Sickle
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| - | '''Ouranos''' (''Οὐρανός''), the [[Greek language|Greek]] word for [[sky]]. In [[Greek mythology]] ''Ouranos'' or '''Father Sky''', is personified as the son and husband of [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]], Mother Earth (Hesiod, ''[[Theogony]]''). Uranus and Gaia were ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no [[Cult (religion)|cult]] addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of [[Ancient Greek pottery|Greek painted pottery]]. Elemental Earth, Sky and [[Styx]] might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic. | ||
| - | Most Greeks considered Uranus to be [[primordial]] (''protogenos''), and gave him no parentage. Under the influence of the philosophers, [[Cicero]], in ''[[De Natura Deorum]]'' ("The Nature of the Gods"), claims that he was the offspring of the ancient gods [[Aether (mythology)|Aether]] and [[Hemera (mythology)|Hemera]], Air and Day. According to the [[Orphism|Orphic Hymns]], Ouranos was the son of the personification of night, [[Nyx (mythology)|Nyx]]. His equivalent in [[Roman mythology]] was [[Caelus]], likewise from ''caelum'' the Latin word for "sky". | + | A '''sickle''' is a hand-held [[agricultural]] [[tool]] with a curved [[blade]] typically used for harvesting [[cereal|grain]] crop or cutting grass for [[hay]]. The inside of the curve is sharp, so that the user can draw or swing the blade against the base of the crop, catching it in the curve and slicing it at the same time. The material to be cut may be held in a bunch in the other hand (for example when [[reaper|reaping]]), held in place by a wooden stick, or left free. When held in a bunch, the sickle action is towards the user (left to right for a right-handed user), but when used free the sickle is usually swung the opposite way. Different types may be referred to as a ''grasshook'', ''swap hook'', ''rip-hook'', ''slash-hook'', ''reaping hook'', ''brishing hook'' or ''bagging hook''. |
| - | ==Creation myth== | + | |
| - | In the Olympian creation myth, as [[Hesiod]] tells it in ''[[Theogony]]'', Uranus came every night to cover the earth and mate with [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]], but he hated the children she bore him. Hesiod named their first six sons and six daughters the [[Titan (mythology)|Titan]]s, the three one-hundred-armed giants the [[Hecatonchires]], and the one-eyed giants the [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]]. | + | ==See also== |
| - | + | *[[Hammer and sickle]] | |
| - | Uranus imprisoned Gaia's youngest children in [[Tartarus]], deep within Earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She shaped a great flint-bladed [[sickle]] and asked her sons to [[castration|castrate]] Uranus. Only [[Cronus]], youngest and most ambitious of the Titans, was willing: he ambushed his father and castrated him, casting the severed testicles into the sea. | + | *[[Scythe]] |
| - | + | *[[Sickle-sword]] | |
| - | For this fearful deed, Uranus called his sons [[Titan (mythology)|Titanes Theoi]], or "Straining Gods." | + | *[[Linoleum knife]] |
| - | + | *[[Kerambit]] | |
| - | From the blood which spilled from Uranus onto the Earth came forth the [[Gigantes]]; the three [[Erinyes|avenging Furies, the Erinyes]]; the [[Meliae]] (the ash-tree [[nymph]]s); and, according to some, the [[Telchines]]. | + | *[[Kama (weapon)|Kama]] |
| - | + | *[[Sickle probe]] | |
| - | From the genitals in the sea came forth [[Aphrodite]]. The learned Alexandrian poet [[Callimachus]] reported that the bloodied sickle had been buried in the earth at [[Zancle]] in Sicily, but the Romanized Greek traveller [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] was informed that the sickle had been thrown into the sea from the cape near Bolina, not far from Argyra on the coast of [[Achaea]], whereas the historian [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus]] located the sickle at [[Corcyra]]; Corcyrans claimed to be descendants of the wholly legendary [[Phaeacia]] visited by [[Odysseus]], and by ca 500 BCE one Greek mythographer, [[Acusilaus]], was claiming that the Phaeacians had sprung from the very blood of Uranus' castration. | + | *[[Sickle-cell disease]]{{GFDL}} |
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| - | After Uranus was deposed, Cronus re-imprisoned the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Uranus and Gaia then prophesied that Cronus in turn was destined to be overthrown by his own son, and so the Titan attempted to avoid this fate by devouring his young. [[Zeus]], through deception by his mother [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], avoided this fate. | + | |
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| - | These ancient myths of distant origins were not expressed in [[Cult (religion)|cults]] among the [[Ancient Greece|Hellenes]] The function of Uranus was as the vanquished god of an elder time, before real time began. | + | |
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| - | After his castration, the Sky came no more to cover the Earth at night, but held to its place, and "the original begetting came to an end" (Kerényi). Uranus was scarcely regarded as anthropomorphic, aside from the genitalia in the castration myth. He was simply the sky, which was conceived by the ancients as an overarching dome or roof of bronze, held in place (or turned on an axis) by the Titan [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]]. In formulaic expressions in the Homeric poems ''ouranos'' is sometimes an alternative to [[Mount Olympus|Olympus]] as the collective home of the gods; an obvious occurrence would be the moment at the end of ''Iliad'' i, when [[Thetis]] rises from the sea to plead with Zeus: "and early in the morning she rose up to greet Ouranos-and-Olympus and she found the son of Kronos..." | + | |
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| - | "'Olympus' is almost always used of that home, but ''ouranos'' often refers to the natural sky above us without any suggestion that the gods, collectively live there," William Sale remarked; Sale concluded that the earlier seat of the gods was the actual [[Mount Olympus]], from which the epic tradition by the time of Homer had transported them to the sky, ''ouranos''. By the sixth century, when a "heavenly Aphrodite" was to be distinguished from the "common Aphrodite of the people", ''ouranos'' signifies purely the celestial sphere itself. | + | |
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A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crop or cutting grass for hay. The inside of the curve is sharp, so that the user can draw or swing the blade against the base of the crop, catching it in the curve and slicing it at the same time. The material to be cut may be held in a bunch in the other hand (for example when reaping), held in place by a wooden stick, or left free. When held in a bunch, the sickle action is towards the user (left to right for a right-handed user), but when used free the sickle is usually swung the opposite way. Different types may be referred to as a grasshook, swap hook, rip-hook, slash-hook, reaping hook, brishing hook or bagging hook.
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