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The Dark Origins of Mermaids and Other Mysterious Folk Lore

Khalid Elhassan September 30, 2023 29 min

Odysseus and the sirens. Greek Gods and Goddesses

In Greek Lore, the Father of Their Gods Was One Mean Daddy

Rhea tricks Cronus by giving him a swaddled rock. Theoi

Cronus married his sister, Rhea, and the couple had multiple children, including the gods and goddesses Poseidon, Hera, Hesta, Hades, and Demeter. To thwart the prophecy of his father Uranus that he would be overthrown by his own children, Cronus ate his kids as soon as they were born. Rhea did not like that, and when their sixth child Zeus was born, she tricked her hubby and gave him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes. Cronus assumed it was his latest newborn, and swallowed it whole.

Rhea hid Zeus, who grew up with understandably hostile feelings towards his father. When he came of age, Zeus forced his dad to vomit out the kids he had already swallowed, then led his siblings in a war against Cronus. Together, and with the help of other supernatural allies, they overthrew their father and the other Titans, and took over the world. By way of vengeance, they imprisoned Cronus and other Titans in Tartarus, a deep abyss where the wicked are tortured.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.