Demeter Sculpture

Demeter means ‘mother earth’. Demeter was the Greek goddess of fertility. She possessed the powers of growth and resurrection. When Demeter’s daughter, Persephone was born she was promised to her father’s brother, Hades. But Hades was impatient and abducted Persephone and took her to the world of the dead. Demeter wandered the earth distraught, looking for her lost daughter. She lost interest in all things living, the plants and animals suffered. Persephone pinned for her mother and refused to eat any food. Demeter’s husband, Zeus intervened and ruled that his brother must give up Persephone if she was unhappy to stay with him. But she had already eaten by then, and so Hades deemed that she had not completely rejected him. Therefore Persephone was allowed to divide her year equally between her mother and her husband.