Weather Vanes

After the blistering heat of July and August, September brings with it some welcome changes in the weather. There will still be plenty of beautifully sunny ‘beach days’, but there will be some rain, too. For anyone out there who thinks Crete is always sunny and hot….well, it’s not!. On Crete, depending on the time of year and where you are on the island, you can experience pretty much any type of weather condition imaginable - sun, rain, wind, hail, frost and snow, you’ll find it here! This is an island where traditionally people’s very livelihoods (fishing, agriculture and more recently tourism) have rested upon the mercy of the elements. It is hardly surprising then, that weather on Crete is, quite literally, the stuff of legends.

Zeus, Our Local Weather God

According to Ancient Greek mythology, Zeus was born and raised on Crete. Zeus was the sixth child of Cronus and Rea. Cronus - ruler of the Universe - was paranoid that one of his offspring would overthrow him and swallowed his first five children as soon as they were born. When Zeus was born, Rea tricked Cronus into swallowing a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes and hid Zeus in the Ideon Cave of the Nida Plateau on Mount Psiloritis. To cut a long story short (and many apologies to classicists), when Zeus grew up, he managed to get Cronus to ‘disgorge’ his older siblings, (we’ll gloss over this part) and with his siblings’ help managed to oust Cronus from power. Zeus became the King of Gods, and was God of rain, thunder and lightning. Along with his wife Hera, he ruled over all the other Weather Gods. We obviously can’t describe them all, so here are just three:

Helios, God of the sun. Helios was personified as a handsome God with golden hair. He sat in a horse drawn chariot of fire which travelled every day from his palace in the East to his palace in the West. At sunset, he climbed into a great golden cup which transported him back to his Eastern palace. Phaeton, son of Helios kept pestering his dad to let him have a go at driving the chariot. Helios eventually gave in, and handed Phaeton the reins. Phaeton promptly lost control of the vehicle and set the world on fire….some things never change!

Iris, Goddess of the rainbow. Iris was the messenger of the Gods — the rainbow being the link between mortals on earth and the deities above. In vase paintings she is often depicted as a beautiful young woman with golden wings, sometimes carrying a jug in her hands. The plant genus Iris takes its name from the Goddess due to the large number of different coloured varieties amongst its species.

Eos, Goddess of the dawn. Eos rose up from the river Okeanos to the sky every morning, and with her rays of light she diffused the night time mists. Eos was, er, how shall we put it, a bit of a man eater, and she had several lovers. She fell in love with the Trojan prince Tithonos, and begged Zeus to make him immortal. Zeus duly obliged. However, Eos had forgotten to ask Zeus to keep Tithonas young and supple as well. Tithonas rapidly became old and wizened, whereupon Eos turned him into a grasshopper. Nice.

Excavations at the Ideon Cave - the childhood home of Zeus – reveal that the cave was an important centre of worship in the Minoan era, remaining so up until the Late Roman period. Evidence of the initial settlement of the cave dates back even further, to 3000BC. You can get to the cave by road by driving up to the Nida Plateau by way of Anogia (weather permitting), however, it is not clear from our research whether the cave itself is open to the public. According to modern day boundaries, the Ideon Cave is located in the Rethymnon Nomos, which would have made Zeus a Rethymniot in terms of regional affiliation — had Rethymnon existed at the time. The thought that according to legend a Rethymniot was once responsible for the whole of the world’s weather is really quite something….!

And Finally….

In these days of anxiety about global warming, climate change is of course a serious issue. As we reported in our ‘This Month’ Page, the theme for World Tourism Day this year is ‘Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change’, which is perhaps particularly relevant here on Crete. The exponential increase in tourism in recent decades and resulting mass development of resort areas has stretched the island’s natural resources to the limit, and has already caused considerable damage to the environment. Urgent action is needed in order to try and stop the rot.

However, to finish on a lighter note: The English expression ’It’s raining cats and dogs’ (which, actually hardly anyone says in Britain anymore) has been translated as ’It’s raining chair legs’ (βρέχει καρεκλοπόδαρα) in Greek; ‘It’s raining wheelbarrows’ in Czech; ‘It’s raining female trolls’ in Norwegian, and ‘It’s even raining husbands’ in Spanish….