A Quick and Biased Guide to Greek Mythology

Greek Mythology: What it is, what it means and why it matters

This is a companion piece to my “Bluffer’s Guides” to the ancient world, but also to my retelling of the myth of Persephone, which should be published simultaneously with this piece (link to be posted soon, I promise). Because I don’t actually study mythology in itself, I can’t really go into the same detail here as in my little guides, but never fear, you’ll find the same style and the same sorts of things pointed out for you. What you won’t find here is a “who’s who” of gods, heroes or monsters (I might do one eventually but that will take a while). Instead, I’m going to talk about the significance of Greek myths, and I’m probably going to do it in a slightly rambling way, you’ll just have to forgive me that. Since this designed as a sister-article to the Persephone story, I’ll be focusing my attentions on that particular myth and the creatures and settings within it. Not familiar with it? Well if you fancy a bit of Grecian romance, pop over to authspot and read my version. If you’re feeling too lazy to endure my getting my bard on, quick summary: Hades god of the Underworld abducts and marries Persephone, a fertility goddess. Her mother, Demeter, is distraught when she can’t find her and scours the world looking for her, neglecting her duties and letting the world fall into famine. She finally founds out who took her daughter and goes to see Zeus, king of the gods, to try and sort it all out. Zeus doesn’t want to upset either of them, so he tells Demeter that if Persephone hasn’t eaten anything from Hades’ garden, she can go back up to the earth. But it turns out Persephone has eaten six pomegranate seeds (some versions of the story say that Hades tricked her, others just imply it was a mistake). Demeter goes back to Zeus and begs for a compromise, so Zeus rules that since Persephone ate six seeds she must spend six months in the Underworld and six months on earth, and when she’s on earth Demeter lets the crops grow and we call it “summer” and when she’s in the Underworld, Demeter mourns and it becomes “winter”. (Yes I said in a paragraph what I spent thousands of words on, I know, but that’s what description and dialogue are for!)