These births were not regarded as happy events by Cronus. It is not clear whether he was aware of a prophecy which declared he would be deposed by his own progeny, or whether he had simply inherited his father's dislike of children. Either way, as his daughters Hesetia, Demeter and Hera, and his sons Hades and Poseidon entered the world, he swallowed them whole.
Rhea was overwhelmed with sorrow each time this happened, and by the time she was carrying her sixth child, Zeus, she had had enough and went to her parents, Gaea and Uranus, for help. Taking their advice, she journeyed to Crete, where, deep in a cavern in the thick forests around Mount Aegeum, she gave birth. Gaea took the baby away to bring up, and Rhea wrapped a large stone in swaddling cloths and gave it to Cronus, who swallowed it without hesitation, noticing nothing unusual.
Zeus was placed with the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, who were the daughters of Melisseus, King of Crete. They lavished care and attention on the little god, and gave him a golden cradle. Adrasteia made him a present of a ball made from hoops of gold.
So, hidden from the evil eye of his father, Zeus spent his childhood in the forests around Mount Ida. Some believe his wet nurse was a nanny goat named Amaltheia, a magical animal whose appearance frightened even the gods. Zeus is said to have rewarded her later by giving her a place among the constellations. Her hide, which could not be penetrated by arrows, became his invaluable aegis. He gave his nymph foster-mothers one of her horns, the cornucopia, or horn of plenty, which could never be emptied of food or drink.
Zeus grew up happily enough in this situation. Besides the goat, he was also wet nursed by the wife of the King of Crete, while the nymphs gave him ambrosia and nectar. It may well be that the ministrations of these charming creatures affected his erotic inclinations, for goddesses would not be the only objects of his considerable passion later in life.
As he came to adulthood Zeus knew that there must be a reckoning with his father, and that Cronus must be punished for his wickedness. With the help of another immortal, he managed to get Cronus to consume a drink that made him violently ill. Retching copiously, Cronus vomited up not only the stone he had gulped down, thinking it his last born, but all the other gods he had swallowed as well.
Deposed and under the power of Zeus now, it is unclear what became of Cronus. He may have been thrown into the belly of the universe and confined there in darkness, sentenced to an enchantment of perpetual sleep in faraway Thule, or merely superannuated to live happily enough on the other side of creation.
To commemorate his triumph, Zeus laid the stone thrown up from the gut of Cronus in Pythos, at the foot of Parnassus. This later found its way to the tomb of Neoptolemus at Delphi, where it could be seen for many years.
The Titans came to resent the usurpation of the new gods, who made Olympus their home, and they rebelled. Only Oceanus, whose daughter Metis had helped him against Cronus, sided with Zeus. From their stronghold on Mount Othrys, the Titans mounted savage assaults on the Olympians.
For a decade the battle see-sawed back and forth with neither side quite strong enough to overcome the other. Then, in an act of wisdom, courage and belated justice, Zeus went into the bowels of the earth, to where the Cyclops and the Hecatoncheires had been imprisoned long before by Uranus. Unlike the Titans, they had not been liberated when Cronus defeated his father and it is easy to understand their feelings towards their brothers and sisters who had abandoned them. As allies against the Titans, they were invaluable to Zeus.
Again, battle was joined, a battle not royal but divine. Earth and sea echoed with the horrible roar, heaven itself shook and moaned, Great Olympus was made to tremble at its foundations by the combat of the immortals. They used their deadly weapons and clashed repeatedly, shouting at each other so loudly and vehemently that the noise reached up to the stars themselves. At last Zeus gained the advantage and grew ever greater in strength. His might showed forth, as straight from Heaven and Olympus he rushed at his enemies, hurling lightning bolts together with flashing thunder. The earth and all upon it burned, the sea boiled and the heat blasted the divine ether. It was as if heaven and earth had crashed together at blinding speed.
