h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the most fascinating elements of Greek Mythology is how the Greeks explained things that they didn't have the ability to understand. People became trees - at least three flowers were originally humans.

The most obvious example is how they explained the changing of the seasons. The story is that Hades fell in love with the daughter of Demeter (the goddess of agriculture or grain), Persephone. He kidnapped her and took her down into the underworld. Demeter was so distraught that she didn't let the grain grow and the earth was barren and the crops were dead. The people were miserable, wondering how they would survive. The gods, who wanted sacrifices, decided that they needed to put an end to this. Zeus negotiated a deal in which Persephone would spend part of the year with Demeter and part with Hades, as queen of the Underworld. During the time she spends with Demeter, crops grow and the sun shines - it is summer. During the time Persephone spends in the underworld, Demeter is unhappy and the world is cold and barren. Thus, summer and winter.

The story of the creation of mankind is interesting as well. The wisest of the elder gods, Prometheus, had helped Zeus win the war against the Titans and become the king of Gods. When it came time to create mankind, Zeus delegated the task to Prometheus. His brother, much less careful and less wise than Prometheus, gave all the best features - like scales, fur and claws, to the animals and there was nothing left for humans. Prometheus decided that to fix his brother's mistake, he would give humans fire and he would make them in the shape of the gods (So the gods didn't look like humans, the humans looked like gods). For this and some other indiscretions, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock to have his liver (I think might be some other organ) pecked out every day by an eagle.

A lot of things aren't nearly as important as the seasons or fire. For instance, in the stories of Io, she comes upon Prometheus, chained to the rock, and tells him her story. She was spotted by Zeus and through one of his shrewd methods, Zeus had an affair with her. Hera, the wife of Zeus, suspected Zeus was up to something when she couldn't find him in Olympus. When she came down to earth to look for Zeus, he had turned Io into a heifer so that Hera would not suspect Zeus was having an affair. Hera figured this out, and asked for the heifer. She imprisoned Io under the guard of a creature with 100 eyes. Zeus sent his son, the clever Hermes, to break Io out. Hermes lulled all 100 eyes to sleep, and killed the creature. Hera took the 100 eyes and placed them on her favorite bird, the peacock - which explains their eye-like patterns on the feathers. Eventually, Io would become a human again, and she would be one of the ancestors of Hercules himself.

You gotta love the Greek myths!

The guy with the 100 eyes was called Argos;
in Dutch there's a saying "To look at someone/something with the eyes of Argos", which means that you look at him/her/it suspiciously.