Myth
Demeter, the goddess of cultivation, was scrolling through the Olympian feed on her phone during her free time. She realized Poseidon seemed to be having too much time on his hands, for he has been very active on social media lately. He has posted pictures of attending the multiple ocean cruises that have been travelling in his seas. Spring was approaching, and Demeter had to prepare for Persephone's welcome party and start growing crops. Since the snow melting causes a rise in sea levels, Demeter must be careful when providing water for her crops so that the seawater does not harm her crops. Hephaestus built a water system that helped water plants with the purest water available. However, due to the system needing a lot of energy, Hephaestus warned Demeter not to use the machine this year, for he had programmed it to go into a deep clean mode and regenerate energy so that she can use it once more. The device would have seawater in it to do a deep clean. Demeter asked Poseidon to help her with this year's growth. He agreed to help her as well, which made Demeter feel at ease. However, she was worried that Poseidon would forget about his promise with all the fun Poseidon had. She sent him a message to remind him that he would have to help her with the crops.
"Remember your promise to me, brother! I'll be waiting!"
"Of course! How could I forget about that!" Poseidon answered.
The day arrived when Poseidon had promised to help Demeter. As he was about to leave, he received a message from Dionysus, informing him that a grand party was going on in one of the ocean liners. The pictures Dionysus posted on his Olympus feed made Poseidon want to go and enjoy the party as well. Poseidon looked at the time and concluded, "Well, I guess I have a lot of time before I help Demeter. I little fun before that wouldn't hurt."
With that, he attended the party. He was too immersed in the party that he lost track of time and realized he had been late. On the other hand, Demeter was angry, for she didn't have so much time left to start planting. She waited and waited and realized Poseidon has broken his promise and would not be helping her. Due to time constraints and desperation, she used the machine gifted by Hephaestus and that ruined most of her crops. That year the cultivation did not go well, and mortals were concerned. They concluded it must be the earth going through "global warming." Poseidon's actions immensely angered Demeter, and Poseidon had no excuse for the wrong he has done.
"How dare you Poseidon lord of the sea! You have destroyed my crops on the land, and for that, I shall curse the crops under the sea! They shall suffer and face the consequences!".
Demeter's wrath was how the coral reefs became a significant factor of global warming.
Myth Analysis
The following myth is an aetiological myth on how the coral reefs and other plants under the sea are suffering because of global warming. The coral reefs are vital to ocean life. Having them be damaged can cause great danger to the earth's underwater ecosystem, which is precisely what is happening right now. The gods used in this myth were Demeter, Poseidon, Hephaestus and Dionysus. The main characters of this myth are Demeter, the goddess of cultivation (Homer, Iliad 500), and Poseidon, the lord of the sea (Hesiod, Theogony 456 ff). I felt that because the coral reef, the sea's plant life, was the focus of my myth, I thought it would make the most sense to have these two Olympians be the star of my myth. Also, I have never heard of Hephaestus and Demeter working together in any myth I have read or have never interacted much. Neither have I heard of Dionysus and Poseidon interacting with one another in a myth.
Numerous myths have more than one god's presence; however, the gods may be on opposing sides in the myth. The relationship the gods have in some myths we read is maintained in the majority of myths. Many of the aetiological myths, myths that explain why things are the way they are today, usually have more than one god involved. An example of this would be the myth of how the seasons came to be. Demeter and Hades are shown that they don't have a good relationship because Hades kidnapped Demeter's daughter (Homeric Hymns 2). This myth indicates that something was created through a conflict between gods, and that is how most aetiological myths are formed. I decided to follow this concept for my myth as well, and so in my myth, Demeter and Poseidon had a conflict which led to Demeter cursing the plant life in the sea.
In this myth, I decided to try to make certain gods that don't commonly interact with each other interact. Therefore, I made Hephaestus, the god of metalwork and structure, build a functional machine for Demeter. He is known to make many machines that have helped the heroes complete their tasks in some myths (Iliad. xvii, 370). Since Demeter is the goddess of cultivation, she may not be a big fan of machines and technology, basically Hephaestus' specialty. So naturally, people would assume that they may not get along. Demeter and Hephaestus are in charge of different fields as well, and this could be why there are not many works that have Demeter and Hephaestus interacting. I wanted to take a different path and prove that both Demeter and Hephaestus could work together even with their differences. That is why I made this myth show a positive relationship between Demeter and Hephaestus. I also decided that Hephaestus should be given an important role, as he was the one that made the machine because he wasn't as appreciated in the myths (Odyssey. xviii, 370)
I also made Dionysus keep Poseidon updated with all the parties that were going on. In the original myths, Dionysus is known to be the one that ends people's grief with wine; therefore, it seemed fit that he would be the one that informs Poseidon of all the parties (Bacchae, 772). Also, Poseidon and Dionysus, the god of wine, madness, and partying, have rarely had significant interactions in the myths that I have heard. Therefore, having Poseidon and Dionysus interact and having Dionysus unintentionally distract Poseidon from his work seemed to be a great way of constructing this myth. I chose Dionysus because, naturally, his specialty being wine and sanity; he appeared to be the person most fit for distracting someone important in their society. As usual, alcohol and wine are symbols of getting away from reality. Poseidon was getting away from his responsibility of helping Demeter, which was a big task because he wanted to party; hence, he was distracted. Also, Poseidon is said to attend many parties in this myth, so Dionysus appeared to be the best person he could attend those parties with.
