The legend of Prometheus has made its way to us thanks to ancient Greek myths. The Titan Prometheus was the one who gave fire to mankind but paid a very high price for it and people wear a ring in his honor.
The legend goes that a long time ago, before humans, there were only animals. The sea was filled with fish, the land was home to all kinds of animals and birds, only man was missing. The Titan Prometheus, a descendent of ancient gods, took raw clay and formed beings in the image of the gods. To make the clay come alive, Prometheus took the positive and negative feelings and gave them to them. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, gifted each of Prometheus's creations with a soul.
That was how the first humans came to be. They were helpless and couldn't do anything but Prometheus loved them greatly and always helped them. He taught them how to build homes, how to use animals for their needs, how to make boats with which to travel along the seas and rivers. Prometheus taught them to gaze at the stars and figure out their position accordingly. Prometheus told humans how to prepare medicine and taught them to mine gold, silver and iron.
The king of the gods, Zeus, who lived in Olympus, dethroned his father Kronos and the old order of the gods, to which Prometheus belonged. The new gods accepted the old Titans but wanted them to kneel before them in subservience. The new gods, with Zeus at their head, came together to decide the rights and obligations of humans. Prometheus came as well, although he was worried that the gods would demand too much of men.
The gods made Prometheus divide a bull in 2 in order to determine which parts would be used by humans and which would be sacrificed to the gods. Prometheus set aside the bones in a large heap and the meat in a smaller one and covered them up, so that it would be impossible to tell what lay beneath. When Zeus had to make his choice he picked the large pile and only then realized the cleverness of Prometheus.
Zeus became furious and refused to give humans that which they needed most - fire. But Prometheus was not afraid of Zeus and stole a spark of the fire of the gods to give to humans. That was how humans were given fire and were able to keep themselves warm.
Zeus then thought of a horrible punishment for the sympathizer of mankind - the Titan Prometheus. The god of fire, Hephaestus, created a metal statue of a beautiful girl by order of Zeus. Athena covered her with a shining cloth and breathed life into her. The goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, gave her some of her own beauty. They called her Pandora, which meant "gifted with everything". Zeus sent Pandora to Earth and gave her a gold box containing all of the misfortunes and diseases.
Pandora went to the home of the young Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus. The Titan Prometheus had forbidden his brother to accept gifts from the gods because he knew they would try to get revenge for him stealing fire. But the beautiful Pandora made Epimetheus forget everything. She opened the box and all of the misfortunes spread out across the Earth. At the bottom of the box, hidden, lay hope, but following Zeus's orders Pandora closed the box before it could come out.
The misfortunes made the lives of humans horrible and many of them died. Prometheus couldn't bear to watch his creations suffer and began making plans for his own revenge. But Zeus came up with a punishment for him - Hephaestus chained Prometheus to a rock and stuck a diamond wedge in his breast. Hephaestus actually liked Prometheus but couldn't disobey Zeus's orders.
Prometheus's suffering did not end there - Zeus sent an eagle to the chained Titan to pick at his liver every day. His body recovered quickly but the eagle returned over and over again. Millennia passed.
The ancient Greek hero Hercules, known for his strength, freed Prometheus. He killed the eagle with an arrow and broke the Titan's chains. But a part of the chains, along with a piece of rock, remained around Prometheus's hand and he could not get rid of it no matter what he did.
In this way, Zeus made good on his threat that Prometheus would forever be chained to a rock. In honor of Prometheus, people began to wear rings with rocks to show their worship of the Titan, who not only created them but taught them everything they knew.
