Pelasgian Creation Myth
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The Pelasgian Creation Myth [1] 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' Greek mythology.
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[edit] 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 Eurynome 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, curls around Eurynome and sex between them creates a child of hers. Eurynome becomes a dove. In this form, amongst the seas, she broods over and finally lays her egg. She commands Ophion the snake to curl seven coils around her egg until it hatches in to two parts. All things are born from the egg, and they include the sun, moon and planets, the land and all its flora and all its fauna. Ophion and Eurynome inhabit Mount Olympus until, when Ophion claims credit for creating all things, his mate molests him. Eurynome kicks him in the head. Eurynome knocks his jaw so his teeth fall out. Eurynome condemns him to imprisonment in caves below the land. In place of Ophion, Eurynome assigns the powers of the universe to a series of couples, each of a he and she Titan. For the Sun, Theia and Hyperion, Moon, Phoebe and Atlas, Mercury, Metis and Coeus, Tethys and Oceanus for Venus, Dione and Crius for Mars. Also, Themis and Eurymedon look after Jupiter, and Saturn is overseen by Rhea and Cronus. On Earth meanwhile Eurynome creates Pelasgus, first of the first 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 Euboeoa and of Phocis in the time of the writer Pausanias.
[edit] Sources
[edit] Analysis
[edit] Notes
- ^ Graves, 27-30
[edit] References
- Graves, Robert (1964). The Greek Myths: 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd..
[edit] See Also
Eurynome, for a discussion of the Pelasgian Creation Myth without Eurynome as its central character.
