Brick Greek Myths
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Brian Peterson
Cover photo credit by Amanda Brack
Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-522-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-889-2
Printed in China
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This fifth installment of our Brick books would not be in print without the amazing people standing behind it. Thank you to our lovely editor Kelsie Besaw, who has continued to shepherd this series to be what it is today. To Tony Lyons, Bill Wolfsthal, and Linda Biagi, for giving us the opportunity to tell so many great stories, and to everyone behind the scenes at Skyhorse for bringing this book to market. Extra special thanks go to Holly Schmidt and Allan Penn for giving us the means build our Brick Empire.
Amanda Brack:
A big thanks to my Mom and Dad for buying us mountains of Legos—who knew it would pay off! More importantly, thank you for your unwavering support and love throughout all my crazy endeavors. Another thanks to my brothers for keeping me away from Barbie dolls, teasing me constantly, and giving me so many wonderful memories. To Andy: thank you for your honesty, for believing in me even when I don’t, and for weekly burritos. Last but not least, I must acknowledge my dog, Kemi, because she is the best thing on four legs.
Becky Thomas:
I would like to thank my mom and dad, for reading to me every night and filling me with a love of stories. Thanks to my siblings, Michael, Elizabeth, and Kaitlyn, for keeping things loud and always interesting! Thank you to my husband Patrick for our epic house-wide nerf battles and for his endless support and love. Finally, I want to thank my Professor Marios Philippides for inspiring me in his compelling, fascinating class on Greek mythology.
Monica Sweeney:
Warm hugs go to my incredible sister Katie, who read Greek myths to me when we were little girls and who always encourages my undertakings, big and small. To Sarah Sweeney-Feuerstein, for being Mayor of Legoland. To my Mom, Dad, and Joanne, for being the very best and most supportive parents. To Dr. Anthony Tuck, for teaching an absorbing Greek mythology class and for providing exceptional materials that helped support the research in this book. And a special thank you to Professor Jenny Adams, because I don’t know if bawdy Chaucer will make his way to Brick form, but your influence continues to mean so much.
INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORS
The stories of Greek mythology have been told and retold since the earliest days of Greek civilization, starting around the mid-sixth century BCE. These myths, like myths across the world, explain how the world came to be and tell the tales of the gods, heroes, and the great figures who shaped it.
Some stories, like The Iliad, are based in historical fact and, as such, are more rightly considered sagas than folktales or myths. In these cases, the story began in truth, but years and generations of retelling acted as a game of telephone; the myths and stories we have at this end of history arrive with exaggerations and dramatic flourishes that make each story something quite different from how it started.
Other stories are more like what Rudyard Kipling would call “Just So Stories”; they seek to explain something about the physical world by telling how it came to be. In the realm of mythology, we refer to these as etiological narratives. The story of Persephone explains why we have seasons, and the story of Athena and Poseidon’s contest for Athens seeks to explain quite a bit about the city’s geography and even how it got its name. Each of these stories carries along a mytheme, or a basic element that contributes to the formula of the story—whether it is a hero’s katabasis, or descent to the underworld to fulfill a task, a damsel in distress, or a king’s fear of usurpation. These tales, too, are subject to the historical party game and show how our storytelling may change, but our desire to rationalize the origins of all things does not.
