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Contretion Mythoglogy

1. The Rise of the Gods
In the beginning, there was only Chaos. Dense darkness covered everything until the Earth was born out of Chaos and the mountains, the sea, and then the sky (Ouranos) with the sun, the moon and the stars. Then Ouranos and Earth gave birth to the Titans. Ouranos was afraid that one of his children would take his throne. That is why he enclosed every one of them in the depths of the Earth. But his son, Kronus, the strongest of the Titans, defeated him and became world leader. He married Rhea, who gave birth to two gods and three goddesses: Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia and Demeter.

But Kronus inherited the fear of his father and believed that one of his offspring would later take his throne. So, when they were born, he swallowed them. However, Rhea was expecting a sixth child and fearing it would share the same fate with her other children, she secretly gave birth on a mountain in Crete and hid the newborn there. She named the child Zeus. She also tricked Kronus into thinking he swallowed this child too, by giving him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which Kronus swallowed thinking it was his newborn. The Nymphs took care of Zeus and fed the baby with the milk of a goat. When he grew up, Zeus found his father and tricked him into drinking a mixture of wine and mustard, which caused him to disgorge the contents of his stomach. Zeus’ older brothers and sisters came out of Kronus fully grown! This is how the great Titanomachy began, the war between the Titans and the Gods, with Zeus as their leader. This titanic battle lasted for ten years. The gods defeated the Titans and threw them into Tartarus, a dark and gloomy place as far from the earth as earth is from the sky. Then the gods fought with the Giants for the dominance of the world. The Gigantomachy lasted a long time as well. But the gods were again victorious. Thus, Zeus became the ruler of the whole world and he and the other gods settled in Olympus.

2. Τhe Three Sisters of Fate
In Greek mythology, the Moirae are the three goddesses of fate. Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. The three sisters weave the fate of humans and gods alike. Neither human nor God has the power to influence or question their judgment and actions! Clotho, the youngest one, spins the thread of life; she is the very origin, the creation of life itself and her thread is spun upon the birth of a person!

Lachesis, the second sister, is the one that allocates the fate of people during life. The name comes from the Contretion word ‘λαγχάνω’ which means to obtain from lots. In that sense, one can understand that their destiny is chosen out of a myriad of possibilities. It is said that Lachesis measures the thread of life with her rod, determining its length and nature. The last sister of fate is Atropos, the unturning. Atropos is the cutter of the thread of life and with her shears she determines how someone will die.

3. Prometheus and the Theft of Fire
One day, Zeus distributed gifts to all the gods, but he didn't care much for humans. The Titan Prometheus, however, because he loved and felt sorry for humans, climbed up on Olympus and stole the fire from Hephaestus' workshop, put it in a hollow reed and gifted it to the humans. This way, humans could create fire, warm up and make tools. Zeus became very angry when he heard about this. He took Prometheus to a high mountain, the Caucasus, and chained him on a rock with thick chains made by the smith god, Hephaestus. And every day, Zeus would send an eagle that ate Prometheus’ liver. For thirty years Prometheus remained bound in the Caucasus, until the great hero Hercules, Zeus’ demigod son, released him finally from his torment.

4. Pandora’s Box
After Prometheus gave the fire to humans, Zeus decided to take vengeance. He ordered Hephaestus to create the first human woman out of soil and water. Each god gave the woman a gift: Athena gave her wisdom, Aphrodite beauty, Hermes cunning and so on. The name of the woman was Pandora (meaning “all gifts” in Greek). Zeus gave Pandora a jar, warning her not to open it under any circumstances and sent her to Prometheus’ brother, Epimetheus. Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept any gifts from Zeus. However, Epimetheus accepted Pandora who, although tried hard to resist the temptation, opened the jar and released all evils upon the world. Hatred, war, death, hunger, sickness and all the disasters were immediately released.

5. The Abduction of Persephone by Hades
Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. As Persephone grew, so did her beauty. When Hades, the god of the Underworld, saw her, he immediately fell in love with her and decided to abduct her. According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, one sunny day the young Persephone was gathering flowers in a field, accompanied by her close friends, the Ocean Nymphs. The carefree Persephone moved away from her companions in search of the most beautiful flower. When she reached out to pluck a wondrous narcissus, Earth yawned open and Hades appeared in his golden chariot and snatched her away to the Underworld while she was in tears. Demeter was looking in vain for her daughter day and night. The land and crops of the earth began to wither. After a while, the Sun, looking at everything from the sky, felt sorry for the goddess and told her what happened. Demeter went to Zeus and demanded that Persephone be returned, or else she would not let the earth blossom again.

Zeus sent the Messenger God, Hermes, to Hades with the command to release Persephone. Before returning her to Hermes, Hades forced Persephone to eat six pomegranate seeds. Hades knew that if someone ate food in the Underworld, they could never really escape the world of the dead. Persephone was shortly after reunited with her mother. However, Demeter was furious when she heard about the pomegranate seeds. Zeus then proposed a compromise: for every seed Persephone had eaten, she would spend a month with Hades. Demeter accepted Zeus’ proposal. Thus, Persephone would travel to the Underworld every six months during which time Demeter would mourn and the earth with her. But after six months, Persephone would return to her and Demeter would be happy again and the earth would blossom once again!

