Deucalion

du-ka'li-on, in Greek legend, a king of Phthia, in Thessaly. Deucalion was a descendant of the Titan Prometheus. He was a just man, and his wife Pyrrha was a faithful worshiper of the gods. During the Brazen and Iron Ages man became so impious that Zeus determined to destroy the entire race and start afresh with a new and more worthy type. He therefore sent a fearful deluge upon the earth, which destroyed all life. The earth became one vast sea, Mount Parnassus alone lifting its summit above the waters. Here Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only beings left alive, found refuge. Zeus, seeing them on the mountain, and remembering their innocence and piety, decided that they might live. He sent the North Wind to scatter the clouds that the sun might again shine upon the earth. Poseidon, likewise, bade his trumpeter take his conch shell and sound the signal for the waves to retreat. When they could leave the mountain, Deucalion and Pyrrha visited a temple, which they found covered with mud and slime, and prayed for counsel. The oracle bade them leave the temple, and "with veiled heads cast behind you the bones of your mother." The couple were astonished. They left the temple revolving this strange reply which commanded them to profane the remains of their parents, an impious act. At last Deucalion solved the riddle. "Earth is the great mother of us all," said he, and forthwith picked up some stones from the hillside and threw them behind him. Pyrrha did the same. Deucalion's stones assumed the form of men; Pyrrha's the form of women,--both retaining so much of the nature of the stones from which they sprang as to be fitted to endure labor and hardship. Thus the world was peopled again, and in time the effects of the deluge disappeared. Deucalion became the father of Hellen, traditionally the ancestor of the Hellenes or ancient Greeks. See Mythology; Brazen Age