Pelasgian creation myth

The Pelasgian creation myth is one of the ancient religious stories of the origin of the world. It is a matriarchal, monotheistic system, in which one goddess dominates man, and predates other deities. The goddess gives birth to all things, fertilised not by any male opposite but by symbolic seeds in the form of the wind, beans or insects. The myth predates the Hellenistic era and survives in fragmentary sources amongst ancient Greek literature. The account given here is based on Robert Graves's work entitled "The Greek Myths". [Graves, pp. 27-30.]

Main account

Eurynome was born from Chaos at the start of time. The first problem she encountered was that nothing existed for her to exist in or on. The first goddess, Eurynome split the waters from the air, and lived among the seas. As she headed south she noticed the North Wind on her back, and discerned this as a new, separate entity. Eurynome caught the North Wind, and worked it up between her hands to create a third new thing, Ophion the Serpent. The North Wind, combined with Ophion, curled around Eurynome and sex between them created a child of hers. Eurynome became a dove. In this form, amongst the seas, she brooded over and finally laid her egg. She commanded Ophion the snake to curl seven coils around her egg until it hatched in two parts. All things were born from the egg, and they included the sun, moon and planets, the land and all its flora and fauna. Ophion and Eurynome inhabited Mount Olympus until, when Ophion claimed credit for creating all things, his mate molested him. She kicked him in the head, knocking his jaw so his teeth fell out, and condemned him to imprisonment in caves below the land. In place of Ophion, Eurynome assigned the powers of the universe to a series of couples, each of a male and female Titan. For the Sun, Theia and Hyperion; for the Moon, Phoebe and Atlas; for Mercury, Metis and Coeus; Tethys and Oceanus for Venus; and Dione and Crius for Mars. Also, Themis and Eurymedon looked after Jupiter, and Saturn was overseen by Rhea and Cronus. On Earth, meanwhile, Eurynome created Pelasgus, first of the Pelasgians, sprung from the soil of Arcadia. Under the guidance of Pelasgus, his people learned to make shelter, to survive on acorns and to clothe themselves from the skins of pigs, of the type still worn by the people of Euboea and of Phocis in the time of the writer Pausanias.

References

ources

*cite book
last = Graves
first = Robert
year = 1964
title = The Greek Myths: 1
publisher = Penguin Books Ltd
location = Harmondsworth
id =

ee also

*Eurynome