2- According with the myths, Zeus disguised himself as a bird to seduce Hera. During a rainy day, the goddess gave shelter to the small creature and did not notice it was the god himself. She got very attached to it. 3- Even then, she did not give in that easily – it took 300 years to accept his proposal. Mythology refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths—their body of stories which they tell to explain nature, history, and customs. It can also refer to the study of such myths. A myth is a story which is not true. It means it is still subject to debate.Myths may be very old, or new (for example: urban myths). Many connected stories from Greek mythology. We'll start with story of Hades and Persephone, and learn why she's always hanging around the underworld (hint: it's not because she wants to). Then, I'll tell the story of the curse of the house of Atreus, starting with Tantalus and his questionable food choices. Hera is the main antagonist in the first season of the Blood of Zeus. As the Queen of the Heavens and wife to Zeus, Hera commands great power and respect. Unable to tolerate her husband's infidelities anymore, Hera ignites a civil war amongst the Pantheon.
Hera, Queen of the Gods
The mythical story of Hera, Queen of the Gods
by Caroline H. Harding and Samuel B. Harding
The Myth of Hera, Queen of the Gods
The wife of Zeus was the tall and beautiful goddess Hera. As Zeus was the king of all the gods, so she was their queen. She sat beside him in the council-hall of the gods, on a throne only a little less splendid than his own. She was the greatest of all the goddesses, and was extremely proud of her own strength and beauty.
Hera chose the peacock for her favorite bird, because its plumage was so beautiful. The goddess Iris was her servant and messenger, and flew swiftly through the air upon her errands. The rainbow, which seemed to join heaven and earth with its beautiful arch, was thought to be the road by which Iris traveled.
Here was not only proud of her own beauty, but she was also very jealous of the beauty of any one else. She would even punish women that she thought were too beautiful, as if they had done something very wrong; she often did this by changing them into animals or birds. There was one woman whom Hera changed into the form of a savage bear, and turned out to wander in the forest because she hated her beautiful face. The poor creature was terribly frightened among the fierce animals of the woods; for although she herself now had the form of a beast, her soul was still human. At last Zeus, who was kinder of heart than Hera, took pity upon her. He lifted her far above the earth, and placed her among the stars of heaven; and so, ever after that, the Greeks called one group of stars the Great Bear.
Picture of Hera, Queen of the Gods
There was once a wood-nymph named Echo, who deceived Hera, and so made her very angry. Echo was a merry, beautiful girl, whose tongue was always going, and who was never satisfied unless she could have the last word. As a punishment for her deception, Hera took away her voice, leaving her only the power to repeat the last word that should be spoken to her. Echo now no longer cared to join her companions in their merry games, and so wandered through the forests all alone. But she longed to talk, and would often hide in the woods, and repeat the words of hunters and others who passed that way.
At last she learned to take delight in puzzling and mocking the people who listened to her.
'Who are you?' they would shout at her.
'You,' would come her answer.
'Then, who am I?' they would ask, still more puzzled.
'I,' Echo would answer in her sweet, teasing manner.
One day Echo met in the woods a young man named Narcissus, and loved him. But he was very unkind, and would take no notice of her except to tease her for the loss of her voice. She became very unhappy, and began to waste away from grief, until at last there was nothing left of her but her beautiful mocking voice.
When the gods found what had happened to the lovely Echo they were very angry. To punish Narcissus for his unkindness, they changed him from a strong young man to a weak, delicate flower, which is now always called by his name.
The Legend and Myth about Hera, Queen of the Gods
Hera Stories And Myths
Myths About Hera Greek Goddess
Hera hated the great hero Heracles since he was the son of her husband Zeus and a mortal woman. When he was still an infant, she sent snakes to attack him in his crib. Later she stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests. On the other hand, Hera aided the hero Jason, who would never have retrieved the Golden Fleece without her sponsorship. In Greek mythology, Hera was the reigning female goddess of Olympus because she was Zeus's wife. But her worship is actually far older than that of her husband. It goes back to a time when the creative force we call 'God' was conceived of as a woman. The Goddess took many forms, among them that of a bird. Hera was worshipped throughout Greece, and the oldest and most important temples were consecrated to her. Her subjugation to Zeus and depiction as a jealous shrew are mythological reflections of one of the most profound changes ever in human spirituality. Tens of thousands of years ago, as the evidence of cave art and artifacts makes clear, humanity was focused on the female body, either pregnant or fit to bear children. Childbirth was the closest humans came to the great power that caused the earth to bring forth new life in the spring. To the extent that these distant ancestors of ours were evolved enough to think of worshipping this power, we may safely conclude that they thought of it as female. Thousands of years later (and some five to nine thousand years before our own time), the European descendants of these people lived in large villages, with specialized crafts and religious institutions. It is clear from the artifacts they left behind that they worshipped a power (or a group of powers) that came in many forms--a bird, a snake, perhaps the earth itself. And this great power was female. For the human female has the ability to procreate--to bring forth new life. It is said that it was only when humanity discovered man's role in procreation that male gods began to be worshipped. There is no reason to doubt, though, that male gods were worshipped before the mystery of birth was fully known. In all probability the greatest powers were thought of as female but there were male deities as well. And it is clear that even after procreation was properly understood, the more peaceful Europeans--perhaps down to the 'Minoans' of Crete--continued to worship the Great Mother. And there were many peaceful Europeans. Many of the largest villages of that distant era were unfortified. The culture known as 'Old European' did not fear aggression from its neighbors. But then things changed and a great period of violence began. Invaders swept into Europe from the vast central plains of Asia. They brought the Indo-European language family that today includes French, Italian, Spanish and English. They also brought a sky god, the supreme male deity that in Greek mythology became known as Zeus. Little is known of these early Indo-Europeans, but the peaceful settlements of Old Europe were no match for them. In some places their new culture became supreme, in others there was merger. Hardier mountain folk resisted, though many were displaced from their strongholds, moved on and displaced others in a domino effect. The Dorian invasion of Mycenaean Greece can be seen as a result of this chain reaction. The old order seems to have held out longest on Crete where, protected by the Aegean Sea from invasion by land, the high Minoan civilization survived until almost three thousand years ago. Abruptly, then, from the perspective of human existence, the gender of the greatest power changed from female to male. And many of the stories that form the basis of Greek mythology were first told in their present form not long after the shift. Zeus's many adulterous affairs may derive from ceremonies in which the new sky god 'married' various local embodiments of the Great Goddess. That there was some insecurity on the part of the supplanter god and his worshippers is seen in the mythological birth of Athena from Zeus's head--as if to say that the sky god could do anything any Great Goddess could do. This Goddess continued to be worshipped in some form down into historical times. Her worship is sometimes dismissed as a 'fertility cult', largely because religious practices degenerated under new influences. But we may look for traces in the myths of the old order, in which Athena, whose name is pre-Greek, was the Goddess herself. Under the influence of the Indo-Europeans, this bird goddess became the chief deity of war. Her earlier guise may be glimpsed in Athena's symbol, the owl, which derives from the preceding thousands of years of sacred bird imagery. |