Usually, myths that have unpleasant endings are because the gods were too prideful, jealous, or they would be too careless and make a mistake. The more powerful gods, such as the big three, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, are usually the ones that mess up. The famous myth of Medusa is that Medusa was a beautiful woman who caught the eyes of Poseidon. Poseidon and Athena were never on good terms, so Poseidon met up with Medusa at Athena's temple to humiliate Athena. This angered Athena, and so she turned Medusa into a monster (Ovid. Metamorphoses, 4.770). This incident occurred because of Poseidon, and he was ignorant by bringing Medusa into his plans and having ruined her life just because he wanted to anger Athena. He unintentionally ruined Medusa's life. This myth was created to follow that ideology as the god in the wrong was Poseidon, a god considered one of the big three. In this myth, Poseidon was the person to mess up. Although he had genuinely forgotten his promise and unintentionally messed with the harvest schedule, his mistakes still caused Demeter to be angry and curse the coral reefs.
In this myth, Demeter is asking for the help of Poseidon. Poseidon was made to help in this myth because the more powerful gods usually help the other gods in other myth forms. This pattern has been shown in many modern myths, and I decided to incorporate it in mine. For example, in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the author Rick Riordan has shown multiple instances where the gods required another god's help to achieve certain things. One specific example from the series would be from the last book, The Last Olympian. In this book, most of the gods had to defeat the monster Typhon. Typhon was a mighty monster, and the gods were having a challenging time. Poseidon had not joined them in the beginning because he was fighting his own battle underwater. However, Poseidon decided that he should be helping his family above and when he came to help, they were able to defeat Typhon (Last Olympian, Riordan). Such that, due to the fact Demeter would not be able to use the machine to grow her plants, she asked for Poseidon for help.
As this had to be a modern myth, modern elements were needed in the myth as well. The machine that helped Demeter with growing her plants was a modern element for technology is available in the modern world that helps with plant growth. Hephaestus is the god of metalwork, and sculpture would make a machine for this purpose. Social media is a big part of modern society, so I thought it would be nice to have that in this myth. The way news spreads and information is passed on in today's society is through social media. Problems have been created and solved via social media, so it seemed to be an excellent way for Demeter to track Poseidon and have her anger be fueled to the point where she had cursed the ocean plants. The mortals were then to be blamed for being why the coral reefs are dying, causing a lot of harm to ocean life.
Rick Riordan also inspired me to add the use of social media in my myth. In the series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rick Riordan made it so that the demigods could not use cellphones for that would cause them harm. The monsters would be able to find their location through wireless signals (Last Olympian, Riordan). The fact that social media is a big part of almost everyone's life – especially during a pandemic - made social media's presence in the myth make sense. As in the original myths, it has been recorded that Hermes was usually the god that sends messages from god to god; however, that seemed to be old school, and Hermes could be the one managing the Olympian feed (Orphic Hymn 28).
This myth also implies that the god's powers advance through the ages. Hermes' Olympian feed is one example of how his job went from being a physical messenger to handling all the wireless communications behind the screen. Demeter is now relying on machines for plant growth and cultivation. This was something that Rick Riordan had incorporated in his books as well.
In the original myth from the Homeric Hymns 2, the goddess Demeter is shown as a caring mother who's stubborn and has a short temper as she had her problems with Hades when he took Persephone (Homeric Hymns 2). This caused her to stop cultivating for six months which caused the season to come into existence. Demeter has the same fiery temper in this myth, which caused her to curse the ocean's plant life and caused the doom of the ocean's health.
Bibliography
1. Homer. Iliad, v 500. Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
2. Homer. Iliad xiv, 156; xv,187 ff; Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
3. Homeric Hymns 2 Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
4. Homer. Iliad. xviii, 370 ff Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
5. Euripides Bacchae, 772. Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
6. Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 770 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) Theoi Project. https://www.theoi.com
7. Odyssey viii, 311, 330. Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
8. Orphic Hymn 28 to Hermes (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) Theoi project. https://www.theoi.com
References
Venditti, R., Collar, O., Dodé, A., & Riordan, R. (2019). The last Olympian. In The last Olympian (pp. 170-171). Los Angeles, California: Disney-Hyperion.
Venditti, R., Collar, O., Dodé, A., & Riordan, R. (2019). The last Olympian. In The last Olympian (pp. 330-332). Los Angeles, California: Disney-Hyperion.
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