Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

When Cronus lopped off his father’s members and the bloody drops gushed forth, Earth received them. As the seasons moved round she bare from that blood three formidable kinds of offspring over the boundless earth. First, the strong Erinyes—the avenging Furies who pursue transgressions of men and of gods and do not cease from dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty (Hesiod later also lists Destinies and Fates among Night’s children; the Erinyes here are specifically blood-born of the mutilation). Second, the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands—earthborn warriors whose later war against the Olympians is a separate narrative cycle, but whose origin is fixed at this cosmogonic crime. Third, the Nymphs whom they call Meliae—ash-tree nymphs—all over the boundless earth. These Meliae are sometimes connected in ancient interpretation with the origin of certain human races (cf. the “Melian race” of men in the Prometheus fire episode and the ash-born bronze race in *Works and Days*), though Hesiod’s castration passage itself simply records their birth from the blood. Thus the violence that separates Heaven from Earth does not only produce Aphrodite from the foam abroad; it seeds Earth herself with vengeance-spirits, armed Giants, and ash-nymphs—powers that will haunt the moral and martial history of gods and men.