Lord of the Ghosts and Spirits
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On of the most famous mythology about Hades was the Mythology of Hades and Persephone. In this story, Hades fell in love with Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Persephone's mother had always been very strict on her, always getting mad at the male gods that tried to flirt with Persephone, her daughter. She wished that Demeter would give her freedom sometimes. One day, she was on a field picking some flowers for her mother with two nymphs called Nereids and Naiads when her mother wasn't watching her. Hades sprang out of the Earth in his chariot and kidnapped Persephone to the Underworld to be his wife (Note: This is one of the only time where Hades actually left the Underworld.) When Demeter returned and saw that her daughter wasn't there, she turned and asked the nymphs about Persephone's whereabouts, but both Nereids and Naiads simply replied that they don't know. Enraged, the goddess of harvest turned both of the nymphs into sirens, a creature with the head of a female and the body of a bird. Oblivious to what had happened to her daughter, Demeter set out on a journey to search for the missing Persephone. After nine days and nine nights of searching, she met Hekate, the deity of magic, witchcraft, spirits and crossroads, who then told her to seek her answer from Helios, the sun god. Then, after meeting Helios, he then told her that that day on the field, he didn't see anything. There was an unusual dark haze that appeared that day on the field, and it had covered his vision of the field, so he did not know what could have happened to Persephone. From that, Demeter and Hekate deduced that it was only Hades who could produced a dark haze that could covered even Helios' vision. Arriving in Mount Olympus, Demeter immediately seek Zeus' help on her daughter's matter. Zeus told her that he could help her because he had promised to give Persephone to Hades. Angered by Zeus' remark, Demeter told him that until she got her daughter back, the Earth will have to suffer a time of an uncultivated land. With the continued famine on the Earth, Zeus thought that it was time to put a stop to this situation. Sending Hermes, one of the few individuals to have to power to travel to the Underworld, the Earth, and Mount Olympus freely, to the Underworld, Zeus told his son to make sure that he bring Persephone back safely to her mother. When he arrived at the Underworld, it was already to late. Hermes was told that Persephone had ate a few seeds of pomegranate of the Underworld. It was said that if one ate the food of the Underworld, they cannot leave the Underworld. Since Persephone ate 6 seeds of pomegranate, she had to stay with Hades in the Underworld for six months, and she would stay on the Earth with her mother, Demeter, for the rest of the year.
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