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A long time ago, when the world was much younger than it is now, people
told and believed a great many wonderful stories about incredible things
which neither you nor I have ever seen. They often talked about a god
called Zeus, who was king of the sky and the earth; and they said that
he sat most of the time amongst the clouds on the top of a very high
mountain where he could look down and see everything that was going on
in the earth beneath. He liked to ride on the storm-clouds and hurl
burning thunderbolts right and left among the trees and rocks, and he
was so very, very mighty that when he nodded, the earth quaked, the
mountains trembled and smoked, the sky grew black, and the sun hid his
face.
Zeus had two brothers, both of them terrible and great, but not
nearly as great as Zeus himself. The name of one of them was Poseidon,
and he was the king of the sea. He had a glittering, golden palace far
down in the deep sea-caves where the fishes live and the red coral
grows, and whenever he was angry the waves would rise mountain high, and
the storm-winds would howl fearfully, and the sea would try to break
over the land.
The other brother was a sad, pale-faced being, whose kingdom was
underneath the earth, where the sun never shone and where there was
darkness and weeping and sorrow all the time. His name was Hades, and his country
was called the Lower World, or the Land of Shadows. Men said that
whenever any one died, Hades would send his messenger to carry him down
into his cheerless kingdom; and for that reason they never spoke well of
Hades, but were scared of him and thought of him as the enemy of life.
A great number of other gods lived with Zeus amid the clouds on the
mountain top - so many that I can name only a few. There was
Aphrodite, the queen of love and beauty, who was fairer by far than any
woman that you or I have ever seen. There was Athena, the queen of the
air, who gave people wisdom and taught them how to do many useful
things.
There was Hera, the queen of earth and sky, who sat at the right
hand of Zeus and gave him all kinds of advice. There was Ares, the great
warrior, who delighted in battle. There was Hermes, the swift messenger, who had wings on his cap and shoes,
and who flew from place to place like the summer clouds when they are
driven before the wind. And besides these, there were many others about
whom you will learn soon enough, and about whom are told strange and
beautiful stories.
They lived in glittering, golden mansions, high up among the clouds -
so high that the eyes of humans could never see them. But they could
look down and see what humans were doing, and often they were said to
leave their lofty homes and wander unknown across the land or over the
sea.
And of all these mighty folk, Zeus was by far the mightiest.
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