DEMETER and PERSEPHONE

DEMETER and PERSEPHONE

CHAPTER 1 Lovely Persephone

The goddess Persephone was a beautiful and beloved girl.Her happy laughter rang across Olympus, the home of the ancient gods of Greece.Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest.Demeter loved her daughter and kept her nearby at all times.Mother and daughter were never apart.

When Demeter sat on her throne, her daughter sat with her.When she went down to Earth to tend her fields, Persephone went too. She danced across the meadows."I love making flowers grow," Persephone sang, and they sprang up wherever she walked.

Together, mother and daughter kept the earth green and growing.Farmers planted and reaped healthy crops.Tall trees grew, bright flowers bloomed, and juicy fruit ripened.

But alas, another loved Persephone. It was the god of the dead, Hades."I want this beautiful girl to be my queen," he said.

And so one day, Hades drove his chariot up through the earth.The ground trembled and split as the god appeared.Hades grabbed Persephone, who had wandered away from her mother, and pulled her into the chariot.

"No!" the frightened girl cried out, but it was too late.Hades turned his fierce horses, the ground closed up again, and Persephone was gone.All that remained in the meadow was a little boy crying for his lost pigs.They had tumbled into the open earth when Hades arrived, and now they were gone as well.

CHAPTER 2 Demeter's Search

Demeter quickly realized that Persephone was missing.She looked in the calm meadow where Persephone had been picking flowers,but her daughter was nowhere to be found.Demeter's search soon grew frantic. "Where is my beloved Persephone?" Demeter sobbed."What on earth has happened to her?"

Demeter searched for weeks, but no one knew where Persephone was.Grief soon changed the beautiful goddess. She became a sad old woman.Her golden hair turned gray, and her body became stooped and bent.

As Demeter changed, the earth changed with her.Trees lost their leaves, and all over, fruit and flowers died.The ground became cold and hard, and farmers could not plow it.No plants sprouted, and nothing grew.

People and animals starved and died, but the sad goddess did not care."I will never tend the earth again until my daughter returns," she vowed.Demeter wandered to the edge of the world looking for her child,but she found no sign of her lovely Persephone.

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