the greek creation myth.

Everything in the world began with Chaos, a primordial void of darkness. Then came Gaia, the Earth, who was born from Chaos or appearing on her own. After Chaos and Gaia came Tartarus, who is deep inside the Earth, the lowest of lows of the Underworld. Then Eros, the most beautiful of all immortals.

Chaos gave birth to Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). While sleeping, Gaia gave birth to Uranus (God of the Sky and Sky himself) and Pontus (God of the Sea and Sea). Uranus was the first son of Gaia and later became her husband.

Uranus, the sky, grew as huge as Gaia and enveloped her. Fertile rain fell to the earth and Gaia then gave birth to the rest of the physical world, mountains, oceans, flowers and trees. Their children included 12 children - the Titans, three Cyclops and three hundred handed Giants.

So essentially this is how the world came about in Greek mythology.

Now one might ask how did man come about ?

There are many tales about this, One of the most convincing tales credited one of the elder Greek Gods (a Titan), Prometheus, who created humans out of mud in the image of the gods.

In the early history of man, an argument emerged on which portion of a sacrificial bull must be given to the gods.

Somehow Prometheus tricked Zeus into taking the smaller portion.

Zeus was furious that Prometheus tried to trick him and decided to withdraw the gift of fire to humankind. Man can get the best part of the meat but will have to eat it raw. However, Prometheus stole the fire away from the flaming chariot of Helios.

Zeus’ rage knew no bounds when he found out that Prometheus had stolen his fire. To punish Prometheus and mankind, he instructed Hephaestus (God of fire, artisans, smiths) to create a woman of astounding beauty from clay and water.

Thus Pandora, the first woman was created. She was then given a gift, a jar which she must not open. Hermes then delivered her to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Though Prometheus had foreseen that Zeus will retaliate and warned his brother against accepting the gift. But Epimetheus was too blinded by Pandora’s beauty to bother.

It wasn’t long before she became curious about the jar the gods gave her. When she opened it, all the misfortune of the world came rushing the earth. The gifts were in fact labour, old age, evil, plague - brought only trouble to mankind. Panicked, she then quickly replaced the jar lid just before Hope could come out. The rest of the evils and diseases were already out causing humans much pain and hurt thereafter.