sprang up. Their leaves smelled wonderful whenever they were crushed. Persephone decided to call them mint plants, and the hill near Pylos where they first grew is still called Mount Minthe.
So next time you have mint chocolate chip ice cream, you can thank Persephone, though it can be a little hard to eat the stuff when you realize it’s made from smashed river nymph.
After that, Hades didn’t have many affairs. He mostly stayed in his palace and minded his own business.
Mortal heroes didn’t always leave him alone, though. They kept popping down, demanding things. One hero wanted his dog, Cerberus. Another hero wanted Hades to return his dead sweetheart to life. Another hero even tried to abduct Persephone. Maybe I’ll tell you those stories another time, but all this gloomy Underworld stuff is making me claustrophobic.
I need some fresh sea air. Let’s pop over to the Mediterranean, and I’ll introduce you to my dad—the one and only Poseidon.
POSEIDON GETS SALTY
I’M BIASED.
But if you’re going to have a Greek god for a parent, you couldn’t do better than Poseidon. Sure, I’ve had my problems with him. He’s not the most attentive dad. But, hey, none of the Greek gods is.
At least Poseidon has awesome powers and a laid-back attitude (most of the time).
He’s amazingly cool, considering how hard it was for him as a young god. He was the middle boy. He was always being compared to his brothers, like: Wow, you’re almost as handsome as Zeus! You’re almost as powerful as Zeus! Or sometimes: You’re not as much of a loser as Hades!
That can really grate on a guy after a few centuries.
Back when Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades threw dice to divide up the world, Poseidon got the second-best roll. He had to accept his brother Zeus’s becoming lord of the universe and telling him what to do for all eternity, but Poseidon didn’t complain. He’d won the sea. That was fine with him. He liked the beach. He liked swimming. He liked seafood.
True, Poseidon wasn’t as flashy or powerful as Zeus. He didn’t have lightning bolts, which were like the nuclear arsenal of Mount Olympus. But Poseidon did have his magical trident. He could stir up hurricanes, summon tidal waves, and make a mean smoothie. Since the seas wrapped around the earth, Poseidon could also cause earthquakes. If he was in a bad mood, he could level whole cities or make islands sink beneath the waves.
The Greeks called him the Earthshaker, and they went to a lot of trouble to keep him happy, because no matter whether you were on land or at sea, you didn’t want Poseidon mad at you.
Fortunately, Poseidon was usually calm. His mood reflected the Mediterranean Sea, where he lived, and most of the time the Mediterranean was smooth sailing. Poseidon would let the ships travel where they wanted. He’d bless fishermen with good catches. He’d chill on the beach, sip his umbrella drink from a coconut shell, and not sweat the small stuff.
On nice days, Poseidon would ride his golden chariot across the waves, pulled by a team of white hippocampi, which were horses with golden manes, bronze hooves, and fish tails. Everywhere he went, the sea creatures would come out to play around his chariot, so you’d see sharks and killer whales and giant squids all frolicking together, gurgling, “Hooray, Poseidon is in the house!” or whatever.
But sometimes the sea got angry, and Poseidon was the same way. When that happened, he was a totally different dude.
If you were a ship’s captain and you forgot to sacrifice to Poseidon before you set sail, you were a major-league derp. Poseidon liked at least one bull sacrificed in his honor per ship. Don’t ask me why. Maybe at one point Poseidon had told the Greeks, Just pour me a Red Bull and we’ll call it even, and the Greeks thought he wanted an actual red bull.
If you forgot to sacrifice, there was a good chance your ship would get smashed on the rocks, or eaten by a sea monster, or captured by pirates with bad personal hygiene.
Even if you never traveled by sea, that didn’t mean you were safe. If your town somehow offended Poseidon…well, say hello to Hurricane Derp.
Still, Poseidon kept it together most of the time. He tried to follow Zeus’s orders, though Zeus annoyed him constantly. Whenever those two started arguing, the other gods buckled their seat belts, because a fight between the sky and the sea could rip the