The Tales of Hera and Demeter

The Tale of Hera

Hera is the wife of Zeus, the Queen of Olympus, and the Olympian goddess of marriage. As such, she is also the deity most associated with family and the welfare of women and children. Her marriage, however, was an unhappy one, since Zeus had numerous affairs. Jealous and vengeful, Hera made sure to give each of his consorts a hard time.

Being born after Hestia and Demeter, Hera is the youngest of Cronus' and Rhea's three daughters and their third child overall; Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus – in that order – are her younger brothers. However, she was swallowed by her father at birth and later disgorged to be born again, she is sometimes referred to as Cronus' and Rhea's oldest daughter.

By most accounts, Hera gave Zeus four children: Ares, the god of war, Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, Hebe, the goddess of eternal youth, and Hephaestus, the god of fire. Zeus tricked Hera into marriage. Knowing full well that the goddess loved animals, he transformed himself into a distressed.

However, it didn't turn out to be a happy one. Zeus was brutish and cruel to everybody. Incapable of bearing this, Hera plotted a revenge plan with Poseidon, Athena, and possibly a few other gods. She drugged Zeus, and they bound him on his bed while stealing his thunderbolt. Thetis, however, summoned Briareus and he managed to quickly untie Zeus, who was, subsequently, merciless to the main schemer: he hung Hera from the sky with golden chains.

To grant herself a release, Hera swore to never rebel again against her husband. So, she directed her anger toward Zeus's lovers and their offspring, becoming a jealous and vindictive wife. she turned Callisto into a bear after the latter gave birth to Zeus' child Arcas. After some time, just as Arcas was about to unwittingly kill his mother, Zeus placed Callisto and her son in the sky as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big and the Little Bear. Hera kept her daughter Eileithyia from attending the birth of Apollo, postponing it by nine days and nights. More famously, she did the same with Heracles.

The Tale of Demeter

Demeter, the middle daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was the Ancient Greek goddess of grain and agriculture, one of the original Twelve Olympians. Her grief over her daughter Persephone – who has to spend one-third of the year with her husband Hades in the Underworld – is the reason why there is winter; her joy when she gets her back coincides with the fertile spring and summer months. Demeter and Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most famous secret religious festival in Ancient Greece.

Demeter was known mostly as the Giver of Food and Grain, or "She of the Grain," for short (Sito). However, since she presided over something as vital as the cycles of plants and seasons, the Ancient Greeks also referred to her as Tesmophoros, or "The Bringer of Laws," and organized a women-only festival called Tesmophoria to celebrate her as such. Other epithets include: "Green," "The Giver of Gifts," "The Bearer of Food," and "Great Mother."

The most important myth involving Demeter concerns her daughter Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's subsequent wanderings.

Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, fell in love with Demeter's daughter and decided to take her into marriage. So, one day, as she was gathering flowers with her girlfriends, he lured her aside using a fragrant and inexpressibly beautiful narcissus, and then snatched her up with his chariot, suddenly darting out of a chasm under her feet.

Inconsolable, Demeter walked the earth far and wide for nine days to find her daughter – but to no avail. And then, on the tenth day, Hecate told her what she had seen and Helios, the All-Seeing God of the Sun, confirmed her story. Demeter wasn't just brokenhearted anymore. She was now angry as well. And with everybody! Especially with Zeus who, the rumors claimed so, had approved the whole operation and even aided Hades throughout.

So, Demeter left Mount Olympus and went to grieve her daughter among the mortals, disguised as an old woman. She ended up at the court of King Celeus of Eleusis, where his wife Metanira hired her to be the nurse to her baby son, Demophon. Iambe, the old servant woman of the house, cheered her with her jokes, and Demeter laughed for the first time in many weeks. In gratitude for the kindness, Demeter devised a plan to make Demophon immortal, so she started bathing him in fire each night, thus, burning away his mortality.

However, one day, Metanira witnessed the ritual and, not realizing what was happening, started screaming in panic and alarm. This disturbed Demeter's strategy, so she revealed herself at once and told Metanira that the only way that the Eleusinians will ever win her kindness back is by building a temple and establishing a festival in her glory.

King Celeus did just that, and Demeter spent a whole year living in her newly built temple, grieving, and, in her grief, neglecting all her duties as a goddess of fertility and agriculture. As a consequence, the earth turned barren, and people started dying out of hunger. After unsuccessfully sending all the gods, one by one, to Demeter with gifts and pleas, Zeus realized that he would have to bring Persephone back to her mother if he didn't want to see humanity wiped out from the planet.

So, he sent Hermes to Hades, and the divine messenger fetched back Persephone to her mother. However, the gods soon realized that Demeter's daughter had already eaten one seed of pomegranate in the Underworld, which obliged her to remain in the Underworld. Knowing that Demeter wouldn't allow such thing to happen, Zeus proposed a compromise: Persephone would spend one-third of the year with Hades and the other two-thirds with Demeter.

The former, the period during which Demeter is grieving, corresponds to the winter months of the year when the earth is infertile and bare; the latter, when she rejoices, overlaps with the abundant months of our springs and summers. The myth likewise explains the growth cycle of the plants. The grain, just like Persephone, must die and be buried under the earth in order to bear much fruit above it.