Cronus in Greek Folklore

The month of October I will be focused on Folklore Villians. The countdown to Samhain and Halloween continues.

The Greek Titan Cronus heard the prophecy from his parents Gaia and Uranus that he would eventually, be defeated by his own sons, just as he had overthrown his father. Consequently, although he was the father of the gods Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades and Poseidon by Rhea, he devoured all of them at their birth to prevent the prophecy. When the sixth child, Zeus, was born Rhea hailed Gaia to devise a plan to save them and to eventually get avengement on Cronus for his heinous acts against his father and children. (Cronus also sired Chiron, by Philyra.)

Rhea secretly birthed Zeus in Crete, and handed Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, also known as the Omphalos Stone, which he quickly gobbled up, thinking that it was his son.

Next,Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida, Crete. According to some legends of the story, he was then raised by a goat named Amalthea, while a company of Kouretes, armored male dancers, shouted and clapped their hands to make enough noise to mask the baby’s cries from Cronus. Once Zeus had grown up, he used a laxative given to him by Gaia pressuring Cronus to disgorge the contents of his stomach in reverse order: first the stone, which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Mount Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, and then his two brothers and three sisters.

In various versions of this tale, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the children, or Zeus cut Cronus’s stomach open. Once freed his siblings, Zeus released the Hecatonchires, and the Cyclopes who forged for him his thunderbolts, Poseidon’s trident and Hades’ helmet of darkness.

In a colossal war called the Titanomachy, Zeus and his siblings, with the aid of the Hecatonchires, and Cyclopes, conquered Cronus and the other Titans.

Painting by Peter Paul Rubens of Cronus devouring one of his children.

Source and References: Mythology by Edith Hamilton.

Featured image: Chronos and his child by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, National Museum in Warsaw, a 17th-century depiction of Titan Cronus as “Father Time,” wielding a harvesting scythe