Persephone Altar Cloth

Daughter of Demeter, Persephone is the goddess of spring, growth, and is Queen of the Underworld. In her most famous myth, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and forcibly made her bride. Her mother, Demeter, went on an epic quest to rescue her daughter, and in act of defiance, refused to let the plants of the earth to bear a bounty until her daughter was returned.

Eventually, a deal was struck since Zeus saw the earth would suffer until Persephone was returned. Persephone was led back to the land of the living by Hecate's twin torches. However, since Persephone ate food of the Underworld (a fistful of Pomegranate seeds) which bound her to the land of the dead, and she was now Hades' wife, she was forced to remain half the year in the Underworld as part of the agreement.

And so, the world dies every autumn as Demeter mourns her daughter's departure, but blooms to life in the spring when Persephone returns. Despite the myth of her kidnapping, Persephone and Hades are one of the only examples of faithful monogamy in the Greek Pantheon and Persephone rules the Underworld with Hades as his equal. Modern retellings of Persephone's myth paint her as a young girl trying to escape an overbearing mother, flipping the script on the traditional tale of a mother mourning the premature loss of her daughter. To learn more about Persephone, read our blog post!