Demeter

Demeter is the Estrium Goddess of corn, grain and the harvest.

As Goddess of the Harvest, Demeter was always a very determined and hard headed woman with a desire to succeed in all she did. So when her daughter Persephone disappeared one day from a nearby meadow, worry immediately struck, and Demeter searched ceaselessly for her spring child. She scoured the land for years on end, going as far as to ground the fruitful seasons to a complete halt, thus causing everything to die, including some of the mortals. Soon the Goddess discovered that Zeus had given her precious Persephone to their brother, Hades, as a wife for him to keep in his realm. Her own daughter had been given away as though she were some token to be exchanged among men. Furious with Zeus’ actions Demeter stormed to the King of the Gods and demanded that her daughter be returned to her immediately. Faced with the extinction of all living things on Estrium, Zeus had no other choice but to try and retrieve Persephone from the Underworld, away from her new husband Hades.

Unfortunately for Demeter her daughter had already ingested the fruit of the Underworld - six seeds from a pomegranate, grown from one of the gardens located in Hades’ home. Each seed represented a month that she must spend away from her mother down beneath the life of Estrium. Six seeds to seal her fate. It was never clear whether Persephone’s actions were carried out knowingly, or whether she was utterly oblivious to the whole devious situation. Demeter liked to believe that her daughter acted without malice - a simple mistake on her part - but the only person who will ever truly know is Persephone herself. Demeter was unable to fight against the power of Persephone’s actions, so Zeus arranged an agreement - six months on Estrium, and six months in the Underworld. The Goddess of the Harvest was far from happy, but the situation was now beyond her control. She found it incredibly difficult to truly come to terms with the agreement, angry that she must share her daughter with such a “vile creature”, as she so fondly thought of Hades.