Demeter

Greek mythology – Present

Goddess of grain and the harvest; her grief when Persephone is taken to the Underworld is the Greek story of winter.

greek mythologygoddessolympian

Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, bread, and the cultivated earth, a sister of Zeus freed in the Titanomachy. Without her, myth says, people starve. That is why her most important story is not a war but a disappearance: Hades takes her daughter Persephone, and Demeter’s grief stops the crops. The compromise, Persephone below for part of the year and above for part, is the season myth. The sanctuary at Eleusis later held the Eleusinian Mysteries in their honor, rituals we only partly understand because initiates were sworn to silence. How we know. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the core text. Archaeology at Eleusis is the place-evidence. Connect to Odysseus in the Underworld and the Odyssey journey.

Demeter

Further reading