Dactyls (mythology)

The Dactyls of Mount Ida in Crete invented the art of working metals into usable shapes with fire;[4] Walter Burkert surmises that, as the societies of lesser gods mirrored actual cult associations, guilds of smiths corresponded to the daktyloi in real life.

[6] Three Phrygian Dactyls, in the service of the Great Mother as Adraste (Ἀδράστη), are usually named Acmon (the anvil), Damnameneus (the hammer), and Celmis (casting).

"[8] The Cabeiri (Ancient Greek: Κάβειροι), whose sacred place was on the island of Samothrace, were understood by Diodorus Siculus[9] to have been Idaean dactyls who had come west from Phrygia and whose magical practices had made local converts to their secret cult.

On Rhodes, Telchines were the name given to similar chthonic men, nine in number, remembered by Greeks as dangerous Underworld smiths and magicians, and multiplied into an entire autochthonous race that had reared Poseidon but had been supplanted by Apollo in his Helios role.

Of Iasion it was told (Hesiod, Theogony 970) that he lay with Demeter, a stand-in for Rhea, in a thrice-ploughed field and the Goddess brought forth Ploutos, "wealth", in the form of a bountiful harvest.