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Demeter was not affected by the seasons, she affected the seasons.

As the story goes, Demeter had a daughter named Kore or Persephone (Greek and Roman respectively). Anyway, her beautiful daughter attracted the attention of Hades, Lord of the Underworld. One day while Kore was out picking flowers, he broke through the earth and kidnapped her and carried her away to the underworld in his chariot.

Demeter searched for her daughter, but to no avail. While she searched and cried, she neglected the earth (she was the goddess of harvests and fertility) and the field's dried up, crops failed and people starved.

Finally, Zeus sent Mercury to Hades to retrieve Kore, because as God of Gods he knew where she was and he couldn't see the people of earth suffer because of Demeter's neglect any longer.

Mercury could bring Kore back, but not fully as she had consumed 6 seeds of a pomegranet grown in the underworld. Because she had consumed it's food, she could not leave it entirely. A compromise was reached in which Kore could return to her mother for 6 months of the year but must remain as Queen of the Underworld for the other 6 months.

The six months she spends with her mother, are the growing and harvesting months for us (late spring until early autumn) when the last wheat is cut from the field (Demeter's sacred crop), Kore must return to the Underworld and Demeter mourns once again and neglects the fields, thus we have winter.

Check out the Related Link for an excellent retelling of this myth. j

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16y ago

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