Rhea

Rhea was the daughter of Uranus (heaven or sky) and Gaea (earth). Rhea was wife of her brother Cronus and was called the mother of the gods. Rhea a goddess of female fertility, motherhood, and generation. Her name means 'flow' and 'ease'. As the wife of Cronus (time), she represent the eternal flow of time and generations; as the great mother, the 'flow' was menstrual blood, birth water, and milk. She was also a goddess of comfort and ease. 

                                                                                       When her husband hear a prophecy that he would be deposed by one of his children, he began to swallow each of them as soon as they were born (Demeter, Hera, Hestia, Hades,  and Poseidon, all were swallowed).  But Rhea bore her youngest, Zeus, in secret and hid him away in Crete (Krete) guarded by shield-clashing Kouretes. Rhea presented Cronus with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he swallowed, instead of her child (Zeus)


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