The Phaethon myth was Doric

Apropos of nothing I looked into the Phaéthon myth, until OldEuropeanCulture gets to it. The name means "enlightener" in Greek (cognate with "photon").

The myth goes that the lightbringer was a bastard of Helios - a truly ancient god, for Greeks, sometimes alongside the Titans - who came home to claim his birthright. Helios granted this much. Then Phaéthon fitzHelios demanded to drive the Chariot (a famed IndoEuropean trope). In the tragic tradition, Helios warned against that. Either way he could not deny his natural son and potential heir. Helios, ancient as he was, was conscious that he was replacable. Sadly - not replacable by Phaéthon. The unworthy son subsequently lost control of the reins so brought Earth into raging summers and freezing winters, until Order was restored.

Several tropes are shared in other legends, like Bellerophon (who turned Pegasus to Olympus) and perhaps most-of-all Icarus. What brings this one to my attention is that everyone down here suffered from Phaéthon's hubris. Plato claims that the myth was known in Egypt. Nowadays we're using its name for a harshly eccentric asteroid.

Velikovsky would probably tell us the myth had to do with a different eccentricity for Earth; Milankovitch could perhaps make the better case. But I question the IndoEuropean memory here.

Phaéthon bears a similar name as the Phosphorus of Isaiah's prophecies... but I think they drove different chariots. Isaiah's Lucifer myth is the "star of the morning" which is just Eosphorus - that is, Ishtar-Venus. Sometimes Ishtar tries to usurp Baal but is sent to Sheol instead. This may help to induce seasons but hardly irregular seasons.

I also must call shens the myth is Egyptian. Plato, famously, liked to tell stories and to claim them as known in Egypt just to slap a (forged) certificate upon them, Atlantis being the most famous. Plato elsewhere recommended that the well-ordered Republic do exactly that, make up stories and pretend they're ancient.

In defence of Plato: propaganda works best when... true, or at least Truthy^TM. Even if Egypt wasn't involved, some of Plato's stories did enjoy antecedents, Atlantis owning several parallels to Minos' Crete so its downfall oft-considered a recollection of Thera. As to Phaéthon the Greeks had long known of him from their tragedians. Ancient lore about the earth and the sky became Moral Exhortations.

In Phaéthon we may have a memory of when Greeks suffered climate disruption - but that seems vague to me. A better suggestion is that some Greeks remembered when summers were hotter and winters colder. That is called the Continental Climate or, as Americans call it, "North Dakota". In southeast Europe such is not Mediterranean, but can be "enjoyed" further north in the Balkans. Erratic weather is a feature up there too.

The myth would hold its best salience in the northern Greek mainland. These were the Dorians. Some of them trickled down south as far as Thera and Crete. They would have kept such stories; perhaps adapting them to local lore of disruptive climate because, well, Thera and Crete.