Pelion
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the centaur Chiron and the site where the Argo was built
The Story of Pelion
Mount Pelion rises in the Magnesia peninsula of Thessaly, its slopes covered in dense forest of beech, oak, chestnut, and plane trees. In mythology, Pelion was the home of Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs, who lived in a cave on its slopes and tutored the greatest heroes of the age: Achilles, Jason, Asclepius, and Actaeon all received their education there, learning hunting, medicine, music, and martial arts under Chiron's guidance. The mountain was also central to the story of the Gigantomachy: the Giants Otus and Ephialtes attempted to reach Olympus by stacking Mount Ossa on top of Olympus and Pelion on top of Ossa — an image of titanic ambition that gave rise to the phrase "piling Pelion on Ossa." The timber from Pelion's forests was used to build the Argo, the ship of Jason's expedition, with Athena herself fitting a beam of prophetic oak from Dodona into its prow. The mountain's rich plant life connected it to Chiron's expertise in medicine, and several medicinal herbs were believed to grow nowhere else.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Erymanthus
🏛 placegeography
An Arcadian mountain where the monstrous Erymanthian Boar lived, target of Heracles' fourth labour.
Mount Pelion
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A forested mountain in Thessaly, home of the wise Centaur Chiron and the site of the fateful wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
Mount Parnassus
🏛 placeMountain of Apollo and the Muses
Mount Parnassus was the mountain above Delphi sacred to Apollo and the Muses — the symbolic home of poetry, music, and artistic inspiration.
Oeta
🏛 placegeography
The Thessalian mountain where Heracles built his own funeral pyre and was consumed by fire, ascending to Olympus.
Mount Ossa
🏛 placemountain, Thessaly
A mountain in Thessaly that the Giants stacked beneath Pelion in their attempt to storm the heavens and overthrow the Olympian gods.
Pieria
🏛 placeSacred geography
The region at the foot of Mount Olympus sacred to the Muses, who were sometimes called the Pierides
Olympus
🏛 placeHome of the gods
The highest mountain in Greece and the mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods. Olympus was imagined as a paradise above the clouds.
Thasos
🏛 placeGeography
A gold-rich island in the northern Aegean colonised from Paros and associated with the hero Heracles
Epirus
🏛 placeregion, northwestern Greece
A mountainous region in northwestern Greece, home to the Oracle of Dodona and the legendary kingdom of the Molossians.
Crete
🏛 placeIsland of the Minotaur and Minoan civilisation
Crete was the largest Greek island and the seat of the Minoan civilisation, home to King Minos, the labyrinth, and the bull-cult that produced some of mythology's most famous stories.
Mount Ida
🏛 placeMountain above Troy where gods watched the war
Mount Ida near Troy was the mountain from which the gods observed the Trojan War and where Paris judged the beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
Ida
🏛 placegeography
A name given to sacred mountains in both Crete and the Troad, sites of divine birth and the Judgment of Paris.