All other men perished except for a few who escaped to high mountains.
The mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world beyond the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed.
Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha (daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora), after floating in the chest for nine days and nights, landed on Parnassus.
When the rains ceased, he sacrificed to Zeus, the God of Escape.
At the bidding of Zeus, he threw stones over his head; they became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women.
That is why people are called laoi, from laas, "a stone." [Apollodorus, 1.7.2]
Apollodorus. The Library, Sir James G. Frazer (transl.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1921, 1976.
Sir James George Frazer in 1933
97.8 KB
View full-sizeDownload Sir James George Frazer OM FRS FRSE FBA (/ˈfreɪzər/; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
An older version of the story told by Hellanicus has Deucalion's ark landing on Mount Othrys in Thessaly.
Another account has him landing on a peak, probably Phouka, in Argolis, later called Nemea. [Gaster, p. 85]
Gaster, Theodor H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, Harper & Row, New York, 1969. (Most of the flood stories in this work are taken from Frazer, 1919.)
The Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus, escaped Deucalion's flood by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of cranes. [Gaster, p. 85-86]
An earlier flood was reported to have occurred in the time of Ogyges, founder and king of Thebes.
The flood covered the whole world and was so devastating that the country remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops. [Gaster, p. 87]
Nannacus, king of Phrygia, lived before the time of Deucalion and foresaw that he and all people would perish in a coming flood.
He and the Phrygians lamented bitterly, hence the old proverb about
"weeping like (or for) Nannacus."
After the deluge had destroyed all humanity, Zeus commanded Prometheus and Athena to fashion mud images, and Zeus summoned winds to breathe life into them.
The place where they were made is called Iconium after these images. [Frazer, p. 155]
"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years"
since Athens and Atlantis were preeminent.
Destruction by fire and other catastrophes was also common.
In these floods, water rose from below, destroying city dwellers but not mountain people.
The floods, especially the third great flood before Deucalion, washed away most of Athens' fertile soil. [Plato, "Timaeus" 22, "Critias" 111-112]
Plato. The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2, B. Jowett (transl.), Random House, New York, 1892, 1920.
