MYTHing You Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hecate

Hecate or Hekate was the goddess of not only magic and witchcraft, but also the night, the moon, ghosts and necromancy. Necromancy is the art of communicating with the dead, especially for the purpose of divination, i.e., to foretell the future; it is also referred to as black magic or sorcery.

As for Hecate's heritage, she is descended from Perses who was the son of Titans Crius and Eurybia; her mother was Asteria. She was their only child and received from them the power over heaven, earth and sea.

Answer: Cronus

The story of Cronus makes "The Game of Thrones" look like a fairy tale. Cronus was the son of the titan Uranus (no giggling please) and Gaia. He overthrew his father but learned that he was destined to be overthrown by his children. He and his wife Rhea gave life to the gods Zeus, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades and Poseidon.

In order to avoid the prophecy, Cronus devoured each child as he or she was born (except Zeus) - some parenting skills! However, as in most mythological tales, the prophecy came to pass anyway, with Zeus overthrowing Cronus and imprisoning him in Tartarus.

Answer: Hestia

Hestia, the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, family and domestic life (a rather eclectic combination). Although she was goddess of the family, she was one of three virgin goddesses along with Athena and Artemis. Both Poseidon (who happened to also be her brother, if you're keeping a scorecard) and Apollo wanted to marry her, but Hestia had made a pledge to Zeus that she would remain forever pure.

Interesting sidenote: When Zeus forced Cronus to expel his children, Hestia was swallowed first but disgorged last, making her the oldest and youngest child.

Answer: Achilles

On to the demigods, i.e., the child of a god and a mortal, or a mortal raised to divine rank. Achilles was the son of Peleus, King of the Myrmidons, and the nymph Thetis. He was the greatest warrior in Homer's "Iliad", and distinguished himself in the Trojan War.

As the story goes, when Achilles was born, his mother held him by his heel and dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal. All went as planned until Hector's brother Paris (no relation to Hilton) shot and killed Achilles with an arrow to his heel, his only vulnerable spot.

Answer: Persephone

Early in her childhood Persephone was known as Kore or Cora, meaning young maiden. She was the only child of Demeter, goddess of the bountiful harvest (or perhaps Mother Nature) and Zeus, king of the Olympians. In case you're wondering, this was before Zeus' marriage to Hera (who was also his sister). Enter Hades, god of the Underworld, who fancied Persephone and got Zeus' permission to take her as his bride. Well, Demeter was beside herself when she found out and, without using her powers, the earth became barren.

As for Persephone, she came to love Hades but missed her mother. Then came the pomegranate, six seeds, returned to earth part-time...yada, yada.

Answer: Morpheus

To be in the "arms of Morpheus" would mean to sleep and to dream. Morpheus (not the one from "The Matrix") was the god of dreams. The Greek word 'morphe' means 'form', and Morpheus had the power to shape and form dreams, often portents of what was to come. Morpheus' eminent family tree includes his father, Hypnos, the god of sleep, his mother, Pasithea, goddess of rest and relaxation (descended from Hera and Dionysus), and his uncle Thanatos, god of death - a logical family lineage.

Answer: Helen of Troy

Helen of Troy, "the face that launched 1,000 ships" is a demigod (or is that a demigoddess?). Helen is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, Queen of Sparta. She is the sister of the twins Castor and Polydeuces (better known as Pollux) who became the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini;, her other sister Clytemnestra was the wife of King Agamemnon.

Helen was married to Menelaus. If these names sound familiar, that is because they are all connected to the Trojan War, which was started when Paris, Prince of Troy, abducted Helen from Sparta and took her to Troy (located in what is now modern Turkey).

Answer: Hyperion

Yet another of the twelve Titan children of Uranus and Gaia, Hyperion is the god of 'watchfulness, wisdom and the light'. Hyperion is one of the less frequently discussed gods in mythology, known more for his offspring than for his own deeds. Hyperion and his sister Theia (they must have had a small gene pool back then) begat Helios, the Sun (literally and figuratively), Selene, the Moon, and Eos, the Dawn (way before Tony Orlando).

Answer: Rhea

Another sister/wife combination included Rhea and Cronus. The Titaness Rhea was the daughter of earth goddess Gaia and sky god Uranus. For a time, Rhea was known as 'the mother of gods'. Although she was the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses, she was not an Olympian goddess in her own right. Remember (back from a previous question), Rhea and Cronus had six children, i.e., Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus and swallowed them all, with the exception of Zeus, the last. Rhea substituted a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes for Zeus, so Cronus swallowed the stone instead. Sidenote: The second largest moon of Saturn is named after her.

Answer: Prometheus

Prometheus is one of the Titans in Greek mythology. His name means "forethought", and he is credited with being the creator of mankind. As the myth goes, Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. His actions angered Zeus who doomed Prometheus to eternal punishment, i.e., to be chained to a rock where his liver is eaten daily by an eagle, to be regenerated every night due to the fact that, as a Titan, he was immortal.

The eagle is thought to represent Zeus himself. To celebrate his gift to humanity, Zeus has been 'immortalized' as a huge, golden statue in Rockefeller Center in midtown New York City.