Osterel, the great mace-man [Archive]

Anamatar IV

06-07-2003, 12:45 AM

This is an assignment I did in school--we had to write out own Greek Myths.

****************************

There came a day in mid summer with the brilliant beams of sun warming the earth, with birds and beasts playing gleefully in the grassy glades. On this day, a beautiful nymph named Valarie was walking along the shores, letting the waves tickle her feet in the shadow of Olympus. Both Poseidon and Zeus eyed and sought this nymph. They rushed towards her in a fury of deep steps and rushes but Poseidon, being aided by the seas, got there first and they met in a lapping of waves and a frothing of waters. But Zeus was vengeful. He stood atop Olympus with a thunder bolt in hand, posed to throw it at the mingling pair but Poseidon saw him out of the corner of his eye and stole the nymph away to the depths of the sea with him.
Osterel was born in one of the many grottoes of Poseidon. He was an exceptionally large baby, as tall as Valarie was and twice as wide. Poseidon was curious of this great child. Why was he so large? Why were his eyes so fierce, his hair so dull and brown? He sought the Oracle.
“Osterel will aid you in revenge but do not trust his actions for he will hold none in exception.” A grin spread across Poseidon’s face. He ordered for the craft of the finest armor to be made and for the blackest of helms. And he himself fashioned a weapon of the likes had never been seen before. It was a steel pole with hide wrapped around it and a many-spiked ball at the end. He called it a mace.
Poseidon now gave these items to Osterel saying, “Son, these will grow as you grow and will not fail you.” Osterel walked the undersea world with his mother for many years growing, ever growing. Soon, he was as tall as two of the tallest trees and stronger than a wild mare. Valarie now thought it safe to return to the world above. With Osterel, she would not need to fear the mighty Zeus. So Osterel and Valarie stepped out of the seas onto the very beach below Olympus and strolled the shores.
Zeus eyed them both from above, two thunder bolts in hand, but he stayed his throw. Who was this huge man walking with this nymph? But when he heard Valarie laugh, that same laugh he had heard when he raced Poseidon for her, he lifted one thunder bolt and hurled it to the ground and it struck Valarie.
Osterel held his dead mother’s body in his hands for a moment and let her drop to the soft sand, the sand sticking to her blood stained face. He lifted his mace and looked with hatred at the figure standing with a thunder bolt, glistening blue, aimed at him. Osterel gave a mighty shout and cast his mace at Zeus as Zeus threw the thunder bolt down. The two weapons met in mid-air, deflecting back to their owners, creating a fury of lights and sparks. And so great was the rage of the sparks that the lights were fearful and they fled to the northern confines of the world and are seldom seen. Thus, the Northern Lights were created.
Osterel caught his mace as it hurtled back to the earth and rushed to Olympus. He climbed the great rock, running up it as if it were a flight of stairs, and held his mace to Zeus. He panted with anger, sweat dripping from his hands to the hide wrapped handle of the mace. And Zeus pleaded for mercy.
Zeus called all the gods and goddesses to Olympus, then, and ordered them to bless Osterel’s mace giving it the powers they held, but not so much as the gods themselves had, and they dubbed him the God of Natural Wonders and Disasters.
Osterel wandered the world taking no wife and no home as he loved nothing. He was the patron of hatred and indifference alike. He would cause the moon to blot out the sun’s light to frighten a village of sinners and cause the earth to shake and open upon a city of saints, swallowing them. But there was one city that he was curious of. It was a mountain city, more advanced than any other. “Surely this city can become as powerful as the gods themselves someday, if given proper teaching.” So Osterel came to this city and taught them how to harness the lightning, to change it to power greater than imaginable. But Zeus, ever watchful, saw this and was enraged. The lightning was his domain.
“He thinks he knows the power of lightning,” Zeus yelled as he lifted a giant thunder bolt. Sweat dripped from his forehead to his hands and sizzled and spat on the thunder bolt. “I will show him the true power of lightning!” And Zeus cast the thunder bolt at Osterel. And he died, the great helm melted and disfigured.
But when come to Tartarus and the River Styx, he could no go further. He was too large to fit on the ferry. Hades, being unknowing of the feud between Zeus and Osterel, sent him back to his body. And when Osterel opened his eyes it seemed the whole earth shook with his anger.
He lifted his great mace again and gave a cry that rumbled foundations of mountains, causing some to collapse. He charged Olympus again and in three bounds stood next to Zeus with his mace raised. Zeus quivered with fear, his eyes wide and pleading. Sweat drenched him and his knees shook. Osterel struck Zeus with his mace, sending him over the side of Olympus to the caves far below. He then ordered the other gods and goddesses residing on Olympus down to join him, wishing to be alone atop the great mountain and he set a crown of marble upon his head as he claimed kingship over the gods and the world they had ruled. And some say that he ruled the world alone more justly than the pantheon did together.
The gods dwelt now in a cave in the side of Olympus, plotting their return to power and the death of Osterel. They planned their move in one week’s time: Osterel’s thirty fourth birthday.
They stormed Olympus as Osterel had done and rushed at him with their weapons; trident, spears, swords, arrows, thunder bolt alike, Osterel deflected with his mace. A great battle was fought there, breaking the foundations of Olympus itself, causing mountains to erupt into fire, rivers to overflow with water, great pellets of ice to fall, and great stones from space hurtling to the ground in great blasts of fire and destruction. Men cowered in their homes and prayed to the gods for the world to survive yet a day longer. For years the battle raged on, none of the participants wearing. But on the first day of the seventh year, Osterel struck Poseidon, his father, in the face and sent him over the side of Olympus, crashing into the sea. But the gods were even more furious now, their rage not to be subdued by any prayer or any mace-wielding mortal. They charged at him harder and yet he still deflected their blows. But as the gods gave one last charge and Osterel took one step back to slow down the rush, the side of Olympus collapsed under his great foot and Osterel plunged to his death far below.
The gods burned his body into a thicket of swirling ash and smoke and Hades sent him back as a spirit as he still could not fit on the ferry. So wanders the world yet today as a spirit, rumbling the earth for his anger and hatred with his great mace, yet plotting his revenge upon the gods when the world is broken, does the great mace-man, Osterel.