Demeter of the lovely hair
Goddess of grain and the harvest. When Hades carried off her daughter Persephone, her grief made the crops fail, the first winter.
Roman name: Ceres
From Mount Olympus. Today: Mount Olympus, Greece.
Strength 6/10 · Wisdom 8/10 · Courage 7/10 · Divinity 10/10 · Fame 7/10
The story
Goddess of grain and the harvest, daughter of Cronus and Rhea. When her daughter Persephone vanished, she searched the world with burning torches, and while disguised as an old woman at Eleusis she tried to make a royal baby immortal.
How it ends
She made the earth barren until Zeus arranged Persephone‘s return for part of each year. She founded the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Still with us today
The Romans called her Ceres, which gives us the word “cereal”.
Family
- Parents: Cronus, Rhea
- Partners: Zeus
- Children: Persephone
- Siblings: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Chiron
Appears in
Read about them in the Library
- Theogony and Works and Days 4: The birth of Zeus, and Prometheus
- Theogony and Works and Days 6: The wives and children of Zeus
- Homeric Hymns 1: Hymn to Demeter
- Homeric Hymns 5: The shorter hymns
- Library of Apollodorus 2: Children of the gods, the Giants and Typhon
- Metamorphoses 5: Perseus's wedding, and the song of the Muses
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony
- The Homeric Hymns
In the sky and in space
- Dwarf planetCeres
The largest object in the asteroid belt, named after the Roman goddess of grain. Our word "cereal" comes from her name too.
- ConstellationVirgo
The maiden holding an ear of wheat (its brightest star, Spica, means "ear of wheat"). She is often linked with Demeter or Persephone.