Godly Weapons

It's common knowledge that every God and Goddess must have a distinctive weapon, but you might not know the history of each one! Do you want to know the history of each godly weapon? Then this is the series for you!

Today we start with a bang, or a flash rather, with Zeus and his Master Lightning Bolt!

Zeus's lightning bolt is infamous across history as a mighty weapon of punishment. Using it, Zeus defeated the Titans in the Titan War and secured the future of the Olympians. It was also used to kill Asclepius, the god of medicine when he used his gifts to heal humans and raise them from the dead. It was also used on King of Elis, Salmoneus, for impersonating him.

Zeus had the Lightning Bolt gifted to him after he saved his siblings from Kronos and freed the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires. The Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires were the brothers of Kronos who were at first imprisoned in pits of Tartarus, the deepest and most horrible part of the Underworld, by their father, Ouranos, and later by Kronos. To reward him for freeing them, the Cyclops gifted Zeus his famous lightning bolt.

The lightning bolt is one of few weapons that are used by Zeus and Zeus alone, (unlike the Trident, which is wielded by Poseidon but also used by Amphitrite and Triton). It is a well-known symbol of Zeus and it signifies control of the skies and man. It is still used to this day to signify that mighty King of the Skies to this day.

Some Fun Facts about lightning:

Did you know Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has the most lightning strikes yearly than any other place in the world? It has thunderstorms about 140 - 10 days a year with an average 28 strikes an hour, lasting up to 10 hours! That averages about 40,000 strikes in one night!
To tell just how far away that loud thunderstorm is, simply count the number of seconds between the flash of bright lightning and the growl of thunder that follows. Divide this number by five and this will tell you how many miles away you are from the (slightly scary) storm (or just divide by three for the distance in kilometers).
When lightning strikes a beach or very sandy soil, it fuses the sand grains to make a small glass-like tube named a fulgurite. They are highly prized by collectors and scientists alike, for their strange beauty and scientific value

That's all for today! Stay tuned for more weapon history!

Written by Charlotte Donalds