greek mythology

Mythology Monday: Cronus

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Cronus, Kronos, Chronos, Khronos, Father Time, Saturn, Greek mythology, TitanomachyGaia and Uranus had three sets of children: the giants, the Cyclopes, and the Titans. The titans were the more humanoid of the three, and among their number was the Titan of Time, Cronus (also known as Kronos, or Saturn, sort of also Chronos/Khronos, but that gets complicated).

Uranus was a terrible father. He tried to take the children from Gaia and imprison them. So she plotted with the Titans against Uranus. Gaia gave Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, a flint and a sickle to use against his father. Cronus fought Uranus and castrated him. His nether bits fell into the ocean and from their blood sprang the furies, from the foam came Aphrodite.

This act might have been where the name Titan came from. Kind of like how Trump brands everyone he doesn’t like with a  pejorative, Titans may have come from a source word that meant strained ones, but Hesiod is alone in that interpretation.

In some versions of the myth, it’s not Uranus that Cronus overthrew at all, but a serpent who was trying to devour the world called Ophion.

Whatever Cronus hit with that sickle, the imagery stuck. That sickle became Cronus’s calling card and made it into almost every image of Cronus ever produced. Because of that, he was frequently associated with the harvest and had an entire day dedicated to him around harvest time.

all the myths agree that the period of time when he ruled was called the Golden Age, because for a short time, there were no rules. Everyone just did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Who “everyone” was is kind of unclear. Man shouldn’t have been around at this time, except in some versions of the myth they were. There were a lot of Titans, but a lot in the sense that it would be a crowded classroom, not a crowded school. It would have been a fairly manageable crowd given that he’d sent anyone who might even consider disagreeing with him, like the Giants and the Cyclopes, into Tartarus and ate any children who may decide to shake things up in the future.

Rhea and Cronus had five children before Rhea got tired of her babies getting devoured. When child number six was born, Rhea tricked Cronus and gave him a stone instead.

That child was Zeus.

Because Cronus ruled the earth and the sky, Zeus had to be suspended from the ground by a rope so he was never fully in either realm. He grew up this way and when the time was right, went against his father to avenge his siblings.

He managed to trick Cronus into drinking a potion that made him vomit up Zeus’s siblings. These children were Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, and Demeter. Zeus also freed the giants and the Cyclopes. Together, they fought Cronus and most of the remaining Titans and won and Zeus became god of Olympus.

Cronus and the Titans were cast into Tartarus, or possible a cave of Nyx, as punishment for their treatment of the Olympians.

Lifetimes later, Zeus released the Titans and made Cronus the king of Elysium. That’s still in the Underworld, so it’s not like he truly released them. Just relocated their prison to a nicer one.  Or if you’re Roman, he became a kind of supreme court judge, settling disputes amongst the gods.

Sneak Peek: Venus Rising

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Enjoy a first look at a scene from Venus Rising. SPOILER WARNING for anyone who has not yet read Love and War.

“I can do this,” My numb fingers scrabbled to keep hold of the sheer cliff face. The Island of the DAMNED was a shaped like a tall, mutated teardrop, only a jagged curve sloped into the ocean. I’d edged my way around to lower ground. Unfortunately, the cliff still wasn’t low enough for me to climb given the rough shape I was in.

Between waves, I sputtered specifics, locking myself into the promise, forcing the words true. Now there was no choice in the matter. I had to survive.

Poseidon, I thought, drawing my palm against a rock jutting from the face of the island. The sharp edge pierced my spongy palm without resistance. Blood could pass through the weak shield surrounding the island as well as water. Mine was still divine enough to get Poseidon’s attention.

I hoped.

Shivers racked my body, hard enough to threaten my tenuous hold on the cliff face. Exposure, I added to my mental list of ways I could die. When the entire fricken island teleported across gods know how many time zones, it traded sunny, warm, placid water for a dark night, icy chill, and choppy waves.

“She moved the island.” I spat out the sentence with as much disgust as I could muster. “That stupid…” A litany of curse words followed, but not a single one of them made me feel better. Medea had probably killed herself doing this. And for what?

I squinted against the utter blackness, wishing for a moon, stars, or light of any kind.

Some part of me knew my thrashing could attract creatures living in the water, but that fear had to move aside for the more practical need to keep air in my lungs.

