Transcript for Teaching Mythology Episode 005: The Fall of Kronos and the Rise of the Olympians (The Greek Creation Part 2)

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Welcome to the teaching mythology podcast. I’m your host Lesli from education is powerful. Come with me as we explore myths, through a modern-day lens.

Welcome back. So we left, Zeus on the island of Crete, in order to be raised and grow up strong. And so this is where we’re starting today. Now, Zeus grew up and peace, and it was kind of an idyllic life. He also became very powerful, more powerful than the goddesses that raised him, and he had special powers that they had never seen before. So he truly was something fearsome to behold.

Now, in some versions of the myth, while Zeus was on the island of Crete, he fell in love with a goddess named Metis. She is the child of the Titan Oceanus and Thetis, she is the goddess of wit and cunning. Does that sound familiar? Huh. We’re going to come back to Metis in another podcast so she plays a very important role in this one. She plays an even more important role later on. And if you know what I’m talking about, it’s a good story.

So, when it was time for Zeus to overthrow his father Kronos. Gaia actually whispered to Zeus from the earth, to try to urge him to do this. She had been biding her time, waiting for Zeus to become powerful enough to overthrow Kronos.

I want to interject here for a second. And let’s talk about Gaia, because, here she is for the second time encouraging. One of the other gods to overthrow the supreme god, and I think she doesn’t get enough. I don’t know if recognition or credit is the right word but she is not talked about enough. And she kind of has this real personality of, I don’t like you. I’m going to overthrow you. I put somebody else in power. I don’t like you. I’m going to overthrow you. And I really love and record and books that Gaia does sort of have this sinister personality. And when we think about what she represents which is the earth she is kind of our lifeblood. And we really rely on her for our food for groundwater freshwater lakes, fishing, shelter, she is everything. She is life and abundance and all good things, but she is also all bad things. When you think about earthquakes and storms and drought, and all those sorts of negative aspects are part of her as well, so she’s really a dual character, and she has a duality about her.

This made me think of the Disney movie Moana you have Maui stealing the heart of Tefiti, and it isn’t until the end, that we find out that, while Tefiti is this mother goddess this earth goddess. She is represented in. In the movie as an island where all other islands and life sprouted from her. She’s also Taka, which is for the Polynesian people and people of the South Pacific. It’s how islands are formed which is through volcanoes, so she’s also that destructive part that fire, anger, right. And when Moana gives her back, her heart, like the heart of Tefiti, take heart turns back into Tefiti, and that symbolism of distraction, and then re rebuilding that, and it’s life-giving, and we know that the volcanic material is actually a really strong base for fertile and lush vegetation.

You also see this with fires, because I live in Utah, and I lived in Wyoming, I am a, I’m thinking of the Yellowstone fire. My grandparents lived in Yellowstone and worked in Yellowstone at the time of the fires. And so it was really devastating for them. They would work there every summer and then they just could they had to stop working there. And if you go to Yellowstone now there’s all this lush regrowth that’s happened because the fire destroyed all things, and then recreated, and started life again.

So, I think, Gaia, as an earth goddess and we see this across cultures. She has really both things. She’s life-giving, and she’s destructive.

Okay, so let’s go back to the myth, and where we left off, was Gaia whispering to Zeus from the earth, telling him, he needed to overthrow Kronos, and it said that, as she whispered to him. She told him where he could find a plant or an herb that would make Kronos vomit all of his children out, and it became, it turned into like a magical potion.

Now in some myths and mostly this is entheogen II by hasard, meters plays a bigger role in this part in that she is the one who comes up with a plan to make a drink for Kronos to vomit up all of his children and it has mustard in it. Well, the real important part of this is that Zeus is able to get Kronos to drink this potion, let’s we’ll call it a potion. And some of the myths Metis is one who gives it to him. I mean Metis is one who gives it to Kronos, right. She is his brother’s daughter right, she’s his niece, she trusts him, she’s with him in the palace. She gives him a drink and of course, he drinks it he doesn’t question her. He’s been living there for eons, without anybody challenging him, he has no reason to be suspicious.

In other versions, Zeus actually goes to work in the palace as his cup there, right. And he for years gives him his wine, and gains the trust of Kronos, eventually one day, he slips in this potion of mustard and causes Kronos, to drink it and vomit up his other children.

And in another version, Zeus actually gets caught, the minute those walks into the palace. Kronos knows that this is his son he recognizes him right or he smells them or he knows he is a God after all. And so he immediately picks up Zeus and swallows him. But Zeus has a, has the potion on him, causing Kronos to eat Zeus, eat the potion. Right. And I love this version because it shows that Zeus knows his own father’s weaknesses that maybe we don’t change. Maybe the mistakes that we make, we continue to make, right, and he banks Zeus banks that Cronus is going to make the same mistake again. And he’s right.

