Persephone and Demeter
Persephone was Demeter’s (goddess of the Earth) cherished daughter. One day she was picking flowers in a field when Hades, the King of the Underworld, long drawn to Persephone's beauty, burst up through a cleft in the earth and abducted her. The devastated Demeter searched everywhere for her lost daughter, even changing herself into the form of a bird so that she could search otherwise inaccessible places.
All that year no grain grew on the earth while Demeter searched and sorrowed, and humans would have died of hunger had not Helios, god of the sun, who sees all, told Zeus what had happened. Zeus, pressured by the hungry people and by the other gods who felt their anguish, could not allow the Earth to die and forced Hades to return Persephone.
Before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked Persephone into eating three pomegranate seeds. The pomegranate is the food of the dead, and eating the seeds should have prevented Persephone's return to her mother. Zeus interfered, knowing that the girl had eaten them unknowingly, and said that Persephone would only spend three months (one for each seed) of each year as Hades' queen.
When Demeter and her daughter are together, the Earth flourishes with vegetation and color. Winter is the time of darkness for three months each year, when Persephone returns to the underworld and Demeter grieves.
Persephone and Demeter
Persephone was Demeter’s (goddess of the Earth) cherished daughter. One day she was picking flowers in a field when Hades, the King of the Underworld, long drawn to Persephone's beauty, burst up through a cleft in the earth and abducted her. The devastated Demeter searched everywhere for her lost daughter, even changing herself into the form of a bird so that she could search otherwise inaccessible places.
All that year no grain grew on the earth while Demeter searched and sorrowed, and humans would have died of hunger had not Helios, god of the sun, who sees all, told Zeus what had happened. Zeus, pressured by the hungry people and by the other gods who felt their anguish, could not allow the Earth to die and forced Hades to return Persephone.
Before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked Persephone into eating three pomegranate seeds. The pomegranate is the food of the dead, and eating the seeds should have prevented Persephone's return to her mother. Zeus interfered, knowing that the girl had eaten them unknowingly, and said that Persephone would only spend three months (one for each seed) of each year as Hades' queen.
When Demeter and her daughter are together, the Earth flourishes with vegetation and color. Winter is the time of darkness for three months each year, when Persephone returns to the underworld and Demeter grieves.