Gavi’s retellings of Greek Myths (basically)

Okay so I came up with this on the spot don't judge me

In the Beeninging

So in the beginning there was nothing and then the God Chaos was like, “I’m here now!”-so he was, and then Eros (god of love) was also just like “I’m here”, and so was this dude Pontus.

Then Chaos just randomly spewed out Nyx, night personified, and Gaia, earth personified. While Nyx went around making her son (Erebus) and having TERRIFYING children with him (weird), Gaia made Ouranus, the sky personified, and had kids with him (weird).

Their children were originally the Cyclops and the Heikatoncheires (people with one hundred arms), but they were all ugly so Ouranos imprisoned them in Tartarus (one of Nyx and her sons’ sons). Gaia didn’t like that, so when Ouranos and Gaia had their next set of children (the Titans), and then told Kronos (titan of time) to dethrone him. So Kronos got his brothers and he was like, “Hey bros, let’s go murder our dad!”

And they were like, “Ah, yeah, cool!”

So they… let’s just, for the sake of appropriateness, cut him up into thousands of pieces. Those pieces landed in the sea (who was a Titan named Oceanus) and then sort of just became Aphrodite, goddess of love.

So then Gaia was like, “Hey Kronos, the whole reason I told you to ca- I mean, cut up your dad (/brother technically) was so that you’d free your brothers from prison.”

And Kronos was like, “Sure I got you." He then preceded to free the Heikatonkhieres and the Cyclops. Gaia was like, "Wow thanks so much!"

But then Kronos was like, "Damn they ugly" so he tossed them back into Tartarus and made this snake-dragon-woman named Kampê guard them.

So the Titans were pretty much the rulers of the world. These dog-fish things called Telchines (also sons of Gaia and Ouranos) made Kronos (now the King) this Scythe that severed the soul from the body.

Zeus commits Patricide

So after a while, Kronos and his sister, Rhea (queen of the Titans) got married (weird), and had a bunch of kids. But Rhea had planted these weird speaking trees (called the Grove of Dodona), and they told Kronos that one of his children was going to usurp him, like he did to his father.

So Kronos was like,”Uncool, tree-bros!” And instead of doing the normal thing like accepting his fate or even just killing the children… when his daughter, Hestia (goddess of the hearth) was born he ATE HER. So Rhea and Kronos had their next daughter, Demeter (goddess of plants and the harvest), and Kronos ate her up. (ew).

Then they had Hades (god of death, riches and the Underworld), and Kronos swallowed him whole.

Next was Hera (goddess of marriage and fertility), and, once again, Kronos ate her for dinner.

Rhea, at this point, was like, “Okay, my brother-husband is a bit strange,” but when she had Poseidon (god of the sea), she still handed him to Kronos and Kronos was like, “Yummy!”

So by the time she had Zeus (god of lightning and the sky), she was really fed up with Kronos eating all her kids. So as she was giving birth, she went up to these three nymphs (nature deities) and she was like, “Yo wassup? My husband kinda eats all of our kids, so can you protect Zeus when he’s born?” And the nymphs were like, “Cool!”

So Rhea gave birth to Zeus, and, when Kronos asked for the baby, she gave him a rock wrapped in blanket… which is, you know, identical to a baby!

Somehow Kronos fell for it, and ate the rock (yummy!).

So Zeus was put with these three nymphs, and they took good care of him inside of this cave. And to protect him from Kronos even more, they had a bunch of other nymphs raving outside of the cave.

So Zeus grew up and was pretty strong, so eventually he went up to the nymphs and was like, “Thanks for everything but I’m gonna go commit patricide, byeeee!”

So he went to Kronos’s castle (at the peak of Mount Orthys, which was the tallest mountain at the time.), and met with his mother. She was all like, “Yay you’re here to kill your father!” She give him this drink that Zeus was supposed to put inside of Kronos’s water, and it would make Kronos regurgitate Zeus’s brothers.

So Zeus, disguised as some other dude I can’t remember the name of, became Kronos’s cupbearer. When the time was right, he poured the drink into his cup. When Kronos drank it, he vomited out all of the Gods he’d swallowed. But now they were fully grown, from all the time in Kronos’s stomach.

The Gods declared war on the Titans, and so followed an epic war called the Titanomachy. Scholars lost all the scrolls and tablets about what happened it though, so I dunno what happened.

All I know is that it ended with Zeus cutting Kronos up into a thousand pieces, but actually he did not just me, um, sanitising the original myth.