Lightning cracked across the sky, cruelly granting my wish for light in a blinding slash. Of course, Persephone was enraged. The meeting, ostensibly to establish peace with the demigods, had gone horribly wrong when Ares had been outed as an imposter. He’d gotten away, but I’d been dragged along when the island teleported.

So now, not only did the demigods have a weapons cache that could end every god in the Pantheon, they had two hostages. Me and the fricken Lord of the Underworld.

Maybe my cover isn’t blown. They didn’t know I was a goddess. Just that Ares was a god.

And I’d been living with him.

And that we’d arrived on the island at the exact same time.

Yeah, they’d be idiots not to at least suspect. And since gods were physically incapable of telling lies, all it would take to confirm their suspicion was a yes or no question.

Assuming I didn’t drown first.

Something slick brushed against my legs. What was that? I twisted in the water, limbs jerking in all directions like a tangled marionette, but the waves might as well have been made of midnight. Between the pitch-black night and the chaos the island’s teleportation churned, I couldn’t make out my own flesh beneath the waves. I lost my grip on the cliff-face and felt a wave of dizziness as my feet kicked into the endless depths.

Probably just a scared fish, I tried to convince myself. My fear of the ocean depths was mostly instinctive, bred into me by design to keep me from visiting Poseidon’s realm. Having his permission to be here should have quelled the fear. But in the dark of the night with gods knew what swimming around me, that old, instinctual fear no longer listened to reason. I was someplace foreign. Other. I didn’t belong here.

“Just keep moving,” I told myself through gritted teeth, kicking toward the cliff face.

A wave slammed into me, shoving me beneath the inky blackness. I pushed to the surface, gasping for air, but just as I inhaled, another wave slammed into me. Then another. Then another.

Mythology Monday: The Furies

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William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Remorse of Orestes (1862).jpg Public Domain. Greek mythology

The three Furies were horrible. They usually were shaped as crones,with snakes for hair, dog’s heads, coal-black bodies, bat’s wings, and bloodshot eyes. But because theywere older than Zeus, their powers were a mystery. It was also said they could assume beautiful formswhen it suited them. — The Immortal by Christopher Pike

The Furies, also called the Erinyes and for all intents and purposes  the Poinai (Poenae) (Retaliations), Arai (Arae) (Curses), Praxidikai (Praxidicae) (Exacters of Justice) and Maniai (Maniae)(Madnesses) (thank you theoi.com), were the three goddesses of vengeance. Victims of crimes often called down the curse of the Furies on criminals who hurt them.

They were terrifying looking. Depictions feature them as hideous women with wings and covered in poisonous serpents. The carried whips and dressed as either mourners or hunters. The best description I’ve ever read of them came from The Immortal by Christopher Pike.

The furies were born at the same time as Aphrodite. When Cronus castrated Uranus, Aphrodite was born from the “sea foam” that dripped into the sea and the furies were born from the blood. In other versions of the myths they’re daughters of Nyx and Erebus or Hades and Persephone. In other versions they aren’t goddesses at all, but a curse to be cast down on villains.

They were named in some version of the myth. Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone (who was also sometimes Demeter in horse form. Long story).

While they worked part time torturing souls in the Underworld, The Furies took delight in their job making living criminals miserable. Entire nations were brought to their knees for harboring their targets. Their wrath could only be stopped with a specific ritual and the completion of an assigned task. Failing that, and the Furies might haunt your family for generations.

At least until Orestes came along.

 

Mythology Monday: The God of Mist

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“Life isn’t fair! Why should death be any different?”

“Did you ever stop and wonder if maybe that attitude is why the gods are dead?” I asked. “People don’t believe in gods because they can’t wrap their minds around the idea of someone allowing all the terrible things in the world to happen.”

“Reality has teeth and claws. It’s rarely pretty and never fair. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

I clenched my fists. “Why? I get that no one has the power to interfere now, but when the gods were in power, how could they let things get this bad? You’re here every day! You hear the stories of murder, thievery, and worse. You see the children who starved to death. This isn’t a recent development. Why didn’t you stop it?”

“We gave humans free will—”

“That’s bull!” I exploded. “If you have the power to stop someone from getting killed and don’t, you’re just as guilty as whoever pulled the trigger.”

“Where do you draw that line, Persephone? There are billions of humans, and a handful of us—”

“Who allowed humans to get to the billions? That was greed, plain and simple. More humans equaled more worship. And really, between the God of Mist, and the God of Doorways, and the god of every other useless thing, you couldn’t at least try?”