Unlike the other stories we have put into brick form, these Greek myths do not have an official text. Of course, the most famous versions of these stories can be found in writing in the works of famous Greek figures, like Hesiod’s The Theogony, and Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, but even these were passed down as rhapsodies and poems before they were finally written down many years later. Still, these records and other writings are the clearest, most complete tellings of many of the myths, along with clues from contemporary art and pottery and other traditions recounting the myths. This is why there is so much variation in the way that myths are told: without a source, a text to keep the stories honest, they are free to change and bend depending on the whim of the teller. This is our version, and while we did our best to stay true to the stories as we have heard them, we hope we have added a bit of ourselves to the stories, too.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction By the Authors
Dramatis Personae
Creation and the Birth of Zeus
Prometheus’s Fire and Pandora’s Box
Phaethon and the Chariot of the Sun
Hades, Persephone, and the Story of the Seasons
Eurydice and Orpheus
Athena and Poseidon’s Contest for Athens
Arachne’s Web
Perseus’s Quest
Perseus and Medusa
Perseus and Atlas
Perseus and Andromeda
Perseus and the Prophecy
Artemis and Apollo
Artemis and Orion
Artemis and Actaeon
Atalanta
Daedalus and Icarus
The Minotaur
Tantalus
Sisyphus
Marathon
Narcissus
Heracles: The Birth of the Divine Hero
Heracles and Eurystheus
The Twelve Labors of Heracles
Heracles and Admetus
Heracles and Eurytus
Heracles and Omphale
Heracles and Deianira
Heracles and Nessus
Heracles, Iole, and Deianira
Jason and the Golden Fleece
About the Authors
Dramatis Personae
TWELVE OLYMPIANS
Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and fertility
Ares, god of war
Artemis, goddess of the hunt, the moon, wilderness, chastity, and archery
Athena, virgin goddess of wisdom, crafts, skill, mathematics, courage, and just warfare
Demeter, goddess of the harvest and fertility; mother of sorrows
Dionysus, god of wine, ecstasy, theater, and merrymaking
Hephaestus, god of fire, the forge, metalwork, sculpture, and volcanoes
Hera, goddess of women, marriage, and birth
Hermes, messenger of the gods; guide to the Und
erworld; god of travelers, trade, and athletics
Phoebus Apollo, god of sun, light, knowledge, oracles, and art
Poseidon, god of the sea, the storm, earthquakes, and horses
Zeus, ruler of Mount Olympus; god of the sky, justice, law and order, lightning, and thunder
OTHER GODS AND GODDESSES, TITANS, AND PROMINENT FIGURES
Andromeda, beautiful daughter of Cassiopeia
Atlas, titan of astronomy and navigation
Atalanta, the virgin huntress and Arcadian princess
Daedalus, architect of the Labyrinth
Eurydice, oak nymph and daughter of Apollo
Hades, god of the Underworld, dead, and hidden wealth of the earth
Heracles, divine hero
Jason, heroic leader of the Argonauts
King Eurystheus, king of Tiryns
King Minos, king of Crete
Medusa, gorgon and mother of Pegasus and Chrysaor
The Minotaur, half bull and half man; prisoner of the Labyrinth
Narcissus, hunter plagued by beauty
Orpheus, great musician and poet
Pandora, first human woman
Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and goddess of springtime
Perseus, Greek hero
Phaethon, mortal son of Phoebus Apollo or Helios
Prometheus, titan; trickster; giver of fire
Tantalus, receiver of notorious punishment
Sisyphus, receiver of notorious punishment
Creation and the Birth of Zeus
In the beginning, there was nothing but Chaos: a great chasm of nothingness that stretched across existence.
From Chaos came Erebus, or Darkness, and Nyx, or Night.
Eros, or love, came from the chaos and created Aether and Hemera, light and day.
Chaos also bore Mother Earth, called Gaia. Gaia in turn created Ourea and Pontus: the mountains and the sea.
She also created Uranus, god of the heavens.
Gaia and Uranus fell in love and eventually married.
The couple created a family of very strong creatures and deities. Gaia gave birth to the Cyclopes, the three Hecatoncheires,
and the twelve Titans.
But Uranus was a terrible father who did not know how to control his children. He imprisoned the Hecatoncheires in Gaia’s womb, buried deeply in the earth.
This angered Gaia, and she asked her Titan children to attack Uranus.
Only her son Cronus was brave enough to challenge the god. The two plotted to ambush Uranus in his sleep and castrate him.
That night, Cronus crept into Uranus’s chambers and carried out his deed.
Uranus awoke too late to stop Cronus’s mutilation, and he fled in pain and anger, promising to have his revenge on Cronus and the rest of the Titans.
Cronus took Uranus’s place as ruler of the gods.
His first act was to imprison the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes deep underground in Tartarus.
He then took Rhea, a Titan goddess, as his bride.
Gaia and Uranus had prophesied that Cronus would be overthrown by one of his children. When Cronus heard this, he devised a plan to hold onto his throne.
Cronus devoured his children, swallowing Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, one at a time. This way they could not challenge his authority.
Rhea was furious at her husband, so she decided to trick him the next time she was pregnant.
The next time that she bore a child, she gave the baby to the nymphs to care for. Then she went to Cronus to present his latest child to him, replacing the baby with a stone.
