The Greek Gods ABC – Part 2

Last time, we promised we’d deliver another lesson, so here is the Greek Gods ABC – Part 2.

So we left off our Olympian friends and their stories in our previous article. How about some fun facts about them and their friends today?

The thing with Greek gods is they weren’t just symbols to be worshipped. They were flawed as humans, passionate and good and bad as the men whose destinies they could control and they had fascinating stories of their own to tell. Some of these stories are common knowledge, while other tales are less known – and maybe more interesting. Here are a few of them:

1. The god Apollo was… erm, sort of a shapeshifter. He had a dolphin form named Delphinius. No wonder Delphi is the place where he was worshipped. Strange fact: Delphi is nested between rocky high mountains, quite far away from the sea… But no matter! Apollo in his dolphin form is said to have commanded a ship of sailors straight to the coast of the city. Those priests also became the first priests there (worshipping him, of course).

2. You might have heard of the saying, “to take the bull by the horns”. You may have even used it and, hazardous as it seems, sometimes it’s a good idea to do that… metaphorically speaking. Right? Well… our handsome friend Hercules, son of Zeus by a human woman, is said to have taken that advice literally. While he was fulfilling his 12 labors to atone for having killed his wife and kids in a fit of rage (inflicted by Hera), he saved Crete from a raging bull by grabbing his horns… literally. Brave guy! Oh, and if you want to visit the island these days, be sure to rent a car in Heraklion.

3. Hades wasn’t the devil. And he wasn’t a totally bad guy. The god of death and the underworld has been (rather unjustly) assimilated with the devil, but in fact he wasn’t the one to decide the redemption or damnation of humans; and he was a pretty fair individual.

We hope you’ve found fun. Join us again next time!