Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Deucalion

DEUCALION, in Greek legend, corresponds to the Biblical Noah. A great flood had destroyed the whole race of men except Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, who saved themselves in a boat or ark, from which they landed on Mount Othrys, or, as it was afterwards said, on Mount Parnassus. They were then commanded by Zeus to cast behind them the bones of their mother, i.e., the stones of the hill side, and from the stones thrown by Deucalion sprang men, from those thrown by Pyrrha, women. Hence men were called Xaot, " stone race." Deucalion s son Hellen was the founder of the race of Hellenes. The chief locality of this legend was Thessaly ; it existed also at Dodona, where Deucalion was thought to have introduced the worship of Zeus.