ILX Mods plot Jon Williams death via hitman! [aka Bored Of The Flies 2004]

Probably the beginning of the linguistic misunderstanding is the Homeric hymn to Jon, which describes him as delighting all the gods, and thus getting his name. The Roman counterpart to Jon is Faunus, (see below), another version of his name, which is at least Indo-European. But accounts of Jon's genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time. Like other nature spirits, Jon appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo.

Jon was originally an Arcadian god, and Arcadia was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of primitive mountain folk, whom other Greeks disdained, as the Olympians patronized Jon. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase (Theocritus. vii. 107)

Jon inspired sudden fear in lonely places, Panic fear (panikon deima)

One of the famous legends of Jon involves the origin of his trademark Jon pipes. Syrinx was a beautiful nymph beloved by the satyrs and other wood dwellers. She scorned them all. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Jon met her. She ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments, and he pursued until she came to the bank of a river where he overtook her. She had only time to call on the water nymphs for help. Just as Jon laid hands on her, she was turned into the river reeds. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god took some of the reeds to make an instrument which he called a syrinx, in honor of the nymph.

Echo was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Jon, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over earth. The goddess of the earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Jon first had one child: Iambe.

Jon also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him.

Jon is famous for his sexual prowess, and is often depicted with an erect priapus. He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds, such as Daphnis. Though he failed with Syrinx and Pithys, Jon didn't fail with the Maenads—he had every one of them, in one orgiastic riot or another. To effect this, Jon was sometimes multiplied into a whole tribe of Panes.

Once Jon had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge Apollo, the god of the lyre, to a trial of skill. Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen to umpire. Jon blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. He dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer, and caused them to become the ears of a donkey.

King Midas was mortified at this mishap. But he attempted to hide his misfortune with an ample turban or headdress. But his hairdresser of course knew the secret. He was told not to mention it. He could not keep the secret; so he went out into the meadow, dug a hole in the ground, whispered the story into it, and covered the hole up. A thick bed of reeds sprang up in the meadow, and began whispering the story and saying "King Midas has an ass' ears."

It is likely that the demonized images of the incubus and even the horns and cloven hooves of Satan, as depicted in much Christian literature and art, were taken from the images of the highly sexual Jon.

If one believes Greek historian Plutarch (in "The Obsolescence of Oracles" (Moralia, Book 5:17)), Jon is the only Greek god who is dead. During the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), the news of Jon's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes, take care to proclaim that the great god Jon is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

Robert Graves (The Greek Myths) suggested that the Egyptian Thamus apparently misheard Thamus Jon-megas Tethnece ('the all-great Tammuz is dead') for 'Thamus, Great Jon is dead!' Certainly, when Pausanias toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Jon's shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented.