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Hera (in Rome Juno)

 

Hera´s parents were Titan Gods, Kronos and Rhea. Kronos was afraid that his children were too powerful, so he swallowed them. Rhea was able to save Zeus, one of the child and future King of the Gods, and when Zeus grew up, he forced Kronos to vomit his siblings, Hera, Hestia, Demeter, Hades and Poseidon.

Hera was the seventh and last (in some traditions only) wife of Zeus, her brother. She ruled with him as a Queen of Gods at Olympus. She is the great Goddess of Argos and Goddess of marriage and married women. She had three children with Zeus. These children are Ares, God of war, Hebe, Goddess of youth and wife of Heracles after he was raised to Olympus as a God, and Eileithuia, Goddess of childbirth. Hera also has a son Hephaistos, God of fire and metalworking, by herself.

The cult of Hera is not associated with Zeus, but almost all legends were she is presented are connected to Zeus one way or another. The greatest centers of her cult were the ancient Heraion between Argos and Mycenea and she had a magnificent temple at the island of Samos. She also had a particularly close bond with Argolid, and sometimes is even Argive Hera or Hera Argeie, and its said that her home was at Argos.

Her name is believed to mean Lady or Mistress. As the Goddess who presides over the solemnization of marriage, she was also widely honored as Hera Teleia, and she could also be invoked as Zygia or Syzygia (she who unites in marriage). At Arcadia in Stymphalos, she was worshipped at three separate temples as Girl, Wife and Widow. The first was built when she was still a young virgin, the second when she married Zeus and third when she left Zeus for awhile because they had a fight.

Hera is shown as a tall and stately figure, crowned with a sort of diadem (sometimes with accompanying veil) or wearing a wreath, and carrying a scepter. She was said to be very beautiful, although her beauty was very different from Aphrodite’s. Homer refers to her as cow-eyed. Not because she looks like a cow, but because she had close connection with cattle and white cows were sacrificed to her.

As a Goddess of married woman, she would bring help to women in childbirth, she was honored as Hera Eileithuia at Argos and Athens and is presented in myth as taking direct action to ease the birth of Eurystheus. Zeus wanted to father a great hero by Alkmene, a mortal woman, who was destined to give birth to a son that would benefit human race and also help the Gods. He wanted his son to be a king of Argos, and he boasted his plans to the other Gods. Eileithuia, Goddess of childbirth and daughter of Zeus and Hera, heard his plans and told about them to Hera. Zeus said that the first boy that would be born in the day that Heracles was to be born, was going to be a king. Hera hated that Zeus had many mistresses, and also the illegitimate children that were born from those unions, and she did not want his bastard son to become king. Fortunately for Hera also the wife of Sthenelos, king of Mycenae, was also pregnant. Hera sent her daughter Eileithuia to guard Alkmene so that his son was not to be born in time, then she went to help in birth of Eurystheus, and he was born before Heracles and because of that he got the destiny that was promised to Hercules by Zeus.

Hera was never invoked or portrayed as a mother, and she had no close connections with the children who came to be scripted to her. These are of diverse origin, and it will be noted that they were not deities of the very highest dignity. Hera was not at all kind to her malformed son Hephaistos, God of fire and metalworking. It is said that he was thrown out of heaven during his younger days. In one account Hera threw him out because she was ashamed of his deformity and when he landed in the sea below, he was rescued by Thetis, daughter of sea God Nereus and Eurynome, one of the sea-nymphs (Okeanids) and a daughter of Titan Okeanos. They sheltered him in their cave beneath the ocean for nine years. He repaid for their care and protection by fashioning all kinds of fine jewelry. Hephaistos avenged his mothers actions by sending him a golden throne that tied her when she sat on it. Other Gods tried to get Hephaistos to come home to free his mother, but he refused until Dionysos, God of wine, was able to get him drunk and then bring him back. In the end Hephaistos was accepted by other Gods, because he was magnificent in metal working and was able to create all kinds of beautiful items as well as design palaces.

Most myths about Hera fall into two groups, those that tell how she married Zeus and those of more negative nature that tell how she persecuted mistresses and illegitimate children of Zeus. In one tradition Zeus saw Hera alone, and decided to seduce her. He assumed a form of a cuckoo , and after stirring up a violent thunderstorm, he flew over to Hera as she was sitting on the mountain Pron and alighted on her lap. Feeling pity for the wet and bedraggled bird, she sheltered it under her robe, at which point Zeus returned to his original form and proceeded to make love to her. Although she resisted him at first, she yielded to him as soon as he promised to marry her. There are four notable stories about Heras wreath against mistresses and children of Zeus. One which she persecuted Leto while she was pregnant with the divine twins Artemis and Apollo by Zeus, one against Semele and her son Dionysos and his nurses, one against Io, an Argive mistress of Zeus and ofcource the most famous about her hate toward Hercules, heroic son of Heracles.

Hera tried to make Heracles life as hard as possible, usually succeeding. After the death of Heracles, Hera finally accepted him in Olympus and let him marry her daughter Hebe, Goddess of youth. In some stories Hera also adopts Heracles after he was accepted among Gods as one of them.

 

Sacred Days :

Phases of the moon dedicated to her:

Days 10-12 Dedicated to Hera queen of heaven and creatrix, representing the power of inspiration.

Festivals:

June is named after Juno (Hera) and dedicated to her.

13 November Roman festival Feronia, the Goddess of this name, along with Juno (Hera), Minerva (Athena) and Jupiter (Zeus) was worshiped.

In the Goddess calendar, that is popularized by Irish pagan group Hera´s time is 16 May to 12 June. In that time she is domain Goddess.

 

Sources:

Michael Jordan, Encyclopedia of gods 2002

Michael Senior, Who´s who in mythology 1985

Elizabeth Hallan, Mytologian Jumalat (Gods and Goddesses, 96) 1997

Nigel Pennick, the Pagan book of days 1992

Arthur Cotterell, Mytologia: Jumalia, Sankareita, Myyttejä 2005

Robin Hard, the Routledge handbook of Greek mythology 2004