In the end, no matter how it happened. Kronos drinks this potion. And he bought it causes him to vomit up all of his children, right. And when they emerge. They are gods and goddesses, they are fully formed, they have grown up, and they have their powers, and they are angry, right, they’re not going to go quietly, they’re not going to sit back and just sleep away or slunk away or hide away trying to pretend that he didn’t just try to kill his own children. So, it’s also said that the minute he sees Hera, he falls in love with her. And he forgets all about Metis. In fact, she doesn’t really play a role anymore in this story, until we get to another myth.

Well, this creates a great war between the Olympians and the Titans. It’s called the Titanomachy the Titan battle the War of the Titans, the Battle of the gods, has all these names, and it lasts 10 years. Now in some versions of this story. There are various ages of man, that are made to try to help Zeus battle against the Titans. I’m not going to go into that today and we’ll talk about the creation of mankind when we get to Prometheus.

So, but this 10-year battle is epic, epic and Zeus knows he needs some help, so he actually goes down into Tartarus. And he freeze the Cyclops and he freeze the Hecatocheries, and they are turning tide in this war. Now the Cyclops actually end up making for the Olympian gods, their weapons. So, for Zeus they make his lightning bolt or his thunder-bolt for Poseidon they make the trident and for Hades, they make the helmet of invisibility. There are also two titans who join Zeus, in this great battle, And that is Prometheus and Themis.

Now, eventually, after 10 years the Olympians win. And as punishment Zeus locks all the Titans up into Tartarus. And they are guarded by the heck carnies and it’s one reason why we don’t see them showing up in other myths, is it they’re too busy watching the titans in the underworld, but this has a special punishment for Kronos. He actually decides to take Chronos his scythe, or his sickle, and he cuts him up into 1000 Little pieces and locks him in Tartarus. Right. And I love that because this is, this is the God killing weapon. Kronos use this to cut his father Irina’s and now. Zeus is going to use this to cut his father Kronos. It’s very cyclical, there are so many parallels. So that should tell you that there’s something about Zeus, that is just like Kronos. Hmm. We’re gonna get to that.

All the Titans are locked into Tartarus, except for Atlas. Atlas receives this special punishment. You see Atlas was a devoted follower of Kronos, and he was a fierce fighter in the battle, and he led most of the battles of the Titans against the Olympians, so as punishment. Atlas has to hold up the world or in some versions, he has to hold up the sky. And it’s that never-ending eternal strain that he has, as his punishment.

Now it said that once this felt secure in his powers he released the other Titans, except for Kronos and Atlas. And the only time Atlas gets a break from holding up this guy is when he tricks Hercules into taking it from him. And when we talk about Hercules will retell that story.

So at the end of all of this, the three brothers just divide up the power. This is another example of the patriarchal nature of Greek culture, and Greek history, because the oldest is actually Hestia. She is the oldest Olympian. She was the first to be followed by Kronos, but she’s not even considered to be the ruler over all things. In fact, Hestia gives up her place on Mount Olympus to Dionysus. And when we talk about Dionysus and tell his story, we’ll talk about that more. And it’s incredibly frustrating for me in the way that she does this.

Now, the way that these brothers divide up their power is, there are two different versions. One is said that they drew lots. Now, this is interesting to me because Hades is the eldest brother so if this really was a patriarchal society. In a traditional Greek society. He’s the eldest, and he should become the supreme ruler, but he doesn’t. And one reason or one version of the myth explains that during some of the really key battles between the Olympian gods and the Titan, Hades actually put on his helmet of visibility and refused to fight. Now, I actually don’t like that. I think that Hades is sometimes depicted as a villain or an evil character. Ultimately I think that this is just a Christian interpretation of the myth or a layer of Christianity that’s put on the myth, because this is the ruler of the underworld, and that is where the dead goes now. We’ll talk about the underworld in more detail, because there’s sort of this implication that it’s all bad, it’s all dark, but it’s not. If we were to compare it to Christianity, there’s heaven and hell in the underworld. It’s not all one place, but Hades is sort of trapped there because he is only allowed to go up onto Mount Olympus, one day per year and that’s the winter solstice right it’s the shortest day, the longest night. So there does seem to be some kind of sense of punishment towards hades in this decision. I wonder if it was really just that Zeus was threatened. And that Hades was the eldest, Hades should have become a screamer.

And so this is the decision that’s made that ensures that Zeus retains his power. Well, let’s just say that they drew lots, and Zeus draws the long straw, and he rolls over the sky and becomes a supreme god Poseidon gets the middle straw and he rolls over the ocean and waters and Hades gets the short straw, and he rolls under the underworld. And this is where that phrase drawing the short straw comes from. It comes from this myth. So an important thing to notice is that nobody rolls over the earth, while we have goddesses and gods who are fertility gods or harvest gods or even Demeter She’s the goddess of the earth. She doesn’t roll over there. She’s, she’s more of a harvest plant, those kinds of things. And so, they kind of make an agreement that the earth belongs to everyone, and they leave it for mankind.

So that’s where we’re gonna end today. Next week I have a special episode. I actually was asked to give the graduation speech at a school that I worked at in Wyoming. And so, I’m going to be sharing my graduation speech with you that I shared with them a few years ago when they asked me. Thanks for joining me today on teaching mythology. Don’t forget to rate review and subscribe and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai