Demeter (pronounced /dɨˈmiːtər/; Greek: Δημήτηρ, lit. "Earth-Mother" from the Doric Dā form of Greek De "Earth" and Meter "Mother". Or possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth *dheghom *mater, also called simply Δηώ), in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of grain and fertility, the pure. Nourisher of the youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacr...
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Demeter (pronounced /dɨˈmiːtər/; Greek: Δημήτηρ, lit. "Earth-Mother" from the Doric Dā form of Greek De "Earth" and Meter "Mother". Or possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth *dheghom *mater, also called simply Δηώ), in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of grain and fertility, the pure. Nourisher of the youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, dated to about the seventh century BC. she is invoked as the "bringer of seasons", a subtle sign that she was worshipped long before she was made one of the Olympians. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the Olympian pantheon.
Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.
Demeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. The goddess's epithets reveal the span of her functions in Greek life. Demeter and Kore ("the maiden") are usually...
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