The Divine Right of Kings

The Saxons assumed control of Britain after the Romans left in 410 and the first Anglo-Saxon king was baptized in 601. The Kings of Saxons in our genealogy chart would be the ancestors of the Saxon Kings of Kent, Wessex and Essex, Berncia, Northumbria, Mercia and Deira.












Pictured left: From Abbreviatio chronicorum Angliae, the Four Saxon kings: above, Edmund the Martyr and Edward the Elder; below, Alfred and Athelstan (ca. 1250).



The early Saxon Kings, most likely familiar with Homer's Iliad, would trace their lineage to Dardanus, whose parentage was the mythological Greek gods, due to his position as the forefather of the Trojan royal family and the ancient city of Troy. After the Christianization of Britain, their descendants would revise the mythological ancestry of Dardanus from Greek gods to Adam and Eve. When exactly this genealogical revision occurred is unclear but it most likely happened prior to the establishment of the medieval church when an Old Testament genealogy would be important to the Divine Right of kings.












Pictured left: The Sistine Chapel from the Creation Story to Noah in 175 individual paintings covering 12,000 square feet.



Therefore, dear nephews, we have moved from Dardanus being the son of the star, Electra, and the King of the Greek gods, Zeus (see Gods 01, 02) to the descendant of Noah from Noah's Ark through his son, Shem, to Eber (see Adam 01). After Eber, we trace the lineage through Abraham to Judah, King of Goshen, whose daughter, Zarah, would be the mother of Dardanus (see Adam 03).














Pictured left: Continued from the Sistine Chapel.



Despite the revision of his parents, Dardanus is still the ancestor of the Kings of Troy including Alba, an ancient name for Rome, through Aeneas (see Adam 04). Through his descendants, both King Munon and Queen Troan of Troy, Dardanus is the ancestor to what appears to be the Norse gods and later the Kings of Saxons (see Saxons 01).











Pictured left: The Norse god Thor, the god of lightning, is depicted in this 1872 painting by Mårten Eskil Winge in a battle against the giants (Image courtesy of Wilson's Almanac).



The next person we are looking for after Dardanus is Skjold, King of the Danes, who was the son of Woden, King of Saxons. Skjold will take you both to our next story -- the Vikings!

Until next time...

xx

The Rise and Fall of Troy

The ancient Greeks believed that out of primordial darkness, Chaos, came the mother earth, Gaia, and the father sky, Ouranos.




















Pictured above and below: Sculpture reliefs of Gaia, the first goddess of the Theogony.















As the heavens cradled the earth in his arms, they fell in love and gave birth to the elder gods, the Titans: Oceanos, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Kronos. Gaia also gave birth to strange creatures such as the cyclops (men with one eye) and the giants.










Pictured above: 'The Castration of Ouranos' by Giorgio Vasari & Cristofano Gherardi, Italy.


Ouranos hid the deformed children from their mother and Gaia, upset, asked the Titans to overthrow their father. Kronos, the youngest of the Titans, was the only one willing to do so. In a great battle between Ouranos and Kronos, the young king defeated the old king as spring triumphs over the cold winter.












Pictured left: Rhea gives Kronos a stone instead of Zeus.



Kronos married his sister, Rhea, and they had the next generation of gods, the Olympians: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. However, there was a prophecy by an oracle that one of his offspring would kill Kronos and take over his throne as Kronos had done to Ouranos. After consuming all of his children, Rhea gives Kronos a stone wrapped as an infant (Pictured left) to swallow while Gaia hides the real infant Zeus in a deep cave in the Aegean mountains.















Pictured above: 'Fall of the Titans' by Peter Paul Rubens. Musee Royaux des Beaux Arts, Brussels.


When Zeus returns as a young man, there is a great battle between Zeus and the Olympians and Kronos and the Titans. After ten years of war, Zeus slays Kronos and sends the defeated Titans to Tartarus, a deep, gloomy place, below Hades, that is a dungeon of torment and suffering. Zeus then becomes king of the gods setting up his court at Mount Olympus.


Pictured left: 'The Lost Pleiad' by Adolphe Bouguereau. Before the Titans were sent to Tartarus, Oceanus and Tethys gave birth to three thousand daughters, the Oceanids, each of whom were the patroness of a particular spring, river, ocean, lake, pond, pasture, flower or cloud. The Oceanid, Klymene, would marry the Titan, Iapetus, giving birth to Atlas. Their son, Atlas (often seen carrying the weight of the world on his back), would also marry an Oceanid, Pleione, giving birth to the seven sisters or seven stars called the Pleiades. One of these sisters, Electra, would marry Zeus and give birth to Dardanus.



Dardanus, son of Zeus and Electra, is the founder of the city of Dardania on Mount Ida in the Troad. The Troad is the historical name of the Biga peninsula in the northwestern part of Anatolia, Turkey. Troy was also located in Anatolia under Mount Ida. Dardanus would become the founding father of the Kings of Troy, through his great-grandson, Ilus, first King of Troy.


















Pictured above: Ancient Greek vase. In the Iliad, Priam secretly enters the Greeks camps and comes to the hero Achilles to ransom the body of his son, Hector.


The grandson of Ilus, Priam, the tragic King of Troy in Homer's Iliad, had a daughter, Troan, who would marry her cousin, Munon (or Memnon), the next King of Troy after the devastating Trojan War.

















Pictured above: 'Aurora e Titone' by Francesco de Mura. Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Napoli.


Munon would claim his parentage through Tithonus, brother of Priam, and Eos. Eos (the dawn) was the daughter of the Titans, Hyperion and Theia.

Dardanus is also considered the ancestor of the Kings of Saxons.

From the pages of mythology, Dardanus, son of gods and stars, is your first ancestor.

Sweet dreams,

xx