King of the Titans, the Child-Swallowing Second King
The youngest Titan, who overthrew his father with a sickle, then swallowed each of his own children out of fear of the same prophecy. In the end he fell to the hidden Zeus, and the cycle came full circle. The Romans merged him with the harvest god Saturn — the planet Saturn and the word "Saturday" both come from him.
Told the prophecy "you will be overthrown by your own child," Cronus swallowed Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon whole, one after another. When the sixth was born, Rhea swapped in a swaddled stone. Years later an emetic forced him to disgorge all five children — and the stone.
Paradoxically, the reign of Cronus was called the Golden Age: humans neither aged nor sickened, the earth yielded of itself, and there was no war or toil. The Roman festival of Saturnalia commemorates him — tyrant and utopia are, in myth, no contradiction.
Cronus is often spelled or mistaken as Chronos, the god of time — but these are two different words by origin, and the English "chronological" comes from the latter, not from this child-swallowing Titan king. The confusion is widespread, and even many English works fail to keep them apart.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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