DragonsFaeriesElves&theUnseen : Father Time

Oldfather Time~

OLDFATHER TIME

I thought since we are into the new year I would
start with a few legendary legends such as
Oldfather Time. Before the holidays, I got lots of
feedback on urban legends so I thought I would start with
the Father Time/Father Christmas legend. It is said that in the
ancient times of the Romans they
would celebrate Saturnalia which was a week-long harvest festival in
December to honor Saturn. It was likely that the festival was influenced by the Christian people and their traditions, the year
354AD, when Pope Liberius ordered that December, 25 be
observed as the birthday of Christ. The Pope Liberius then cited

Father Christmas

the precedent of Saturnalia, which probably in the hope that
the new holiday would divert attention from the pagan revelry.
This is why the images of Father Time & Father Christmas plus the
passing of the old year and the coming of the new have
all come to be associated with one another over the centuries.
Here's to the bright New year And a fond farewell
to the old; Here's to the things that are yet to come
And to the memories that we hold. -Anonymous-
So what better way to start the new year with a bit of history, trivia, myth, murder, incest and intrigue, Well that is what some say with the legend of Oldfather time--Father Time--Old Man Time--Aka Old Man Time--Father Christmas.

It is usually said that Father time is depicted as an elderly bearded
man, dressed in a robe, carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping devices. Sometimes he is pictured with an infant or young child to symbolize the coming of the new year!
However, there are over ways that Father time has been depicted too. Have you noticed who he resembles? Well, I think the Grim Reaper is one to synonymous with death, which is sometimes depicted as a figure in its own right. Father Time, Old Man Time, and the Grim Reaper and Death the same person?

So the question is?

If you want to know where Father Time originates are it is from Greek Mythology.
The 2 greek gods with the similar names
Cronus -- Chronos

1-Cronus was one of the descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky, With his siblings they made up a collection of deities known as the Titans. Cronus being the youngest and also their leader. Cronus envied the power of his father Uranus and with the connivance of this mother Gaia, he ambushed Uranus. Using a sickle made and provided by Gaia, he castrated Uranus and threw his testicles into the sea. Thereafter Cronus ruled with his sister Rhea as king and queen. Appropriately, he was and is usually depicted with a sickle in his hand. The period of his rule is known as the Golden Age. The festival of Kronia was held in his honor and to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that he was also the patron saint to the harvest.
Cronus had been told by Gaia and Uranus that he would be overcome by his own son. To stop this happening as soon as rhea gave birth to a child, Cronus pre-empted the prophecy by swallowing his unborn children. By the time she was due to give birth to child number 6 Rhea had had enough, She enlisted the aid of her mother in law Gaia and together they hid the sixth child in a cave, where he was raised either by a goat or by Gaia depending upon which version you wish to believe. Cronus was given a stone to disguised as the baby and swallowed that in the belief that it was his son. The baby became the God Zeus. When he grew to the God Zeus he used an emetic to force Cronus to disgorge as the babies he had eaten, who had remained alive. The war that followed saw Zeus victorious with Cronus being imprisoned for eternity.
2-Chronos was a very different entity to that all around good guy, Cronus.
Long before Cronus, before Gaia and before Uranus, the universe was unformed, a mass in the shape of an egg. In addition to the cosmic egg, there were also the primordial hoods Ananke and Chronos, sometimes written as Khronos. Ananke was the primeval goddess of inevitability and necessity and had emerged fully formed at the beginning of time. She had a serpent's form. Chronos was the time god, also, serpentine in form but with three heads, that of man, a bull, and a lion. Chronos and Ananke wrapped the egg in their coils and squeezed, shattering the egg and thereby creating the earth, sea, and air. Chronos and Ananke remain forever entwined within the universe so created, being the forces of fate and time. The younger gods then created are said to be controlled by them. An alternative version holds that Chronos impregnated Ananke who then laid the cosmic egg. Eros hatched from the egg and created Chaos from which came Gaia Uranus, Tartarus the abyss and so on. Whereas Cronus, the evil guy, was considered by the Greeks to be a tempestuous force of the chaos and disorder, Chronos, the God of time controls the past, present, and future of everything.
Although most frequently depicted as a young man, Chronos was sometimes pictured as an old wise man with a long white/gray beard. His name in modern Greek means 'YEAR' and his name has given rise to such words as chronometer, chronology, chronic, anachronism and chronicle.bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2010/12/father-time.html
www.novareinna.com/festive/oft.html
www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2006/10/a-brief-history-of-father-time.html
is where I found this article have a look if you like;

Father Time; Similarity of the names Cronus and Chronos are believed to have resulted in a blurring of the distinction between the two, the confusion causing the time god to become depicted as an old man with a scythe. The sickle used by Cronus and Saturn has become symbolic not of the castration of one's own father but of the unrelenting flow to time. It was the sickle or scythe which had emasculated Uranus/Saturn thereby enabling the next

generation to rule the cycle of birth-life-death. Sometimes Father Time is depicted with an hour glass, symbolizing the flow of time. Time's elderly body and long, white beard are reminders that time itself is a devourer of all things. Nothing can escape time. Nonetheless, time also gives serenity, experience, and wisdom.

The downward flow of the sand in the hourglass and the loss of the body's vitality is balanced by the upward flow of the spirit the increase of wisdom of the spirit and the mind. The young bull and the old bull of words

The Grim Reaper: From the 15th century onwards, Death has been depicted as a

skeletal figure that carried a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood. He has also been termed as the Angel of Death, Stemming from the Bible too. The image of the Grim Reaper, aka Death, comes directly from the combined image of Chronos and Cronus.

The Grim Reaper is sometimes depicted as being accompanied by a crow too.

It may be that in ancient Greek culture the crow was somehow associated with death, perhaps because crow pecked at the corpse on the battlefields. It is also true that the greek word for crow means 'Corone' sounds much like Cronus and Chronos. By the Middle ages, there were many engravings of the Grim Reaper which depict a skeletal