Demeter
Goddess of agriculture, corn and fertility
daughter of Cronus and Rhea
sister of Hades, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon and Zeus
wife of Iacchus, some say mother of Core (Persephone) and Iacchus by Poseidon or Zeus
mother of Bootes and Plutus by Iasion
mother of Dionysus by Zeus,
It is said that as Black Demeter or Erinys, she and Poseidon coupled, both in the form of horses, to produce the nymph Despoena and Arion the winged horse.
Some say that Core also came of this union or as the result of rape by Zeus.
She mated with Iasion in a ploughed field and produced Plutus. Her lover was killed by a thunderbolt hurled by Zeus.
In some accounts she produced a son, Acheron, without the help of a male.
She punished Erysichthon with everlasting hunger when he cut down a tree in her sacred grove.
She changed the boy Stellio into a lizard when he made a joke about the speed at whichshe ate her food.
At the banquet where Tantalus served up his dismembered son Pelops she (or Thetis in some stories) ate the shoulder part and made a new one from ivory, which was built in when the boy was reassembled by the gods.
When her daughter Core was abducted by Hades she wandered the land, in the guise of an old woman, looking for her daughter. She was taken in by Celeus, king of Eleusis, and employed as Deo, a wet nurse to his new born son. To repay his kindness Demeter tried to make the infant immortal by plunging him into the fire but his frightened mother, Metaneira, snatched him away.
In some stories the baby was Demophoon, in others he was Triptolemus: some say the baby died, others that it survived the ordeal.
Abas, the eldest son of Celeus, made a foolish jest about Demeter’s own son, Iacchus, and in a fit of temper she turned him into a lizard.
She taught Celeus the Eleusinian mysteries and he became her first priest.
She eventually discovered what had
happened to Core. In one version she was told by Triptolemus whose brothers had seen the abduction; in another she heard the truth in the burbling of the nymph Arethusa who had been turned into a stream and who had seen Core seated on a throne with Hades as she passed through the underworld en route to Sicily.
Others say that Hecate, who had heard Core’s cries, took Demeter to see Helios who, as sun god, had seen all that had occurred and told them what had happened to Core.
Demeter now caused a blight to descend on the earth and refused to lift it until Zeus intervened to order Hades to release Core, who had been made queen of the underworld, as Persephone.
She is sometimes depicted as horse-headed. Her symbol is a sheaf.
Persephone(Core)
A vegetation goddess who became queen of the underworld mother of Corybas.
In some stories Persephone is the daughter of Zeus by Rhea, both as serpents. Then Zeus mated with Core to produce Dionysus.
In other stories she is the daughter of Zeus by the nymph Styx, and in others Styx is the wife of Hades.
Yet another version says that she resulted from the coupling of Poseidon and Demeter, both as horses.
But the more usual story is that Core
was the daughter of Zeus andDemeter, his own sister.
Core was abducted and taken to the underworld by Hades. Demeter learned where her missing daughter was to be found from the burbling of the nymph Arethusa who, in the form of a spring, had passed through the underworld en route to Sicily and had seen Core at the side of Hades.
When Demeter blighted the earth to secure her daughter’s release, Zeus ordered that she should be returned, provided that she had not eaten any of the food of the dead.
Core said she hadeaten nothing, but Ascalaphus, a gardener in Hades, said he had seen her eating the seeds of the
pomegranate.
She was condemned to spend a quarter (or half, in some versions) of each year with Hades as Persephone.
As Persephone she was put in charge of the infant Dionysus when Hera reassembled him after he had been torn to pieces by the Titans, and she raised the infant Adonis who was put in her care by Aphrodite and made him her lover.
She is depicted as Persephone, holding a torch and a pomegranate.
She took over the functions of Arethusa, the nymph who told Demeter about her daughter’s abduction, and was then referred to as Core-Arethusa.