Even the Titans could no longer withstand the onslaught, as the Hecatoncheires, Cottus, Briareus and Gyes, the so-called Hundred-Armed giants, lusting for battle and foremost among Zeus's host, each hurled one hundred stones in rapid succession. This cloud of missiles overwhelmed the Titans, and drove them back down into the bowels of the earth. Here they were bound in chains and guarded by the brothers they had abandoned. All that is, save Atlas, who was forced to hold the world upon his shoulders.
No sooner had Zeus seen off the threat of the Titans than other enemies arose to challenge his power. The giants and other creatures given birth by the dripping blood of Uranus’ testicles making contact with the earth now forced a new struggle on Zeus and his fellow Olympians.
Some of these formidable creatures were mainly of human shape but with feet like the tails of snakes. They had sprung from Gaea and commanded the islands, rivers and the plains around Olympus. Wearing gleaming armour and bearing enormous spears, they could lift whole mountains and fling them as weapons, or take the snows from icy regions and crush an enemy under them.
Using the surrounding hills, they built a ramp for an assault on Olympus. Zeus and the other gods stood firm and together they killed many giants but, as the oracle foretold, gods alone could not defeat the sons of Gaea. It was Hercules, son of Zeus and his last mortal concubine, Alcmena, who turned the tide in this battle.
A useful piece of intelligence won the day for him in his desperate struggle with the champion giant Alcyoneus, who had killed all the adversaries sent against him. Before the battle Athene had told Hercules that the earth of his home territory and the connection to his mother was the source of the giant's invincibility. In the ensuing battle Hercules discovered for himself the wisdom of Athene's words. He threw the giant to the ground, only to find that he was stronger when he regained his feet. Hercules changed his tactics and, hoisting him aloft, carried him away from his homeland to slay him beyond its protection.
Another powerful champion of the giants, Porphyrion, succumbed to a clever ruse. Inspired by Zeus to become enamoured of Hera, Zeus’ wife, the creature pursued her, giving the god a clean shot at him with a divine arrow. Athene also entered the battle, overcoming the giants Enceladus and Pallas, making an aegis from the skin of one and burying the other under the island of Sicily.
Angry at Zeus’ emphatic victory over her children, Gaea brought forth a monster called Typhoeus, which was born out of her coupling with Tartarus. This terrible creature had hands and feet that constantly moved, a hundred snake heads coming from its neck, black flame spewing from its eyes, vipers hanging from its thighs, and sprouting bristly hair all over its truly horrible body.
From each head of Typhoeus came a different voice, from yelping puppies to the sounds of the speech of gods and men, roaring lions, terrible winds, the cries of birds or of infants. Everything about the godbeast so frightened the Olympians that all fled before it except Zeus.
In the mighty struggle that ensued, Zeus was bested by Typhoeus, who cut the tendons of his hands and feet, and imprisoned him in his den. Hermes rescued his father, by stealing back the sinews. Zeus escaped, flew back to Olympus to replenish his supply of thunderbolts, which the monster had taken from him, and then resumed his attack. Typhoeus was chased to Sicily by the irate Zeus, who, picking up Mount Etna, finally imprisoned the monster beneath it and left him to rule this domain with his fiery breath.
Now the time of upheavals was over. The world settled down, volcanoes subsided, the elements were calmed, the ground no longer shook violently and mountains remained upright, rivers stayed on their established course and the sea ceased to rise up and engulf the land. The great moderator of the universe had tamed all. Evil had been defeated and harmony reigned. The authority of Zeus would never be questioned again. He was master both of the gods and of man.
Son of one of the Titans, but judiciously neutral in the war, Prometheus was allowed into Olympus and was one of the circle of Immortals. Perhaps he harboured a resentment of the gods who had supplanted his race, or just liked doing mischief to Zeus.
