Demeter, the goddess of the crops and harvest, and Zeus, the king of the gods, had a daughter, Persephone. One day whilePersephone was gathering wild flowers she was abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld where the dead live. Demeter went off to complain to Zeus, who was not only Persephone's father but Demeter and Hades' brother. Zeus refused to intervene, so Demeter withdrew from her role as goddess. Without her no crops could grow, and the resulting famine threatened the extinction of the human race.
Eventually Zeus said that Hades would have to let Persephone go. When Persephone was reunited with her mother, Demeter asked if she had eaten anything while she was in the underworld. Persephone admitted she had eaten a pomegranate seed. Because of this, she now spends one-third of each year in the underworld as the wife of Hades, and two-thirds of the year with her mother. While Persephone is in the underworld, her mother mourns and refuses to allow crops to grow until she gets her daughter back again.
This myth obviously explains the yearly cycle of growth, harvest, and winter.
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