Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Now everyone knows that Zeus was a womanizer, and had fathered so many children. That is why we have all the movies such as Hercules and Clash of the Titans and etc. Ok back to Persephone. Now she was fathered by Zeus with Demeter even though Zeus was married to Hera. Just like Zeus, his brother Poiseidon was also a womanizer and poor Hedes, being the king of the underworld, had no opportunity to womanize anyone at all! And he was furious! How could life be that unfair to him? So he confronted Zeus about this. Being the sly Zeus, he promised Hades the fairest maiden ever - Persephone, if Hades could just stayed put in the underworld. Happy and satisfied, Hades went back to his kingdom and waited for his new bride - Persephone, all the time not knowing that she was still a little girl. So he waited and waited and waited for many many years.
When Persephone was 18, only day she was having fun in the beautiful flower meadows field when suddenly she was snatched by Hades and brought back to his kingdom. Now one of the main rules to get a living stayed in the underworld forever was to have that person have a bite of the underworld food. So Hades tricked Persephone to have a bite on the pomegranate seeds. So finally he got his beautiful wife and Persephone was crowned as the queen of the underworld.
This should ends the myth but being Greeks, there are always twists to the stories. Now in this case, Demeter was shocked and was in agony when she found out about Persephone because her husband, Zeus, apparently never told her about his pact with Hedes. Demeter decided to save Persephone from Hedes with the help of other Gods. She found Persephone finally but went in tears when she knew about her having tasted the underworld food and she knew she will never see Persephone again. Now, Demeter was a very beautiful Goddess and she was the God of Harvesting. She refused to return to the ground without her daughter and hence the world could not bear any fruits or harvest crops without her.
Zeus knew this time he was the culprit. So he went to Hades to make another deal. At the end Persephone was allowed to go back to the ground and stay with Demeter for 6 months, before returning back to the underworld. Hence, when Persephone was with Demeter, Demeter will be in such an excellent mood that flowers, fruits and crops will bloomed and harvest beautifully. Once Persephone was gone, Demeter will go back to her agony self and all the flowers stop blooming and harvest stopped. The world was covered will glooms and everything lost its colors. And hence, this is how the world began its very first 4 seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. All because of the great love of a mother for her child.
Apparently, this year, for some unknown reason, Hades must have kept Persephone deep in the underworld kingdom and Demeter must have been heart wrecked! That is why, spring still did not show up in the world, until now. Snows were still falling around the globe and the weather have been chilly still... Where is Persephone now?
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