So the Gods won the war and imprisoned the Titans in Tartarus. Then went on to Mount Olympus and set up their castle there. They cut the top of Mount Orthys off, so that Mount Olympus was the tallest mountain.

And then Gaia was like, "Hey Grandson?"

And Zeus was like, "Yeah wassup?"

"The whole reason your father chopped off- I mean cut up your Grandpa was so Kronos would free your uncles, could you do that quick?"

So Zeus freed the Cyclops and Hekatonkheires, and he thought that the Telchines were a bit too shady, so he made the Cyclops the new Forgers and put the Telchines in Tartarus (basically jail).

The Cyclops then made Zeus his big Lightning Bolt, which (you guessed it!) makes lightning.

Now Zeus and his sister-wife, Hera (ew, aren't you the goddess of marriage? You should know better than that!), were the King and Queen of the Gods!

What the Titans Doing?

So before we get into all the God-y stuff, you may be wondering, what were the Titans up to?


So, there were 12 Titans to start (not in order): Kronos (titan god of time), Rhea (titan goddess of childbirth), Hyperion (titan god of fire and the East), Theia (titan goddess of sight), Koios (titan god of inquisitiveness and the North), Phoebe (titan goddess of the Delphic Oracle), Krios (titan god of constellations and the South), Iapetus (titan god of mortality and the West), Themis (titan goddess of justice and law), Mnemosyne (titan goddess of memory), Oceanus (titan personification of the Ocean) and Tethys (titan goddess/personification (sometimes) of freshwater).

They were all pretty chill, and then Hyperion, as the Hesiod says, "subjected his sister Theia to his love". With her, he fathered Helios (personification of the Sun), Selene (personification of the Moon) and Eos (goddess of dawn).

So, probably inspired by Hyperion, Koios "subjected" his sister Phoebe to his love, and they had Leto (titan goddess of motherhood) and Asteria (titan goddess of Delos (a sacred island).

So Oceanus and Tethys (still siblings EW WHAT IS UP WITH THESE GODS???) had 6000 children (that's 6000 too many), who were the Oceanids (minor gods of lakes and stuff) and the River Gods or Potamoi (there was one for each River in the world (what?))

Then Iapetus fathered Epimetheus (titan god of retrospect), Prometheus (titan god of forethought), Atlas (titan god of strength) and Menoetius (who is literally only mentioned when Zeus kills him (boring!)) with Clymene (one of the Oceanids).

Then Krios and Eurybia (one of the daughters of Pontus (personification of the Sea)), had Astraeus (titan god of dusk), Perses and Pallas (titan god of war). Perses and Asteria had Hecate (goddess of witchcraft and choices).

Astraeus and Eos had the Planeta, the planets, and the Anemoi (wind gods). The main Anemoi are: Boreas (the North Wind) (who had Chione (goddess of snow)), Notus (the South Wind), Zephyrus (the West Wind) and Euros (the East Wind).

Wait, what else was Pontus doing? He also had Phorcys (god of the deep sea) and Keto (goddess of the terrors of the sea) with Thalassa (another personification of the Sea). Keto and Phorcys had a lot of kids, who were all the monsters inhabiting the ocean.

So anyways, back to the Titans, Mnemosyne had the Nine Muses (who I will not list; there's too much, you'll see them in another myth) with her nephew, Zeus (wait what?).

So now Leto had Apollo (god of the Sun, light, poetry, archery, civilisation and music) and Artemis (goddess of the Moon, the wild and the Hunt) with Zeus (wtf Zeus?). (More on all of that in a different myth).

Epimetheus and Prometheus have their whole myths (which you will read in a different myth), and Atlas, with Pleione, had the Pleiades and Calypso (more on her in another myth), and with Hesperis he had the Hesperides and Dione.

Pallas, with Styx (goddess of hatred and one of the Potamoi (god of the River Styx in the Underworld)), had Nike (goddess of victory), Kratos (a daemon (intermediate of gods and humans) of strength), Bia (goddess of force), and Zelus (god of rivalry and sometimes zealotry).

That's pretty much all that was going on with the Titans before they were imprisoned that I know of, so yeah byeeee.

Zeus's many illegitimate children

Now that we're done with the Titans, here's some of the gods (specifically of Zeus)

(Note: there is still more inbreeding to come)


So I've already talked about some, but let's re-list them.

There's Aphrodite (goddess of beauty and love) who was born from Ouranos's- I mean just Ouranos- in the sea.

Zeus (king of the gods and god of lightning), Hades (god of death, the Underworld and riches), Poseidon (god of the sea), Hera (queen of the gods and goddess of marriage and fertility), Hestia (goddess of the hearth) and Demeter (goddess of the harvest and plants) were the children of Kronos and Rhea.