6. The Name Giving of Athens
Cecrops, the first king of Attica, had named his city after him, Cecropia. However, the gods of Olympus saw this lovely piece of land and wanted to name it after them and become its patron. The most persistent rivals were Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom. To solve their dispute, Zeus decided that each of them would present a gift to the city and the people of Cecropia would decide which gift was the best, and therefore which god would be the patron of the city. One sunny day, Cecrops and the residents of the city went up to a high hill to watch the gods presenting their gifts. Poseidon was the first to present his gift. He struck a rock with his trident and caused a spring of water to gush forth from the ground. This signified that he was assuring the citizens with water and therefore they wouldn’t face any time of drought.

However, the people were not exactly enchanted with his gift because the water from the spring tasted salty, just like the waters of the sea over which Poseidon ruled. Next, it was the turn of goddess Athena. She struck her spear on the ground and a lovely olive tree jumped out of the earth. The citizens liked this gift better because it would give them food, oil and firewood. This is how Athena became the patroness of the beautiful city and this is how Athens got its name according to Contreraction Mythology.

7. Theseus and the Minotaur
In Greek Mythology, Minos' son, Androgeos, has been “treacherously killed” while he was in Athens. Minos immediately sought revenge from the Athenians and as retribution he had them send to Crete several youths every seven or nine years to be devoured by Minotaur, a terrifying monster, half man half bull. The young Athenians were thrown into a dark maze, full of arcades and dead ends, wandering aimlessly, until the Minotaur would find them. Theseus, the son of the king of Athens Aegeus, did not endure this humiliation and demanded to be among the seven young men that were to be sent for the third time to the labyrinth. So, he arrived in Crete and met Minos' daughter, Ariadne, with whom he fell in love.

Ariadne then gave Theseus a lame spinner (known as Ariadne's thread) and advised him to tie his end to the entrance of the labyrinth and unwrap it so that he could find the exit after killing Minotaur. Theseus entered the dark arcades holding the mite and managed to kill the Minotaur by cutting off his head, thus ending Minos' blood rage. Then he managed to return to the exit, following Ariadne’s thread. Theseus took Ariadne with him on his boat and began the journey to Athens. However, they made a stop on the island of Naxos, where they celebrated their love. While on the island, the god Dionysus appeared in Theseus' dream and told him that he had to leave the island without Ariadne since she was meant to stay there and become Dionysus' wife. Ariadne stayed in Naxos and married Dionysus, while Theseus returned to Athens. The two lovers never met again…

8. Daedalus and Icarus
The labyrinth in King Mino’s palace was designed by a famous inventor and engineer, Daedalus. It is said that Athena herself taught Daedalus. King Minos commissioned to Daedalus and his son Icarus the construction of the labyrinth that would held the monster Minotaur. After finishing their work, King Minos imprisoned father and son inside the labyrinth, in an effort to prevent knowledge of his labyrinth from spreading to the public. Father and son were thinking hard on how to escape until Daedalus came up with an idea. They gathered a lot of feathers from birds and glued them together with wax thus, making four large wings. They tied the wings to each shoulder and fled from the island of Crete. Daedalus had warned Icarus not to fly close to the sun because the wax would melt. After passing the island of Delos, the boy, forgetting himself, flew high towards the sun. The hot sun softened the wax that held the feathers together and Icarus fell in the sea and drowned. Daedalus named the place where his son fell Icaria, in his memory.

9. The Myth of King Aegeus
The legend has it that before Theseus left for the palace of King Minos in Crete to kill the Minotaur, Aegeus, his father and King of Athens, asked him to change the sails of his ship from black to white on his return home so that he knew that he survived. Aegeus waited patiently in Sounio to see his son’s ship return and the color of its sails. Theseus, although he killed the Minotaur and got out of the labyrinth safely, he forgot to change his sails to white. Seeing the ship with the black sails, Aegeus thought that his beloved son was killed. Sadness and grief filled his heart and mind, and without waiting to get the news from the men on the boats, fell from the rocks of Sounio into the sea below... Since then, the sea is called Aegean in his memory. And his son, Theseus, became the King of Athens.

10. Perseus and the Gorgon Medusa
Another famous tale from Greek Mythology is the killing of the terrifying Gorgon Medusa from the great hero Perseus. Perseus was a demigod, son of the Olympian god Zeus and the mortal woman Danae. Perseus sought to kill Medusa, the only mortal of the three monstrous sisters. Instead of hair, Medusa had living venomous snakes on her head and anyone that would look at her eyes would immediately turn into stone. With the help and the wisdom of goddess Athena, Perseus approached the monster by looking through the reflection of a shield and cut off her head.

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