Episode 281: Hephaestus
/Next time you’re buying pottery or some cool jewelry, remember that Hephaestus is to thank for that and SO much more. Learn how the Greeks did Hephaestus dirty, and how he’s even cooler than you even knew.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of ableism, eugenics, illness, abuse, the military/war, violence, sex, pregnancy/birth, and sexual assault/rape.
Resources for Disability research: Disability Visibility Project, Alice Wong, Amanda Leduc, Sara Deris, Haley R. Graham, Jay Dolmage, and Dr. William Ebenstein.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends Old Enough on Netflix.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out The Newest Olympian: Join Mike Schubert, a first-time PJO reader, on his quest to find out if Percy Jackson is the YA series we should’ve been reading all along! Search for The Newest Olympian in your podcast app or go to thenewestolympian.com to start listening!
Sponsors
- Blueland creates everyday eco-friendly cleaning productions that save you money and space, without any plastic waste. Get 20% off your first order when you go to blueland.com/spirits.
- ThirdLove is on a mission to find a perfect bra for everyone. Get 15% off your first order at thirdlove.com/spirits.
- BetterHelp is a secure online counseling service. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/spirits
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And this is Episode 281: Hephaestus, as part of our Itt's All Greek To Me finally fulfilling the promise of Spirits Podcast by Spirits Podcast series.
JULIA: I feel like there should be a colon somewhere in there. I feel like we messed up by not having colon somewhere.
AMANDA: It's All Greek To Me, 'colon'. I just didn't say the word colon because I feel like I don't know some part of me is a 12-year-old in my seventh grade English classroom reading Shakespeare and mispronouncing a word and everyone laughs at me. Did that happen? Yes. In my 30 now, yes. And is it still with me? You know it.
JULIA: I remember if it makes you feel better, I remember saying a word that I had never heard out loud before. But it only read to a guy that I had a crush on and I said instead of ethereal, I said urethral.
AMANDA: That's pretty good. Julia. Actually, that makes me feel a lot better. Thank you.
JULIA: Okay. Great, great, great. So it's not just this podcast, I mess up words all the time.
AMANDA: Listen, it happens especially I think for bookish kids like us, like we you know, much of our playdates we're reading silently in the same room-
JULIA: That's true.
AMANDA: My socializing as a kid was reading. And sometimes you read a word, you're 30 and you you hear it out loud, and you're like, oh, that's how that works.
JULIA: Yeah, you know what? I feel like that was a lot of like, kids experience in that way. And I feel like, you know, in general, like, we shouldn't feel ashamed about that.
AMANDA: No!
JULIA: Just because we read words instead of hearing them in our real life. Like, that's not anything to be ashamed about.
AMANDA: There are many, many 1000s of words out there and that's only if you speak one language.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. You know, who I think would be on our side in this argument?
AMANDA: Who?
JULIA: Hephaestus.
AMANDA: Oh, tell me all about him.
JULIA: So Hephaestus is the god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, artisans, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes.
AMANDA: Oh my god, what a lineup.
JULIA: It's a whole lot. Amanda, give me who you're picturing when I describe that person to you.
AMANDA: I guess I'm kind of picturing like a romance novel cover model a little bit brawny a little bit, you know, maybe a longer hair. Brunette for some reason, these are the Greeks and maybe maybe he's blonde, but I guess I'm picturing somebody who's like stereotypically strong.
JULIA: Yeah. And I feel like that's probably a good indication of like, yeah, you have to be strong to wield a hammer and to be an armorer and all of that kind of thing. And like Hephaestus is very much that image that you kind of described there. So he's often portrayed as this quote-unquote, vigorous man in a beard. He's typically holding some kind of crafting tool or hammer. He's wearing an oval cap and a lot of depictions of him and notably in art and sculpture. He's depicted as having curved feet, walking with the aid of a walking stick, and even in some myths, being a wheelchair user having invented and built that for himself.
AMANDA: We stan a disabled cane. Yes, Hephaestus!
JULIA: We do- we do indeed, the problem is Ancient Greece did not really stan a disabled King. So now we have to have like a hard conversation about the way that Ancient Greece depicts disability totally. So there are a lot of smarter people who have focused on disability studies, that's obviously not my area of expertise. And they have particularly looked at the relationship between Ancient Greece and disability. So a couple of resources that I looked into for this episode included works from Sara Deris, Haley R. Graham, Jay Dolmage, and Dr. William Ebenstein, just to name a few.
