To Earth the Mother of All

I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store.

Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. Happy is the man whom you delight to honor! He has all things abundantly: his fruitful land is laden with corn, his pastures are covered with cattle, and his house is filled with good things. Such men rule orderly in their cities of fair women: great riches and wealth follow them: their sons exult with ever-fresh delight, and their daughters in flower-laden bands play and skip merrily over the soft flowers of the field. Thus is it with those whom you honor O holy goddess, bountiful spirit.

Hail, Mother of the gods, wife of starry Heaven; freely bestow upon me for this my song substance that cheers the heart! And now I will remember you and another song also.

Homeric Hymn to Gaea, Mother Earth

Gaea is the Earth goddess in Greek mythology, Terra Mater, the eldest of the gods, who emerged out of Chaos and gave birth as she slept to her son Uranus (Ouranos), the Sky god. He showered fertile rain upon her secret clefts as he gazed down fondly upon her from the mountains, and she bore grass, flowers, trees, and birthed the astounding array of birds and beasts to populate them. The fertile rain of Uranus also made the rivers flow and lakes and seas came into being when the hollow places filled with water.

She mated with her son and husband Uranus to produce the Titans, who joined their brothers in prison. First came the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires, the giants Briareus, Gyges and Cottus. The three one-eyed Cyclopes (the "Wheel-eyed") were next, master smiths and builders of gigantic walls. Their names were Brontes, Steropes and Arges.

But their relationship was so passionate, and the embrace of Uranus and Gaea (Sky and Earth) was so overwhelming, that their offspring could not emerge from her womb.

You see, Uranus was afraid that one of his Titan children would end up overthrowing him and taking over rule of the Universe. The Titans were thus imprisoned by Uranus in Tartarus, a region of the Underworld. It was said that it would take a falling anvil nine days to reach its bottom.

This caused Mother Earth great grief, so she conceived a sharp sickle that one of her children, Cronus, used to severe his father's genitals. The god Uranus was emasculated and the Sky separated from the Earth. From the blood of Uranus that fell on her, Gaea conceived the Eirynes (Furies), the avenging goddesses who pursued and punished murderers and evil-doers. The Eirynes were called "those who walk in the darkness". The nymphs of the ash-tree, called the Meliae, also sprang from that blood.

Uranus thus faded from the mythological scene and Cronus married his sister Rhea, becoming supreme ruler of the Universe. This was regarded by the Greeks as the Golden Age of the Titans. But Cronus was just as paranoid as his father, and, heeding the warning of an oracle, in turn he swallowed all the children he fathered with his wife Rhea, afraid that they would do to him as he did to Uranus.

On the advice of Gaea, Rhea gave Cronus  a stone wrapped in baby blankets, and the gullible Cronus "swallowed" the ruse, instead of his baby boy Zeus. The child was secretly taken to the island of Crete and raised  by the Nymphs. Eventually Zeus grew up to free his swallowed siblings and with their help indeed overthrew Cronus and became the supreme Olympian.

Gaea may have saved Zeus from a fate similar to his father's when she warned him that any child born by Metis ('Thought'), whom Zeus desired as wife, would grow up to supplant him as King of the gods. Heeding Gaea's advice, Zeus swallowed Metis and in due time the goddess Athena sprang from his head.

Mother Earth even proved helpful to Zeus in his fight versus Atlas and the Titans, shortly after taking power. However, she and Zeus parted company once her twenty-four sons, the Giants, attacked Olympus. (Many claim that this battle represented the last attempt to reassert female leadership over the heavens, symbolizing the war fought between those who preferred matriarchal (women-ruled) philosophies over those who wanted patriarchal ones.)

Even though Gaea was one of the most prominent figures in the earliest myths, Mother Earth suffered a greatly diminished status with the eventual transfer of power to patriarchal (men-ruled) societies. She drifts between being an individual character and a personified conceptual entity representing the original life force of the earth.

Gaea appeared in minor roles in a handful of later myths, but eventually the shift to Zeus' rule saw him being assigned most of her responsibilities and accomplishments. Mother Earth came to be perceived as more of a concept or metaphysical notion than an active goddess. She was never part of the Olympians' council of twelve, up on Mount Olympus, because she was considered too old and set in her ways to suit the new breed of gods.

The story of the separation between Earth and Sky is an ancient one, found in a variety of forms in West Asian mythology. Gaea seems to have started as a Neolithic earth-mother worshipped before the Indo-European invasion that eventually led to the Hellenistic civilization. She is the oldest of the goddesses and the personification of the "All-mother", or "Goddess of All Things", she who gives and takes life.

Gaea's children with Uranus are the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the hundred-handed giants called the Hecatoncheires. With Tartarus she is the mother of the monster Typhon and the Giants. Her Roman counterpart is Tellus, the fertile soil.

While much Greek literature uses the name Gaea, Ge, Gaia or Gea, most modern readers will recognize her as Mother Earth.

Click here for more on the Titans

Below are some of the source books used for reference

Egyptian Mythology's Here!

Roman Mythology's Here!