Demeter in Folklore | The Faeries and Folklore Podcast

Episode 166: Irascible Immortals: Demeter

The folklore of Demeter in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Irascible Immortals series, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/my-books/the-irascible-immortals-series for more.

We’re continuing our exploration of the Immortals.

Today’s immortal: Demeter

Folklore in a Nutshell by Ronel

Demeter, daughter of the Titans Rhea and Kronos, sister to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and Hera, is best-known as the mother of Persephone. In that role, she is seen scouring the earth, looking for her daughter who had gone missing while out with a couple of nymphs. She keeps on searching, asking the other gods for help. Only Helios, the sun god at the time, told her who had taken her daughter: Hades, King of the Underworld. And, of course, Zeus was of no help. So Demeter walked the earth, bereft, and no longer helped humans with crops. Instead, weeds thrived where once grain stood. After some time of everyone grieving – and probably starving because they never had to prepare for winter – Zeus finally sent Hermes to retrieve Persephone. She had of course eating pomegranate seeds, and so can only stay with her mother for half the year. Demeter was fine with that: the ground will lie fallow until her daughter returns to her when the flowers bloom.

For a long time before things changed and people started tilling the fields and Demeter became more of a grain mother than an earth mother, the hunter-gatherers revered her as an earth mother because of the flowers and fruits she provided them. And many others still saw her that way, even after crops became the way of the world.

Of course, there is a story about Demeter that is brushed aside in favour of the one of Persephone: how she became pregnant. And it’s not a nice story. Zeus, the most famous womanizer and rapist of the ancient world, decided that it’s not enough to have Hera as his wife and any mortal woman he wants to warm his bed, he also lusted after Demeter. She continuously rebuffed his advances, even going so far as to shape-shift into various creatures to escape him. But he did finally corner and rape her. And so begot Persephone. Despite how she became pregnant, Demeter was a good mother.

And yet, there aren’t many tales about this woman who had endured so much – she is just part of the tales of others.

Origin of the Fae: Demeter

Demeter is the goddess of all growing things. And though she likes animals well-enough, it is plants that really matter to her. She can shape-shift into any form she chooses, though she prefers looking matronly to keep the lustful gaze of Zeus and his ilk away from her – for obvious reasons. She has no issue going to the Underworld to visit her daughter, though she still dislikes Hades for the way he took her girl as his queen. Unlike a lot of other immortals who have decided to retire, she is still running amok among humans who think to abuse the earth.

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