Legends of the Cape of Good Hope - Adamastor

In the days when the world was young and the Greek gods many, the Earth and Sky was ruled by the twelve Titans.

They were fierce and violent creatures, with bodies as big as mountains. One of the Titans, Kronos (Time) fathered several children which became the Greek gods - the gods of Olympus.

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The gods of Olympus under the leadership of Zeus fought the Titans for ten years.

In the end, the Titans were defeated with the help of the one-eyed Cyclops. Most of the Titans were sent to Tartarus - underground prison - but some receive different punishments. Atlas was sent to North Africa, where he would hold up the sky on his shoulders. Helios, who had not participated in the war, drove the chariot that pulled the Sun around the Earth.

One of the Titans was punished more severely than the others due to his forbidden love for the nymph Thetis.

He was Adamastor who was sent to the end of the earth - the south point of Africa - where he was turned into a mountain - Table Mountain.

It is said that his beard becomes the fynbos of the Cape, his skin the sandstone outcrops and his mouth the grottoes of the coastline.

Legend has it when Vasco da Gama round the Cape, Adamastor appeared to him in the form of a storm cloud and threatening to ruined his passing of the Cape of Storms.

Da Gama’s encounter with Greek Titan is described in the poem of Luis de Camões - “Os Lusiadas”

Even as I spoke, an immense shape
Materialized in the night air,
Grotesque and of enormous stature
With heavy jowls, and an unkempt beard
Scowling from shrunken, hollow eyes
Its complexion earthy and pale,
Its hair grizzled and matted with clay,
Its mouth coal black, teeth yellow with decay

So towered its thick limbs, I swear
You could believe it a second
Colossus of Rhodes, that giant
Of the ancient world’s seven wonders.
It spoke with a coarse, gravelly voice
Booming from the ocean’s depths;
Our hair was on end, our flesh shuddering,
Mine and everyone’s, to hear and behold the thing.

Da Gama, confronts the creature by asking "Who are you?"-

“I am that vast, secret promontory
You Portuguese call the Cape of Storms,
Which neither Ptolomy, Pompey, Strabo,
Pliny, nor any authors knew of.
Here Africa ends. Here its coast
Concludes in this, my vast inviolate
Plateau, extending southwards to the Pole
And, by your daring, struck my very soul”.

Adamastor became the symbol of the dangers the Portuguese sailors faced when trying to round the Cape of Storms. Today you only need to stand on the cliffs of Cape Point to get a sense of Adamastor’s greatness and to feel his brooding rage.

Sources:
http://www.expatsportugallife.com/visit_portugal/adamastor-the-monster-of-good-hope/
http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/a/adamastor/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamastor
https://capepoint.co.za/cape-of-myths-the-story-of-adamastor/