In the beginning there was only Night and Chaos and Darkness.
Black-winged Night floated through the emptiness of Chaos, carrying an egg and planting it in the womb of Darkness. When the egg cracked open, little golden-winged Eros emerged and flapped his wings to dry them. As his wings moved they made a sound, which echoed as it bounced against the walls of empty Chaos.
Chaos was filled with a symphony of sounds.
A nymph favored by Artemis and loved by the river god Alpheus. While Arethusa was bathing in his stream, Alpheus rose up and tried to abduct her, but she fled under the ocean to the isle of Ortygia. There Artemis changed her into a fountain. But Alpheus followed her and was himself changed into a river and united with her. In ancient times it was believed that the waters of the Alpheus River flowed beneath the sea from Greece and reappeared in the fountain of Arethusa in the harbor of Syracuse.
Mount Olympus, in Greek mythology, is the abode of the chief god Zeus. Also, the foremost gods of the Greek pantheon have their palaces at the summit. It is here that the gods assemble to consume nectar and ambrosia ("immortal"), the substances which reinforces their immortality. According to the myth, the top of the Olympus, which is covered in snow and hidden in the clouds, reaches all the way into the aether.
Supremely gifted minstrel who attempted to rescue his dead wife from the Underworld. Orpheus had been taught to play the lyre by Apollo, and such was his skill on the instrument, together with the sweetness of his singing voice, that he could charm wild animals and even cause trees to uproot themselves and follow in his steps. Jason and the Argonauts took him along when they quested after the Golden Fleece, and Orpheus saved them from shipwreck by drowning out the treacherously alluring voices of the Sirens with his own musical stylings.
THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS was a contest between the three most beautiful goddesses of Olympos - Aphrodite, Hera and Athena - for the prize of a golden apple addressed to "the fairest".
The story begins at the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis to which all of the gods were invited, except for one, Eris the goddess of discord. When she appeared at the festivities, she was turned away, and in wrath cast a golden apple amongst the assembled goddesses addressed 'To the Fairest'. Three goddesses laid claim to the apple - Aphrodite, Hera and Athena. Zeus was asked to mediate and he commanded Hermes to lead the three goddesses to Prince Paris of Troy, to decide the issue. The three goddesses appearing before Paris, each offering him gifts of her favour. He chose Aphrodite, swayed by her promise to bestow upon him, Helene the most beautiful woman alive as his wife. The subsequent abduction of Helene from Greece led directly to the Trojan War and the eventual fall of Troy (led by the wrathful goddesses Hera and Athena).
Parnassus is a mountain in Greece at the foot of which lay the town of Delphi, home of the famous Oracle. In Greek mythology, Parnassus was sacred to the Greek god Apollo whose oracle resided at Delphi.
Pelias,in Greek mythology, was the usurper of the throne of Iolcus. He was the son of Tyro and Poseidon and the twin brother of Neleus. After his birth his mother married Cretheus, king of Iolcus, and gave birth to Aeson. After Cretheus' death Pelias seized power, killed (or imprisoned) Aeson, and exiled Neleus. Later Medea, hoping to restore Jason as rightful successor to the throne, tricked the daughters of Pelias into murdering him.
Dionysus was often accompanied by the Maenads, or Bacchantes: wild women carrying rods
tipped with pine ... Dionysus shattered Pentheus' palace and drove him mad. ...
Jupiter and Mercury at the House of Philemon and Baucis
Description
A mythical Phrygian man and wife, described by Ovid in his ‘Metamorphoses', who befriended Jupiter and Mercury, in disguise, after all others had refused; in return they were saved from a flood that destroyed their village; their cottage was changed into a temple; Jupiter granted their wish that they might both die at the same time by turning them into trees—The Moral: Treat everyone well because you never know when you'll find yourself in the presence of a god.
Priam , in Greek mythology, king of Troy during the Trojan War, son of Laomedon. Priam had several wives and was the father of 50 sons and many daughters. His chief wife, Hecuba, bore him 19 children, including Hector, Paris, Polyxena, Helenus, Cassandra, Troilus, Creusa, Polydorus, and Deiphobus. When the Greeks sacked Troy, Priam was killed by Neoptolemus.
Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to mortals, carrying it away from Mount Olympus in a fennel stalk (a method of transporting fire that was used down into historical times). As a consequence, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock where each day an eagle pecked out his liver (which regenerated itself each night).
A king had three daughters, of whom the youngest, Psyche, had such a radiant beauty that it rivaled Venus'. And people deserted the worship of Venus in adoration of Psyche. Venus was furious had her beaten and commanded her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the most loathsome creature on earth.
Cicero, a Roman statesman and orator remembered for his mastery of Latin prose (106-43 BC)refers to a sacrifice of rush puppets in the Vestal ritual that might have originally included sacrifice of old men.
Pythia was the name given to the woman who was the medium of the Apollo Oracle at Delphi. In Greek mythology, an Oracle was a place where divinely-inspired prophecies of the future were passed down to mortals. Usually these prophecies were given in response to questions, but sometimes they flowed out randomly from the priest or priestess acting as an intermediary.
Ravana, Indian Demon King of Lanka. In Hindu mythology, Ravana is one of the principal antagonists of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana.
Ravana became corrupt and selfish; it was soon deemed necessary to rid the world of his tyranny. Since the boon granted by Brahma prevented him from being slayed by anyone but a human being, it became necessary for the God Vishnu to assume human form. He incarnated himself in his seventh avatar, Rama, a prince of Ayodhya.Ravana was slain by Rama, an event celebrated as the triumph of good over evil, and commemorated in north India by the Dussehra festival.
In Greek mythology the satyrs are deities of the woods and mountains. They are half human and half beast; they usually have a goat's tail, flanks and hooves. While the upper part of the body is that of a human, they also have the horns of a goat. They are the companions of Dionysus, the god of wine, and they spent their time drinking, dancing, and chasing nymphs. The Italian version of the satyr is the faun, while the Slavic version is the Ljeschi.
Silenus. The older satyrs were generally termed Sileni; but one of these Sileni is commonly the Silenus, who always accompanies Dionysus (Bacchus), whom he is said to have brought up and instructed. He is represented as a jovial old man, with a bald head, pug nose, and rubicund visage, and generally as intoxicated, and, therefore, riding on an ass or supported by satyrs. He was fond of music and dancing and is often accompanied by the flute. But it is a peculiar feature in his character that he was an inspired prophet, yet, when he was drunk and asleep he was in the power of mortals, who might compel him to prophesy and sing by surrounding him with chains of flowers. Like the sea-gods, Silenus was noted for wisdom; and it would, therefore, appear that a Silen was simply a river-god; and the name probably comes from the Greek verb, signifying to roll, expressive of the motion of the streams. The connection between Silenus, Bacchus, and the Naiades thus becomes easy of explanation, all being deities relating to moisture.
In Norse mythology, fairy tales, and sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games, a dwarf is a sprite, a member of a humanoid race, much like humans, but generally living underground or in mountainous areas. Here they have heaped up countless treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones, and pass their time in fabricating costly armor. They are famed miners and smiths although, like humans, they specialize in any number of trades. Dwarfish smiths created some of the greatest and most powerful items of power in Norse mythology, such as the chain which bound the Fenris wolf.
Triton was originally a demigod with the torso of a man and the tail of a fish. He was the son of the sea god, Poseidon and the sea-nymph Amphitrite. Later he became one of the sea creatures in Poseidon's escort. The female of the species is known as a Nereid
The Nereids are figures from Greek mythology. They are the fifty and more daughters of Nereus and Doris.The most famous are Amphitrite (wife of Poseidon, god of the sea) and Thetis (wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles). Nereids are said to be friendly and charming and to epitomize female beauty. As they surface from their father's wonderful underwater palace these water nymphs flit across the waves riding seahorses and dolphins.
. The tritons flitted across the waves and blew on conches which they used as horns. Artists depicted the tritons as human sea-creatures, or alternatively as sea- centaurs: half man, half horse.
