Birth of the World - Greece

At the beginning there was Chaos, great abyss from which the first couple emerged. Their names were Uranus (Father Sky) and Gaia (Mother Earth). Their children were Titans, Hekatonheires (one-hundred-armed giants) and Cyclopes (one eyed giants). Uranus wasn't happy with the latter two groups of his children and decided to send them down to Tartarus (place of permanent night); to the place from which there was no return. When Gaia found out about this, she asked her youngest Titan son – Cronos - to avenge his brothers and sisters. Young Titan cut off his father’s testicles and pushed him off the  heavenly throne. Cronos became the new king. Along with his wife, Rhea (also his sister) he ruled over the emerging earth. He was very suspicious and strict ruler. His father warned him that his son will remove him from the throne. Therefore every time Rhea had given birth to a baby, Cronos would eat it. He has eaten five babies already, when his wife decided to use a trick against him. After giving birth to their sixth child, instead of a baby, she gave him a stone wrapped in the cloth. Cronos swallowed it thinking it was a baby. The saved child was a boy. His name was Zeus. Rhea took him to Earth and left under the care of mountain nymphs. When Zeus became a man, he started the war against his father. He asked his mother, Rhea, to give Cronos something that will make him vomit. Three sisters and two brothers came from Cronos’s insides. They were Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter and Hestia – Zeus’s siblings. The war between father and son was long and cruel, but finally Cronos had fallen and Zeus took over the rule of the Olympus.

This myth describes the birth of the world emerging from nothingness. The first couple appears and it gives the beginning to the whole new nation of gods. Of course, from the very beginning there are suspicions and lack of trust amongst them. Powerful fathers destroy their own children either because they are displeased with their looks; or are afraid of losing the power. Wives oppose their husbands and convince the sons to fight their fathers. This new world is already full or evil and hate.

This story does not answer one important question: Where did the first couple really come from?