The Three Sisters- Demeter

Demeter- The goddess of agriculture, the harvest, fertility, marriage, and the seasons. She and her daughter Persephone were linked to the Eleusinian Mysteries and were associated as deities of life and death.

With Zeus she had Persephone, who was also called Kore. Persephone was abducted by Hades when she was with her nymphs in a field, Hades, with the permission of Zeus, took Persephone to the Underworld and made her his bride. Demeter searched for her and in her grief the grain would not grow, crops failed and the land turned barren and cold. According to one version it was Hecate who told her where Persephone was and according to another it was the all seeing Helios.
Zeus was forced to demand Persephone's return as the land was dying but Persephone had eaten of the Underworld and so was tied to it, so it was decreed that she spent half a year with Hades and half a year with her mother (according to some versions it was nine months with Demeter and three with Hades). This explained the seasons as when Demeter and Persephone were united Demeter was happy and the world reflected this in Spring and Summer but when they were apart Demeter was sad and the world was cold in her grief, Autumn and Winter (alternately Autumn was due to Demeter knowing that her daughter would soon leave her).

While searching for Persephone she found sanctuary in disguise as an old woman in the home of Celeus, the King of Eleusis. She anointed his son Demophon with ambrosia daily and burned away his mortality at night, intending to make him immortal but his mother Metanira witnessed him being burned and screamed in fright. In anger Demeter abandoned the ritual and instead taught Demophon's brother Triptolemus the art of agriculture.

Poseidon sought to have her and she fled from him in the form of a mare but he found her and raped her in the form of a stallion. The result was Despoina/Despoena a daughter who was associated with fertility and linked to the Arkadian Mysteries, her real name was unknown and sometimes she and Persephone were said to be one and the same, and a son Arion/Areion a black maned, immortal, talking stallion rode by Hercules and Adrastus.

She was linked to Carmanor/Karmanor a Cretan demigod of harvest and with him had two children- Euboulos/Eubuleus/Eubouleos/Eubolos a god of ploughing who may have been a swineherd, and Chrysothemis/Khrysothemis a god or goddess of the harvest.

Sometimes she is linked to Triptolemus who may or may not be the same one she taught agriculture. He is also given as a son of Gaia and Okeanos and was said to have fathered Amphitheus I, a demigod of panhellenic (the unity of Greece against other nations despite being made of independent states) peace, with Demeter.

She took the mortal Iasion for her lover. He was a son of Zeus and either the Pleiad Electra, or Hemerea the goddess of the day, or of Electra and her husband the mortal king Corythus. She seduced Iasion at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, Zeus guessed they had intercourse when they returned together and Demeter's back was stained in mud and he killed Iasion with a thunderbolt out of jealousy. With Demeter, Iasion fathered Plutus/Ploutos a god of wealth, described by Aristophanes as blind, lame and winged, Philomelus/Philomenus, a demigod who invented the wagon, and Korybas, another son.

Mekon was a mortal who loved Demeter or who she loved (or both) who died young and was turned into a poppy by her.

She was said to have turned Persephone's nymphs into the Sirens/Seirenes for failing to protect Persephone from Hades. Initially they were depicted as half-bird half-human or as birds with human heads before they became beautiful women with luring voices.

She punished King Erysicthon/Erisichthon by bidding the goddess of starvation Limos to plague him with an eternal hunger. This was because he cut down trees sacred to the goddess and knowingly murdered a dryad (a tree nymph). He sold his own daughter Mestra for food but her lover Poseidon gifted her with shapeshifting so that she might escape. She returned to her father who, upon realising her gift, sold her repeatedly for money for food. In the end he tried to eat himself and died.

She turned Ascalaphus/Askalaphos into a screech owl for telling the gods that Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. He was a son of the nymph Orphne and the river Acheron and looked after Hades' orchard.

Askalabos/Ascalabus was a mortal boy who angered Demeter by laughing at her great thirst, she poured the water over him and he became a gecko.

She was depicted as blonde by Homer and her symbols were the cornucopica and sheafs of grain, she was shown as a middle aged woman, crowned with a sceptre and usually in a chariot pulled by winged serpents. She is sometimes shown carrying a torch, as she did when searching for Persephone. The serpent, pig and dove were her sacred animals and the poppy, mint, barley and wheat were her sacred plants.

Her Roman counterpart was Ceres, who had twelve minor god assistants with her harvest duties. Bridal processions were headed by a young boy at night carrying a torch sacred to Ceres. She was the patron of plebeian laws. She also helped deceased souls (Di Manes) to the Underworld. She was given as a companion or mother to Liber, a Roman god viticulture, wine and fertility who became tied with Bacchus/Dionysus, and Libera a Roman goddess of fertility.