With the dominance of the Olympians, things changed greatly in the relations between humanity and Immortals. Whereas they might easily sit down and break bread together while Cronus reigned, Zeus stood on ceremony. His supremacy had to be recognized in all things. The days of mutual understanding were over. Part of the fault lay with Prometheus and it may be that he felt he had something to make up to humans. In cheating Zeus out of the better portions at one of the last feasts where gods and men sat down together, giving the best bits to the mortals, he angered the chief god so much that Zeus withheld fire from humanity. Prometheus, either from the forges of Hephaestus or the heat of the sun itself, lighted a brand of the sacred element and later brought it down to the mortals.
Furious at such temerity, Zeus cursed man further. He caused a clay and water body to be made, gave it the spark of life and with the form of a lovely virgin he sent it forth, endowed by each of the gods with some attribute, looking like the goddess of beauty herself. She was called Pandora. The contribution given her by Hermes was deceit.
Zeus sent Pandora to the brother of Prometheus, who warned him against her, but such was her seeming charm that Epimetheus ignored the warning and succumbed to her. Epimetheus became besotted with Pandora, making her welcome among humanity and little realizing what lay in her baggage. From her ‘box’ or, more precisely, a clay jar she carried, sprang all the terrible things suffered by man ever since.
Not stopping at this, so fed up with man was Zeus, that he brought down upon them a flood that covered the earth and drowned nearly the whole race. However, Prometheus was alert to the situation and helped his nephew and his wife, Deucalion and Pyrrha, to escape. For nine days and nights they floated in an ark until they ran aground on the peak of Mount Parnassus. There as the waters subsided, they offered prayers and displayed such profound and sincere piety that Zeus was moved to spare them and grant them a wish.
Deucalion and Pyrrha wished only for the rebirth of humanity. His anger now dispelled, the god granted this wish, though he did not forgive Prometheus, whom he had taken away and chained to a mountainside. Here an eagle would daily attack and tear at his flesh, eating part of his immortal liver, which grew back again at night, to be eaten again the next day. Despite this suffering, Prometheus did not complain, beg for mercy or do anything but continue to defy Zeus and show a rebellious spirit. He also insisted smugly that he was party to a secret that concerned Zeus, a secret involving a grave danger that might befall him.
For thirty years this torture and resistance went on until Zeus allowed Hercules to rescue the malefactor. The secret, which Prometheus now revealed, was to do with yet another of the god's amorous pursuits. If the philandering Zeus continued to court the comely Thetis, daughter of Nereus, there was every chance a son would be born who would grow to be his enemy, supplanting him.
Zeus took this sound advice and gave up his attempted seduction, letting Thetis become the bride of a mortal. However, nothing could prevent him from falling into other lusty entanglements with mortal women, nymphs, Titanesses, goddesses and just about anything else that moved. One of his favourite tactics was to appear to them as a beguiling and gentle animal of some sort, such as a beautiful white bull or a swan. Largely, the objects of his attention were flattered and overwhelmed by the interest of the greatest of the Olympian gods.
It was such an episode that resulted in the birth of Hercules himself, of course, much perturbing Hera, the chief goddess and wife of Zeus. Poor Hercules was to suffer from her wrath ever after, and lose a kingdom to a man who would be his sworn enemy and sometime master. But that is another story.
Big Trouble with Little Gods
Much of the mythology of Eastern Europe was lost when Christianity extended its ‘civilizing’ influence into this part of the world. Nothing much is known of their great divinities and all that is left is the host of minor rustic gods which the Slav peasants would hope to placate in order to make their harsh lives a little easier. Even once the Slavs were Christianized they continued to observe the traditional niceties where these small spirits were concerned. It obviously must have entailed an awful lot of effort.
Ivan shouted and reeled about the house in anger, knocking into things and searching for his wife so that he could beat her. He considered himself the very model of a hard-working Russian peasant and more than entitled to get drunk upon occasion whether she liked it or not. It was only natural, after all.
All the way back from the village he had brooded over the inevitable nagging he would receive on his arrival home. He had decided to take none of it, and to attack rather than defend. He would point out Natasha's negligent housework and thrash her before she could argue about his drinking.
