EnglishChoose language

Greek Mythology Summary

GREEK MYTHOLOGY: Three Crowns of Heaven is a manga based on the Theogony, the poem by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. It follows the story from the very beginning of the world until the throne of heaven has passed through three generations of kings: Ouranos (Sky), Cronus, and Zeus. The story opens at the foot of Mount Helicon, where the Muses appear to Hesiod as he tends his lambs and give him the gift of song.

First came Chaos, the yawning gap. Then came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus deep beneath the earth, and Eros, the god of love. Gaia gave birth to Ouranos (Sky), and together they had the twelve Titans, the one-eyed Cyclopes, and the Hundred-Handers. Ouranos hated his children and shut them away deep inside the earth, until Cronus, the youngest, took up a sickle made by his mother Gaia and overthrew him. From the wound of the Sky, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was born. Meanwhile, from the families of the sea came a line of monsters that includes Medusa, Echidna, and Cerberus.

Now king, Cronus feared a prophecy that his own child would overthrow him, so he swallowed each baby his wife Rhea bore. On the island of Crete, Rhea gave birth to her youngest, Zeus, and gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow instead. Once grown, Zeus won back his brothers and sisters and gained the thunderbolt. With Styx and her children, including Nike, and the Hundred-Handers on his side, he takes on the Titans in the great war known as the Titanomachy. Episode 9 shows Zeus unleashing the full power of his thunder and locking the Titans away in Tartarus.

Read from Episode 1 (free)

Story summary

  1. Episode 1The Universe Began with a Crack — Chaos and the Creation (Theogony)

    In the mangaOn fog-wrapped Mount Helicon, Hesiod, a starving shepherd, gets roasted by the sharp-tongued Muses, then handed a laurel staff and a divine voice. A single "Gap" opens in the white void. Darkness and Night are born, then the light Hesiod's own song calls up, then Earth and the starry Sky. Twelve children stir deep inside Earth, and only the youngest glares through the ceiling at his father with golden eyes.

    In the original mythThe Theogony ("the birth of the gods") is a Greek poem credited to Hesiod and usually dated to around 700 BCE. It is one of the oldest surviving Greek accounts of how the world and the gods came to be. It opens with a hymn to the Muses, the goddesses of song. They dance and sing on Mount Helicon in central Greece, and at night they walk wrapped in thick mist.

  2. Episode 2Mother Forged a Blade. Who Will Take It? — Cronus and Uranus

    In the mangaOuranos, the starry Sky, has shoved his children deep inside the Earth. Their mother Gaia, groaning under the weight, forges a great gray sickle of adamant from her own body and asks which of them will take it up. The older brothers and sisters stay silent. Only the youngest and slightest of them, Cronus, steps forward.

    In the original mythThe story of Cronus and Uranus comes from the Theogony, a Greek poem by Hesiod composed around 700 BCE. The title roughly means "the birth of the gods." The poem follows how the world passed from the first great powers of nature to the rule of Zeus. Lines 139–182 tell one of its most violent episodes: the Sky is overthrown by his own son.

  3. Episode 3Love Was Born From a Wound in the Sky — The Birth of Aphrodite

    In the mangaFrom the drops that fell from the sky come warriors and nymphs, and from the sea foam steps Aphrodite, goddess of love. At the same dawn of the world, Night—joined with no one—gives birth to Death, Sleep, and even Affection.

    In the original mythThis story comes from the Theogony, a poem by Hesiod from around 700 BCE about how the gods came to be. Just before this passage, Cronus (Kronos), the youngest son of Uranus, the Sky, attacks his father with a sickle, cuts off his genitals, and throws them away behind him. Lines 183–232 tell what happens next.

  4. Episode 4All the Monsters Were One Family — Medusa and Echidna

    In the mangaHesiod, a shepherd boy looking for true songs, is taken to Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, who never tells a lie. Starting with Nereus's fifty sea-daughters, Hesiod follows one family line down to Medusa, Echidna, Cerberus, the Hydra and the Chimera. Even monsters had mothers, and brothers and sisters. And from the life of one mortal daughter, the winged horse Pegasus bursts into the sky.

