My Tussle with Today’s NYT Crossword
So, I settled in with the New York Times crossword earlier today, my usual morning ritual. Coffee brewing, pen in hand – well, metaphorically, I do it online these days. Things were moving along okay, getting a few acrosses, a few downs, feeling pretty good.
Then I hit this one clue: goddess of the dawn. Okay, mythology. Sometimes I get these right away, sometimes my brain just draws a blank. My first thought went to Roman mythology, maybe AURORA? But I quickly checked the grid. Nope, needed only three letters. That was a bit of a head-scratcher.
Three letters for a dawn goddess? Seemed short. I started thinking Greek then. Who was the Greek counterpart? I dredged up my high school mythology lessons. Wasn’t there someone associated with rosy fingers? Yeah, that sounded familiar.
I looked at the squares again. Let’s see, what did I have? The first letter crossed with a clue about a common vowel, which looked like it had to be ‘E’. The last letter crossed with something ending in ‘S’. Okay, E _ S. That really narrowed it down.
Eos! That was it! The Greek goddess of the dawn. It clicked. Felt kind of obvious once I saw the crossing letters, but it took me a minute to dig it out of my memory banks. Funny how sometimes the answers are right there, but you have to circle around them a bit.
Filled it in, and yeah, it fit perfectly with the other words I already had in place. Always satisfying when the crosses confirm your guess. Moved on to the next clue after that little victory.