Cronus was fooled and swallowed the stone, satisfied that his throne was still secure.
The baby she saved was called Zeus. He was raised on the island of Crete and grew to be smart and strong.
Zeus wanted to find a way to save his siblings from his father’s stomach, so he went to speak with Metis, a Titan of great wisdom.
She created a potion that would make Cronus sick and empty his stomach, and she gave it to Zeus.
Rhea then convinced Cronus to allow young Zeus to act as his cupbearer on Mount Olympus.
Zeus covertly added the potion to his father’s drink, acting so quickly that no one saw him. Then he gave the drink to Cronus, who drank it down.
As soon as he had finished the drink, Cronus began to vomit violently, and Zeus’s siblings emerged unscathed from their father’s stomach.
The other gods were very grateful to Zeus for saving them, and they decided to make him their leader.
But Cronus still had no desire to give up his throne to his son. Though the young deities were instantly full-grown, he still refused to let them take their rightful place as gods.
The rest of the Titans also resisted the new generation: this conflict soon came to a head in the great battle called the Titanomachy, in which the new gods fought the Titans for control over the earth.
This war went on for ten years without a victory on either side.
While the Titans fought from Mount Othrys, Zeus and his siblings set themselves up on Mount Olympus.
As the war raged on, Zeus decided to call in some allies. He went to Tartarus and freed the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes from their chains.
Before they could fight, the monsters first needed to be fed.
So Zeus brought them ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, and fed them. They were refreshed and invigorated and agreed to join Zeus in his battle.
In gratitude for freeing them, the Cyclopes gave Zeus the power to create thunder and lightning.
As the battle began, the Hecatoncheires threw heavy rocks at the Titans at impossible speeds.
At the height of the conflict, Zeus instructed his siblings to flee up the mountain, drawing the Titans into a trap.
The Titans fell for Zeus’s trick and followed the Olympians into the ambush.
Once the Titans were in range, the Olympians and their allies attacked.
The Titans were overwhelmed by the onslaught, and Zeus soon claimed victory.
He bound the Titans in chains and sent them to Tartarus.
There they were guarded by the Hecatoncheires to keep them from escaping.
Gaia had not gotten involved in the great battle, but when she saw that her children the Titans had been imprisoned, she was very angry.
Gaia gave birth to her last child, whom she named Typhoeus, or Typon. He was a powerful creature who was half man and half serpent.
All of the Olympians except Zeus fled from the creature. They ran to Egypt, where they disguised themselves as animals.
Typhoeus went to Mount Olympus and attacked the home of the gods, spitting great flaming stones and hot fire from his mouth.
Zeus battled hard against the creature with his powerful lightning bolts.
At last he struck Typhoeus, gravely injuring him.
Seeing his foe was weak, Zeus challenged him to hand-to-hand combat.
Typhoeus wrapped his coils around the god and squeezed him tight. Then he took a knife and cut Zeus’s tendons, leaving him helpless.
He brought Zeus to a cave and imprisoned him there.
Zeus’s son Hermes came to save him. He snuck into the cave and fixed Zeus’s tendons.
Zeus healed quickly, and escaped the cave, returning to attack Typhoeus from his chariot.
He fought hard against the monster, flinging sizzling bolts of lightning in quick succession.
Finally, he slayed the terrible creature.
He buried the body beneath Mount Etna, and the great mountain has belched smoke and ash ever since.
The last foes Zeus had to face were the giants.
The giants were the children of Gaia and Uranus.
Zeus was told that the Olympians would have no hope of defeating the giants without the help of a mortal.
Clever Gaia overheard this prophecy and began to search for an herb that would protect her children from mortal hands.
Zeus saw her plan, and he cloaked the earth in darknes
s to keep her from finding what she sought, then he took the herbs himself.
Then he summoned the half-mortal hero Heracles to help them fight.
Gaia freed the giants and sent them after Zeus and the other gods, since they had banished her elder children, the Titans, to Tartarus.
Iris, the messenger god, called together all of the gods in Olympus to discuss the war.
Zeus and his allies banded together to destroy all of Gaia’s terrible sons.
The great battle soon began, right at the foot of Mount Olympus. Zeus threw his terrible lightning bolts, sending fire raining through the air.
Gaia set her feet against the ground and created violent earthquakes.