Chronos was the father of the gods. He gave his name to time. That is how we came to have the word "chronology" and other such words. Chronos married his sister Rhea, the goddes of earth.
Chronos originally became king of the gods by stealing his father's throne and killing him. His father was Uranus, the First One. While Uranus was dying he prophesied that Chronos would be dethroned some day by one of his own sons, because crime begets crime.
Chronos was very careful not to have any children about who might grow up to murder him. He accomplished this by swallowing each of his children as they were born. First he swallowed three daughters, Hestia, Demeter and Hera. Then he swallowed the next two, who were sons named Hades and Poseidon. He swallowed them all, one by one.
His wife Rhea was furious! She determined that her next child would live, so when her time came she crept quietly down the slope of Mount Olympus to a dark cave to have her baby. It was a son she named Zeus. She hung a golden cradle from the branches of an olive tree and put him to sleep there, swung by gentle breezes. Then she went back home. On the way she found a rock about the size of a baby and wrapped it as a baby should be wrapped, and she held it to her breast, humming it a lullaby. Cronos came snorting and bellowing out of his great bed and snatched the bundle from her and swallowed it, clothes and all!
Rhea crept back down the mountain to the swinging golden cradle and took her son to the home of a shepherd who had sheep in the fields below. She gave her son to the shepherd and his wife and promised that no wolves would attack their sheep if they would raise her son.
Zeus grew to be a beautiful young man, and his father Chronos knew nothing about him. One day Rhea became lonely for him and brought him back to the court of the gods. She told everyone he was a new cup-bearer. As he was such a fine, upright, handsome lad Cronos was pleased.
Late one night Rhea and Zeus prepared a special drink which was made of a mixture of mustard, salt and nectar. The cupbearer brought his drink to Cronos and Cronos took a mighty swallow. Almost immediately he threw up. Up came the stone, next were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and then Hades and Poseidon. As the children were all gods they were still alive and undigested. They gratefully thanked Zeus, and immediately asked him to be their leader.
A mighty battle began to rage on Mount Olympus. Cronos was joined by the Titans, his half brothers. They were huge, twisted creatures, taller than trees with skin like dark tree bark. He kept them shut up in the mountain all the time unless there was fighting to be done. They all furiously attacked the young gods.
Zeus had allies, too. He had gone into dark caverns in the mountains, caves that were above caves and below caves deep inside the mountains. These had been formed from cooling bubbles when the earth was first made. In those dark, hidden places Cronoss had imprisoned other monsters, like the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hundred-handed Ones. Thousands of centuries they spent in the caves in the mountain, even though it was still just a short time in the life of a god. Zeus unbound their heavy chains and led them into battle against the Titans.
The poor people of the earth heard mighty thunderings and saw mountains blown apart, the earth quaked and tidal waves rolled, there were strange rushing sounds in the air, and a great tumult in the sky as the gods battled. The Titans, tall as trees, fought under their crafty leader Cronos. He attacked the young gods fiercely and drove them before him down the mountainside, and he laughed as they ran before him. He was sure he was winning.
Zeus had laid a trap. Half-way down on the slope of Mount Olympus he whistled for his cousins who had been in the deep, dark caves. The Hundred-handed Ones had been laying in ambush. They took huge boulders in each of their hundred hands and hurled them down the hill upon the Titans. The Titans thought the whole mountain was falling on them and they fled wildly in all directions.
The young goat-god, Pan, was jumping up and down and shouting for joy. Later he claimed it was his shouts that made the Titans break ranks and run away. That is how the word "panic" originated.
The young gods climbed to the top of Mount Olympus, took over the great castle and made Zeus their king. No one knows what happened to Cronos and his Titan half-brothers, but sometimes mountains explode, and rocks fly, and fire rolls down their sides into the sea, and the earth trembles, and nobody knows exactly why.
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