olympian Gods

Zeus

Tittles: The Cloud Gatherer, The Thunderer, Jove, Jupiter (in Latin), Father of Gods & Men, Leader of the House, Ruler of the Council.

Aspects: As a god he is a shape-shifter but is mostly represented a man with white long hair and a beard. He may also be represented as a handsome young man with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Zeus was the king of Olympus. He was the leader of gods and men and he was the ruler of the gods. He comes out in almost every myth (95%) and was known to be the lover of many women (the children named here are only children of Zeus, some mothers had other children):
(not all of his lovers come out here, you'd need a whole blog for just half of them)
Hera, his priciple wife. Mother of Ares, Hephaestus & Hebe.
Demeter, mother of Persephone & Ploutos.
Themis, mother of the 12 hours, Dike & Nemesis.
Leda, mother of Hellen & Polydeucis.
Io, mother of Epaphus, whose descendant was Heracles.
Europa, mother of Sarpedon, Rhadamanthys & Minos.
Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis.
Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses.
Semele, mothered Dionysus.
Maia, mother of Hermes.
Danae, mother of Perseus
Callisto, mother of Arcas
Alcmene, mother of Heracles.
Ganymede, boy lover.
Aetos, another boy lover.
Eurynome, mother of the charites.
Gaia, mother of the Karpoi.
Persephone, mother of Zagreos.
Selene, mother of Pandia.

Myths: As Zeus figures in mostly every single myth it is very dificult to tell them all. So with diferent gods will come diferent myths about Zeus. One of them is the myth of the battle of the Giants, in which Zeus battled the giant king Porphyrion. He was about to destroy lady Hera and in a desparte atempt to save her Eros, who shoots his love arows at gods & men shot the giant. But that only made things worse, the giant then tried to rape her and Zeus said: "Nobody steals my wife" (wich is ironic because Zeus is always stealing other peoples wives). So he shot Porphyion with a thunderbolt so mighty it turned the giant to ashes.

Character: Zeus was good in many ways, he was sometimes mercyful, kind with the ones he loved & was said to have a very good sense of humor. But he was very unloyal to his wife, causing her to suffer and making her jealous. He only thought about himself and if someone or something got in the way of his throne he would utterly destroy it.

Poseidon

Tittles: The Earth-Shaker, Master of Horses, He with the Dark Hair, He Who's Voice Thunders in the Deep, Ruler of the Boundless Seas, Emperor of the Wild Waves. Neptune (latin).




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