Finally, in that instant of pain and destruction were created also the MELIAE, graceful nymphs who were to become guardians of an ash tree whose bark exuded a sweet and healthful manna.

As all these unexpected new beings emerged alive from the blood-soaked ground, Kronos stared at them in disgust and scattered them with a sweep of his scythe.

Next he turned to Gaia.

‘I promised you, Earth Mother,’ he said, ‘that I would release you from your gnawing agony – hold still.’

With another sweep of the scythe he sliced open Gaia’s side.

Out tumbled the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires.

Kronos looked down at his parents, both of them now bloody, panting and snarling like angry wounded animals.

‘No more shall you cover Gaia,’ he said to his father. ‘I banish you to live out eternity beneath the ground, gelded and powerless. May you sulk there in your fury. Burry deeper even than Tartarus.'

‘You have overreached yourself,’ hissed Ouranos. ‘There will be revenge.

I curse your life, that it be ground out in slow remorseless perpetuity, its immortal eternity an insufferable burden without end. Your own children will destroy you as –’