While the Olympian gods got up to various high jinks, the trio of sky gods watched them, and sometimes got in on the fun.
The sky gods were three siblings, descended from the two Titans who personified day and night. There was Helios, the Sun god; Selene, the Moon goddess; and Eos, the goddess of the Dawn. Now, all three of these gods, besides being related, have something else in common: they all have stories which involve somebody making a stupid wish, and getting it.
Eos had a human boyfriend, who, being human, had the handicap of being mortal. The only thing keeping them from being happy together was the knowledge that Eos’ boyfriend would grow old and die, while she would remain young and beautiful forever. So, Eos had an idea: she would ask Zeus for a favor, and have him grant her boyfriend immortality!
She told the king of the gods, “Zeus, I wish for you to make my boyfriend immortal.”
Zeus replied, with a goofy grin on his face, “Is that aaaaall you want?”
“Um…well yeah. If you could just make him live forever, that’d be great.”
“Are you suuuuuure???”
“…Yes.”
“Oooooookkkaaaaayyyy!!!” Yeah, since Zeus was a dick, he’d decided to be a Literal Genie in this instance, and indeed granted Eos EXACTLY what she’d asked for. He made her boyfriend immortal. But since she did not specifically ask for him to stay eternally young, Zeus did not grant that. Eos’ boyfriend couldn’t die, but he kept getting older and older - until he eventually got so withered and helpless that he looked something like a cricket, and Eos had to keep him in a box.
Her sister Selene was a little smarter, but also a lot weirder. As she drove her moon-chariot across the sky at night, she looked down on the Earth and saw whatever went on, which wasn’t much since people tended to go inside and sleep at night. However, one evening, she spotted a young shepherd called Endymion, who wasn’t particularly good at his job. For one thing, he had his sheep out at night, and for another, he’d fallen asleep.
Selene didn’t much care about Endymion’s shepherding skills, though, because he was extremely cute. She fell in love with the sleeping dude at first sight, and went to Zeus to make her own wish.
“Zeus, can you make a human stay the same forever for me?”
“Another human boyfriend?”
“Well…he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Ah…a friend with benefits?”
“Not exactly. We - haven’t really met. I just saw him at work, and he’s fine as hell. But I know if I straight up ask you to make him immortal, you’ll probably screw with me and turn him into a tortoise or something, so instead, can you just make him stay the way he is right now - asleep - forever?”
“Uh…sure, I guess. You know, all you have to do is make sure you ask me to give him eternal youth, and -”
“Nope! I just want to watch him sleep for eternity!”
“…You’re unusual. But whatever, your wish is my command.”
Zeus made it so Endymion stayed asleep and young forever. Because apparently you only age when you’re awake. So remember, outdoorsy types, do not ever go to sleep out in the open. A crazy goddess might fall in love with you, and make you permanently comatose without your consent.
Helios, the smartest of the three, didn’t bother with foolish human relationships. He preferred to bang nymphs instead. He had a thing with an ocean nymph named Clymene, but not being the marrying kind of guy, he ditched her as soon as she got pregnant. He had the best excuse possible for not committing to a relationship, though: he literally had to work all day, every day.
Clymene named her son by Helios Phaethon. She raised him alone, but once he got to be a teenager, he began to ask his mother about his dad’s identity. She told him the truth. “Your dad’s the sun god,” she said. “Go to his house and see if you can get my check.”
Phaethon traveled to Helios’ dwelling at the edge of the world. Yeah, that’s right. The sun god lived at the edge of the flat Earth, and traveled across the sky each day. (Presumably he went back to his starting point at night.) The Ancient Greeks were not experts at astronomy, you see. They clearly had no idea how big the sun is, or how far it is from Earth.
At any rate, Phaethon introduced himself to Helios, and wanted to know why his dad was such a deadbeat asshole.
“Listen, kid, I WANTED to be a part of your life, at any point ever, but I have this job where daytime literally doesn’t happen without me. Hey, let me make years of neglect up to you by granting you a wish, okay? Whatever you want, you can have.”
“I want to drive your sun chariot for a day.”
“Oh, hell no. First of all, that chariot is so hot, you’d fry just by standing in it. Only a full god can stand in it. Secondly, those sun-horses are crazy. They’ll lose their shit if you don’t know what you’re doing. That chariot is for an experienced god to drive! Even Zeus won’t drive that chariot!”
“You said you’d give me anything I wished for, DAD.” Phaethon crossed his arms and refused to budge, even after Helios offered him large amounts of pussy. He wanted that sweet ride, and nothing else would be good enough. “Besides, I’m good at handling regular horses, so your divine sun-horses should be a cinch.”
Helios threw his hands up and gave in. “Yeah, I’m sure this’ll work out. Come over to the stables.”
Helios outfitted Phaethon with special armor so he could withstand the heat of the chariot, and then gave him a crash course on the route to take across the sky for the day. He also loaded the kid up with apples and sugar cubes so the sun horses would like him. Then, he crossed his fingers and sent his son on his way.
At first, Phaethon did all right. He hadn’t been exaggerating about his prowess with horses, and took the chariot high up into the sky. But as noon arrived, and it came time to force the vehicle down again, Phaethon didn’t pull quite as hard on the horses’ reins as his father usually did. The horses realized they had a greenhorn controlling them, and decided at that point to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
The chariot zigzagged across the sky as the horses bolted, careening this way and that. Finally, they zoomed into a fiery death spiral, downward and straight for the Earth.
Phaethon, probably pissing himself and wishing he’d just settled for pussy instead, struggled to regain control of the chariot, but to no avail. The sun-chariot crashed into the Earth, plunging the world into darkness.
Yeah, again, the Greeks were a little bit confused about astronomy. Obviously, the sun would completely engulf the Earth long before it had a chance to crash into it, and there’d be nothing left of the planet. But in this story, the sun is small enough to only do the damage of a large meteor.
When the sun-chariot crashed into Earth, it hit in northern Africa, and the heat of it turned a large chunk of land into the Sahara Desert. The sheer force of the impact turned poor Phaethon himself into desert sand. Zeus could arbitrarily do nothing about this, so he and Helios just had to repair the sun-chariot, get the horses under control, and finish the day out so the people of Earth could be sure the sun hadn’t disappeared for good. So remember, kids, don’t drive your dad’s car no matter how awesome it is, cause you’ll fucking die!
You know what I wish? I wish I had a good segue into the next story. Um…okay, so sometimes Zeus had sex with mortals, and sometimes they got moons named after them. So I’ll talk about that next time, cool?
Blah blah, but that’s another story, I’m going to bed.
