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Many of my regular Saturday morning readers know that I have shared many stories of the gods and those whose lives they have touched. In the tradition of the ancients, I have made vases to help tell and commemorate these stories. But what about before there were gods? Well brace yourself readers, because we are going to take a trip back even further in time.

Our raku pottery vase, The Titans, commemorates the gods of old and tells the tale of a paranoid father, a wife’s revenge, a dozen larger than life gods that shared power under their younger brother Cronus and a fiery end in the lowest levels of hell.

Before the gods of Olympus, times were much simpler. People were unaware of many things. Why the sun rose and set, how seasons changed, where we came from, or even a rudimentary understanding of how their own bodies worked.

As such, the Titans easily held on to their power and grew very comfortable from their godly perch on Mount Othrys. All except Cronus, the youngest of the Titan siblings. He had been told that in the future one of his children would topple his reign. This revelation would shape and change Cronus from a carefree king of the gods to a ruler that was rather wooden.

Rhea, who was also a Titan was not very excited about the prospect of marrying Cronus. He wasn’t a very good husband, let alone father. She was so unhappy that Cronus ate her first five children, that rather than hand over Zeus she gave her husband a rock. You might say she committed Nymphicide, as she gave the infant to the Nymphs to care for.

You can read more about the original ‘kids meal’ and how Cronus ate his own children here. Personally I could not do such a thing, but to eat their own. Cronus wasn’t the type to complain about an heir in his soup.

Cronus and many of the other Titans would end up in the lowest level of the underworld called Tartarus and be punished after their saucy behaviour in a ten year war where they were overthrown by Zeus.