As he wandered out into the farmyard and called for her, he began to suspect that she had been tipped off by the Domovoi, one of the small household gods which invariably took a wife's side in domestic quarrels. He well knew they would have pulled her hair as a warning that he wished to beat her and that she, Natasha, would have heeded the signal and gone into hiding. In his fury and inebriation Ivan dared to shout a curse at the Domovoi before stumbling back into the house, where he fell asleep on the floor.
The Domovoi were diminutive divinities, relations of the creator, but they had rebelled against him and been thrown out of heaven. After falling to earth they had landed on people's houses and in their yards. The Domovoi liked to live under the threshold of a front door, or near the stove, while their wives, Domovikha, preferred the cellar. In time they had become attached to the humans who lived there and were sometimes helpful. Certainly, they were never as mischievous and downright dangerous as their fellow exiled spirits who had landed in the fields and forests. They would often notify the inhabitants of the house of some impending trouble. The humans would hear weeping if there was to be something like a death in the family, for example.
That night, as Ivan dropped into a drunken sleep, he imagined he heard such weeping. When he woke the next morning he looked about him and knew that the mess that greeted him was of his own making. He had been unjust in intending to accuse his wife of bad housekeeping. There was another female spirit who lived in people's houses beside the Domovoi and Domovikha and she was called the Kikimora. This little goddess would help a human wife in her domestic chores if the wife were conscientious. If slack in her duties, the Kikimora would tickle the children to keep them awake at night and do other things to make life more difficult.
Ivan had to admit that Natasha had never been particularly hampered in this way or forced to make a fern tea with which to scrub out the kitchen pots and appease the deity. Obviously, she always pleased the Kikimora and received her aid. Hung-over and ashamed now, Ivan went into the kitchen to find Natasha preparing breakfast, stony faced but saying nothing about his latest binge.
They ate in silence and then Ivan went out and about his work, but all along he was uncomfortable about the weeping he had heard the night before. Everyone in the family was well, though that did not mean someone might not become ill or have an accident. Some instinct told Ivan this was not the problem.
He was worried about the harvest and the white horse he had craftily bought very cheaply the week before. He decided to take certain precautions, some of which should have been seen to as soon as he got the horse. It had already kicked out several boards in its stall, which would have to be replaced, trodden on his toe twice and bitten him once. These things were not the horse's fault but that of the Dvorovoi, the spirit of the yard, who hated animals with white
coats.
Ivan put sheep's wool in the horse's stall, hung about it some glittering pieces of tin and glass and left a slice of bread to appease the Dvorovoi.
“Tsar Dvorovoi,” Ivan said ceremoniously. “Master, friendly neighbour, I offer thee this gift in a sign of gratitude. Forgive this beast its colour, be kind to the cattle, look after and feed them well.”
If these measures did not work Ivan would take more drastic action against the Dvorovoi. He would stab the fence around the yard with a pitchfork and carry a whip with a thread from a winding sheet with which to beat the Dvorovoi. Worse still, he might hang up the dead body of a magpie, a thing the wicked little deity dreaded.
Next, Ivan went out into his fields, having gathered eggs and a small cockerel, thinking as he did so that at least white chickens were safe from the Dvorovoi, because they were protected by the god of chickens, represented by a round stone with a hole in it and kept in the yard.
Then Ivan wondered if the barn spirit, the Ovinnik, would become jealous of his offering to the Dvororvoi. This type of god habitually lived in the corners of barns and looked not unlike a rather scruffy black cat. The Ovinnik could bark like dogs or laugh their little heads off, but they could also be very mean spirited and were known to burn a man's barn to the ground. Ivan's unease increased.
Out in the fields, he looked carefully around to make sure he was not being observed by anyone. Not that he would have been thought superstitious, but the exercise itself would be useless if it was seen by anyone else and the Polevik would not be placated. With two eyes of different colours, and grass instead of hair on his head, the Polevik ruled the field.
Myths and Legends from Around the World Page 16