Greek Trickster God Hermes
Hermes was clever, tricky, a thief, and, with his awakening or sleep conferring wand (rhabdos), the original sandman, whose descendants include a major Greek hero and a noisy, fun-loving god.
Hermes was clever, tricky, a thief, and, with his awakening or sleep conferring wand (rhabdos), the original sandman, whose descendants include a major Greek hero and a noisy, fun-loving god.
Creation Myths - Greek Cosmogonies
G.S. Kirk, divides myths into six categories, three of which are coming into being or creation stories. This article
focuses on a one of these, the cosmological creation stories which explain the creation of the world not from the gods but from the primordial goo.
Olympics - Games, Ritual and Warfare in the Ancient Greek Olympic Games
The Olympic games began as a celebration of death, but like the Nemean games, the mythological explanations for the Olympics are confused. Two central figures used to explain the origins are Pelops and Hercules who are genealogically linked insofar as Hercules' mortal father was Pelops' grandson.
The Trojan War occurred before the Dark Age of Ancient Greece, during the Mycenaean Era if it occurred at all. The story of the Trojan War is known primarily through the writing of the Greek bard Homer, author of the Iliad and Odyssey.
In Greek mythology there were 12 main gods and goddesses, who lived on Mt. Olympus, but occasionally walked among mortals. The Olympic gods were not supernaturally moral, but shared with humans all our appetites and vices. As gods, they were far more powerful than mortals and so defying them could be disastrous.