In ancient times, Deucalion was a king of Greece. His father was Prometheus, the god
who had given the gift of fire to mankind.
Although Deucalion was a virtuous king, there were many wicked people in the
world, and they had committed many crimes. The king of the gods, Zeus, became
angry
and decided to clean the world with a great flood. Prometheus, however,
warned
Deucalion in advance. Deucalion built a box that would float upon the
waters so that
he and his wife, Pyrrha, could survive.
Things happened just as Prometheus had predicted. Rain began to pour from the sky,
and it rained for nine days
straight. Then, at last, the rain stopped, and the waters
began to recede. Finally, the
floating box came to rest on top of a mountain.
Deucalion and Pyrrha
emerged from the box and looked around, but they saw no one
else. They were the only two humans left in
the world.
"O gods," cried Deucalion, "please help us! My wife and I are both old and unable to
bear children. Tell us its not the end! How
can we bring the human race back to life?"
A divine oracle gave these
instructions: "Throw the bones of your mother over your
shoulders
At first, Deucalion was puzzled. Pyrrha, however, realized what the oracle meant.
"Husband," she said, "the mother is Gaia, the
earth, the mother of us all, and her
bones are the stones. We must gather stones
and throw them over our shoulders."
Deucalion recognized the wisdom
in Pyrrha's words and did as she said. Deucalion
threw stones over his shoulder, and Pyrrha threw
some too. The stones thrown by
Deucalion
turned into boys, and Pyrrha's stones turned
into girls. Thanks to the pious
deeds of this
old couple, the human race was brought
back to life once again upon
the earth.