“You’re angry. I understand. You didn’t see this side of the world back in your flower shop. Your mother kept you sheltered. It’s a bit of a shock at first, but—”

“But what? Over time I’ll get used to it? Used to seeing children in the court of the dead? Used to watching husbands cry over lost wives? Why should I get used to it when I can do something about it?”

“You can’t save everyone. You just don’t have that power.”

“But you did! You each had the power to grant immortality!” I threw my hands in the air. “Why were only some people given the gift? My mother has the power to make things grow anywhere. How come people are still starving? Are you all so full of yourselves that you think you’re any more deserving of these gifts than any one of those humans?”

~@~

Persephone’s remark about the God of Mist and the God of Doorways was a bit unfair. Achlys was the God of Mist, and in some versions she existed before Chaos (in others she was one of Nyx’s daughters, the Keres). Her other titles were The God of Eternal Night or the God of the Mist of Death. She was the personification of misery and sadness. Hercules carried her likeness on his shield. She looked pale, emaciated, and weeping, with chattering teeth, swollen knees, long nails on her fingers, bloody cheeks, and her shoulders thickly covered with dust.

So hardly a minor, inconsequential god, all things considered.

Mythology Monday: Vampires

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monster-773309_1280 

Hades snorted. “These aren’t books, these are—” He paused. “Dusk? Seriously?”
“What? It’s good!”
“I considered creating a dimension of Tartarus that forced souls to watch the movie based on this book for all eternity. Complete with shrieking harpy fan girls in the audience.”
I snatched my phone back. “Have you even seen it?”
“Cassandra made me watch it.” Hades shuddered.
“It’s a great movie and an even better book!”
“It’s ludicrous. What is with this recent human obsession with vampires?”
I sat up in my chair. “Were there ever any vampires?”
“Well, there was Hecate’s daughter, Empusa. She would seduce men and drink their blood as they slept. Poseidon’s daughter, Lamia—”
“Like the Midnight World books!”
“What?”
I scooted my chair closer to him and pulled up the book on my phone. “Born vampires are called Lamia, and made vampires are called—”
“Yeah, sorry I asked. Anyway, Lamia was Poseidon’s daughter. She had an affair with Zeus and had several kids. Hera found out about it and forced her to devour her children—” I gasped and Hades paused. He looked as though he was going to say something, perhaps to defend Hera, then shrugged and continued with the story. “Afterward, Lamia continued to drink the blood of mortal children until Zeus took pity on her and removed her eyes.”
“How exactly was that supposed to help?”
“It makes it harder to catch the children.”
I shook my head. “That’s…you know what, there are no words.”
“There were also Striges, or Strix, which were birds that fed on blood, and there was that island of the blood dri—”
“Okay! I’m sorry I asked.” I held up my hands in surrender. “I meant—” I pointed to my phone “—vampires like these.”
“Refined gentlemen who occasionally drink blood? It’s a complete myth.”
I thought it was ironic to hear that from Hades while sitting in the Underworld, but refrained from pointing that out. “What’s your favorite book? Oh, let me guess. Inferno.”

~@~

In honor of my favorite holiday that’s just around the corner, I’m doing a vampire edition of Mythology Monday. There’s not a lot on vampires in Greek mythology, but here’s a few examples:

–The Odyssey features an “island of the blood drinkers.” Sounds vampiric enough for me. I mean, it’s a bit of a stretch because they were technically cannibalistic giants called Laestrygonians who would just as soon eat you as drink your blood. But they did drink blood and they had vampiric like servants I’ll go into more later, so I’m counting it.

Then there’s the Stardust witches, or rather, the mythical counterparts Gaimen referenced in his amazing novel.

Hecate had a daughter named Empusa that would seduce men an drink their blood while they slept. She’s likely an early explanation for sleep paralysis and she basically acted in mythology like a succubus. The goddess later devolved into a type of specter that was half-vampire half banshee in description.

Hades did a good job with the Lamia myth above, so I’ll just leave that there.

Mormo was a vampiric like creature who would bite bad children. She would also steal children and take them to the queen of the Laestrygonians.

Striges are an owl like vampiric children who would drink the blood of babies after they fed the babies poisoned breastmilk. They’re mostly a Roman myth. Occasional they would forgo babies and go after grown men. No breastmilk involved there, just seduction, sex, then the draining of blood.