Zeus and Hera had Ares (god of war and bloodlust), Hephaestus (god of craft and volcanos), Eileithyia (goddess of birth), the Charites (goddesses of charm) and Hebe (goddess of youth).

As you probably know, Zeus had way too many affairs. To start, with Semele (a mortal) he had Dionysus (there's a whole story about that but that's for later), who is the god of wine, raving and madness.

With Metis, he had Athena, who has a story but it's short enough I can tell it here.

So he started dating Metis, an Oceanid (so one of his cousins), but it was prophesied that she would bare him a daughter wiser than his mother, and a son who would overthrow Zeus. He was like, "Nah I'll stop that!" So he tricked Metis into turning into a fly, and then swallowed her. But she was already pregnant. Athena grew inside of Zeus, and one day she suddenly burst out of him, dressed in full battle armour. She became the goddess of wisdom.

With Leto (also his cousin!?) he had Apollo and Artemis (which also has a long story).

Maia had Hermes (god of thieves and travel) with Zeus (which is a long story).

He had the Nine Muses with Mnemosyne (they are: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Eurterpe (music), Erato (lyrical poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (hymns), Terpsichore (dancing), Urania (astrology) and Thalia (comedy)).

With Themis (his aunt!) he had the Horae (goddesses of the Seasons) and the Moirai (also known as the Fates) (goddesses of destiny).

With Demeter (okay what? That's his sister!) he had Persephone (goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld). Then with Persephone (ewwwww) he had Zagreus (not a god but he was prophesied to overthrow Zeus) and Melinoë (goddess of nightmares).

He had a looooooooot more children, but they aren't gods, as I'm only listing the gods.

And also, like most myths, there are different versions. With all of these myths, I am telling them how I know it. For example, sometimes he had Eris (goddess of strife) with Hera, but in my version Eris is a child of Nyx. Or Aphrodite was actually a child of Dione. Keep it in mind as we go into more myths!

We exist

So Prometheus is this Titan dude (who can see into the future), and one day he's just like, "Hey! It's boring just being out here with only the gods to keep us company!"

So he goes up to Athena and he says, "Hey, can you try to help me make another race of people called Humans who don't have as much power as us gods and worship us and are sort of just like our toys?" So obviously Athena's immediately like, "Yessss!!!"

So Prometheus gets out some mud and shapes out human beings. Athena then breathes on them and some how they harden into clay and become humans! Obviously we couldn't live on Mount Olympus with the gods, so we were tossed off onto Earth.

Prometheus was like, "Oh that's a bit sad shame; let's give them fire!!!"

So we lived pretty okay for a while, but then Zeus noticed that we were pretty violent. So as a punishment he took away our fire. Aw man!

That didn't really work though. Now we were just violent and cold.

Prometheus was like, "Cousin, that's not on!" And he tried to steal back the fire for us. He succeeded and we were now violent and warm!

Zeus didn't like that, so he chained Prometheus to this rock where an eagle would eat his liver everyday, but his liver would also regenerate everyday. Ouch.

And as a punishment for human beings, he did something that you'll find out in the next myth...

Pandora traumatises everyone

So now Zeus was pretty angry with us, since we were still violent. So he and the other gods made the first woman.


(I would like to say that I don't support what this myth says about women, and don't agree with it at all.)

Hephaestus helped Zeus by moulding her out of clay. Then Athena made her curious, Aphrodite made her beautiful, and Hermes made her deceitful.


She was then dressed up in clothes and named Pandora. She was sent down to earth with a jar, but was commanded by Zeus to never, ever open the jar.


Like that's gonna happen.


She lived for a while, and eventually she wed Epimetheus (who could see into the past (meaning he could see what actions he had done wrong)).

On the day of the wedding, she stood staring at the jar. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she opened the jar.


...


...


Wait! Nothing happened! So Pandora was like, "Oh okay. The jar's actually pretty chill!"


...


And then the bad stuff came out. All of the things that plague humanity such as the Nosoi (diseases), Oizys (pain), Geras (old age), Eris (strife), Moros (Doom), Dolos (deceit), Thanatos (death), Ker (destructive death), the Ker (different somehow) (painful death), and more death!


But at the bottom of the jar, refusing to come out, was Elpis (hope), representing how we may have death and destructive death and painful death, we still always have hope!


Moral of the story is, curiosity killed the cat TRAUMATISED EVERYONE.

By Gavi, Here's his page!