    In the original mythThis part of the story comes from the Theogony, a poem by the Greek poet Hesiod from around 700 BCE that sets out how the gods were born. In lines 233–336 Hesiod turns to the family of Pontus, the sea itself. Pontus's eldest son is Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. With Gaia, the Earth, Pontus also fathers Thaumas, Phorcys, the fair-cheeked Ceto and the hard-hearted Eurybia. Nereus marries Doris, a daughter of the…

  5. Episode 5He Swallowed Five. Not This One. — Cronus and Rhea

    In the mangaCronus overthrew his father to become king, but one prophecy haunts him, so he swallows each of his five newborn children one after another. Grieving and carrying a sixth child, their mother Rhea asks Earth and Sky for help. Holding close the stone Earth gave her, she crosses the night sea, resolved that this time she will protect her child.

    In the original mythThe story of Cronus swallowing his children comes from the Theogony, a poem by the Greek poet Hesiod composed around 700 BCE. It tells how the gods came into being and how Zeus came to rule. The passage behind this episode is short, only about fifteen lines (453–467), and it is dense.

  6. Episode 6The King of Gods Was Saved by a Stone — The Birth of Zeus and the Stone of Kronos

    In the mangaOn a misty mountain, the Muses sing a hungry shepherd the tale of "the night a mother told her only lie." To save her youngest, Zeus, from Cronus, the boy-king who swallows his children, Rhea hands him a stone wrapped in swaddling cloth. Raised in a cave deep within the earth, Zeus overthrows his father with his grandmother Gaia's cunning and his own strength. He frees his five siblings from the light, reunites with his mother, and receives thunder from the uncles he unchains.

    In the original mythThe oldest full version of this story is in Hesiod's Theogony, a Greek epic poem from around 700 BCE about how the gods came to be. Kronos (also spelled Cronus), king of the gods, has learned from his parents, Gaia (the Earth) and Ouranos (the starry Sky), that one of his own sons will overthrow him. To stop that from happening, he swallows every child his wife Rhea gives birth to: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and…

  7. Episode 7Victory Belongs to Those Who Show Up — Styx and Nike

    In the mangaZeus calls every god to his side, but no one wants to be the first to raise a hand. Then Nike, the youngest, asks one simple question. It pushes her mother Styx to act, and Styx brings her four children to Olympus ahead of everyone else. The young king has been standing alone until now, and he answers her by keeping every promise he makes.

    In the original mythThe story of Styx and her children comes from Hesiod's Theogony, an epic poem in ancient Greek usually dated to around 700 BCE. In the poem it sits in the middle of a long family tree. Tethys, wife of Oceanus (the great river that circles the world), gives birth to many rivers, including the Nile and the Scamander. She also has three thousand daughters, the Oceanids, who are scattered over land and sea. Of all…

  8. Episode 8They Were Forgotten. They Never Forgot. — Zeus and the Hundred-Handers (Hecatoncheires)

    In the mangaOn a misty mountain, the shepherd Hesiod hears a song from the goddesses of song. Ten years into the war against Cronus, the father who swallowed his own children, the fighting still hasn't ended. Then Zeus hears the voice of Gaia, Mother Earth. He goes down to the depths of the earth and, with his own hands, brings three forgotten hundred-armed brothers back into the light. Cottus swears that now it's their turn to protect him, and Zeus raises his thunderbolt for the first time. But across the divide, in the darkness, a golden eye opens.

    In the original mythThis episode is based on a short passage of Hesiod's Theogony, a Greek poem from around the 7th century BCE about the birth of the gods (lines 617–663). It tells how Zeus won three key allies in the Titanomachy, the great war between the young Olympian gods and the older Titans led by Cronus.

  9. Episode 9The Day Zeus Stopped Holding Back — Titanomachy

    In the mangaCronus feared his children would take his throne. Zeus, the youngest, was the only one who escaped him, and he has fought his father for ten years. This is the war's last day. Zeus finally stops holding back and hurls lightning hot enough to set the world on fire. The three Hundred-Handers bury the sky under three hundred boulders. Together they drive the old gods down into Tartarus, which lies as far below the earth as heaven lies above it.

    In the original mythThe Titanomachy is the war between two generations of Greek gods. On one side are the Titans, the older gods led by Cronus. On the other are the children of Cronus, led by Zeus, the youngest, who escaped when his father swallowed his brothers and sisters to protect his throne. In Hesiod's Theogony, the war has already gone on for ten years with neither side winning when the final battle begins.