U is for Uranus

This is a challenge to post every day in April (except on Sundays) blogging thematically from A to Z. Go HERE for details. My A-Z theme this year is Greek Mythology inspired by the book The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan that I recently read.  Please be aware that what I write is my interpretation of my findings and may not necessarily be accurate are straight quotes.
Also, "Featured Book" at the end of these posts are books I've reviewed in this book blog, coinciding with the letter of the day.

Uranus:

• The primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus.
• He was theson and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth.
• According to Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father.
• He came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him.
• Hesiod named their first six sons and six daughters the Titans, the three one-hundred-armed giants the Hekatonkheires, and the one-eyed giants the Cyclopes.
• He 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 castrate him.  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.
• For this fearful deed, Uranus called his sons Titanes Theoi, or "Straining Gods."
• From the blood that spilled from Uranus onto the Earth came forth the Giants, the Erinyes (the avenging Furies), the Meliae (the ash-tree nymphs), and, according to some, the Telchines.
• From the genitals in the sea came forth Aphrodite.
• 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).

Sources:
Crystalinks
Wikipedia

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Featured Book:

Unlocking the Power of the Spirit by Campbell Gray

My Rating: 3.5