Creusa (2)Kreusa

The mother of Ion with Apollon as the father.

After Ion was born, Kreusa put the infant in a cave to abandon him; he was saved by Hermes and delivered to the temple of Apollon at Delphi where he remained until Kreusa and her husband, Xuthus, found him through the intervention of the temple priestesses.

Kreusa and Xuthus were childless and the oracle told them to adopt the first child they encountered after leaving the temple; when they met Ion, Kreusa thought that he was the illegitimate son of Xuthus by another woman and she plotted to kill Ion but the priestess of Apollon showed her the swaddling clothing in which the infant was wrapped when he had been presented at the temple; Kreusa accepted the fact that Ion was her abandoned child and she and Xuthus took the child to the city of Athens where, according to the goddess Athene (Athena), a prophecy had been fulfilled and that Ion would become the founder of the Ionian race.