calmSo.. for our bit of random mythology, who would like to know the origion of Hephaestus?
If not you - I'll have something for you tomorrow, and you can stop reading now. ;)
For the rest of ya'll --
He was the son of Hera, produced according to Hesiod, without a mate. Other writers believed that Zeus was his father. He was the smith and metal-founder of the gods, and his worship was sometimes believed to have originated on the birthern Aegan Islands of Lemnos, which contained a volcano on Mount Moschylus. He was also worshipped in Caria and Lycia in Asia Minor. His cult later spread to the volcanic regions of the west, Etna in Sicily, the Lipari Islands, and Campania in which Vesuvius ( Of Pompeii fame. ) is situated. He seems orginally to have been a volcanic diety.
Hephaestus was twice flung out of Olympus. First of all, when he ws born, Hera was offended by the sight of her ugly, deformed child ( He was lame) and threw him out. The infant fell into the ocean, where Thetis and Eurynome the Oceanid found him and brought him up for nine years in their cave, unknown to the gods or Hera. It was here that he learnt his arts. He fashioned a golden throne for his mother and sent it to her; but he had concealed in it a trap whereby to gain his revenge, for when she sat on the throne she was imprisoned and none of the gods could help her. Hephaestus was invited to come to Olympus, where the other gods pleaded with him to release her. He refused, until Dionysus, whom he trusted, made him drunk, and wheedled the key to the device out of him. According to a variant story, Hephaestus sent sandals to the gods, but those he sent to Hera were adamantine ones which caused her to fall flat on her face.
Hehe. She deserved it. *nod*