Deucalion, son of Prometheus, who, with his wife Pyrrha, by means of an ark which he built, was saved from a flood which for nine days overwhelmed the land of Hellas. On the subsidence of the flood they consulted the oracle at Delphi as to re-peopling the land with inhabitants, when they were told by Themis, the Pythia at the time, to throw the bones of their mother over their heads behind them. For a time the meaning of the oracle was a puzzle, but the readier wit of the wife found it out; upon which they took stones and threw them over their heads, when the stones he threw were changed into men and those she threw were changed into women.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Dettingen * Deus ex machina