AMANDA: Amazing. I can't wait to read the citations.
JULIA: So to start with, let's talk about how disability was viewed in Ancient Greece. One of the terms that was used for disabled people was adýnato, which could be loosely translated as disabled but also as the literal translation, which is not possible or when referring to a person as an adjective, unable. This, when used in the cultural context of the majority of Ancient Greece refers to a category of people who could not engage in military or government affairs because of illness and disability. Now, a lot of times we tend to talk about Ancient Greece as kind of this like monolith. But we've also discussed on the show that the various city-states had distinct cultures as well.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: For example, there was a great difference between how Sparta viewed and treated disabled people compared to Athens. Both societies were incredibly ableist, let's be clear, but took kind of different approaches to how they viewed disability. So for the Spartans, disability was something that they like, quote, unquote, had to overcome, especially in battle, which is pretty terrible when you think about that, and in Sparta, like to not participate in the military was viewed as a reason to be shunned by society.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: For the Athenians, by contrast, they provided some like welfare for those who were disabled and were unable to serve in the military, but their ableism was more rooted in the idea of those like Greek ideals, mostly the idea that like if you were beautiful, you were there for a good person and if you were quote-unquote ugly that meant you were evil or bad.
AMANDA: Yeah, man eugenics has roots as deep as human society in some ways.
JULIA: Sure does. Sure does. As an aside, Amanda, you might be wondering or the listeners might be wondering, we have all these gods we have all these other gods. Why is it that have Hephaestus as the blacksmith or craftsman god? Why is he the one who is portrayed as someone with a disability? This is a great question because it boils down to one of my favorite things in history and anthropology, which is folk memory.
AMANDA: Ooh, let's do it.
JULIA: Follow me on this one have Festus is a God who began to be worshipped in the Iron Age and beyond as most of the Olympians were. However, before the Iron Age was the Bronze Age, and while a lot of progress was made in metalworking in these two periods. Metalworking during the Bronze Age was extremely dangerous because working with bronze required also working with arsenic, which we know, not great.
AMANDA: [dissent] No, no.
JULIA: As we learned from that one play that we had to read in freshman drama, arsenic, not great.
AMANDA: Yeah, it might help you care for your old lace, but isn't worth it.
JULIA: Arsenic was added to copper to kind of create this more resilient form of bronze and many Bronze Age smiths kind of developed, either, what we would now realize is skin cancer, or neuropathy as a result of their work. So when the Greeks kind of created this image of a disabled metal worker, or smith, what they were doing in some respect, is remembering a period of time where working with metal would often lead to some form of disability.
AMANDA: And it doesn't escape my notice that probably a lot of these advances and a lot of the work and funding that these artisans would use to fund their lives is in service of the military. And so it really kind of points to how disabled bodies are viewed in the past, and certainly by some societies now and people as fodder or like an acceptable kind of side effect for being a tool of the state like yeah, you know, there's going to be some amount of you know, like, it'll- it'll happen, we don't care for those people in order to change our societal ideals to make sure that the things that we value include everybody in our state, but you know, it serves the military. So like, whatever.
JULIA: That is a great point, Amanda, and something that we're going to talk about a little bit later is kind of Hephaestus' exile, and then being welcomed back into the arms of the Olympians, but the role that he had to play in order to be welcomed back. So you are as always right on the money.
AMANDA: Well, I can't wait to learn.
JULIA: So regardless of like, where this like folk memory image of Hephaestus comes from, it doesn't really change the ableist views that kind of permeate the Ancient Greek tales that we tell on the show. So as we kind of begin to dive into the stories of Hephaestus, that is something that we have to keep in mind that there's a bias that kind of colors, these tales. So with that context, let's get into the story of Hephaestus his birth, and who he is.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: There are two tails on the birth of Hephaestus. They're similar but also different and do kind of reflect how he's viewed in various society. So Hestia tells a tale about how jealous of Zeus for being able to give birth to Athena without her, Hera gives birth to her Festus on her own as well without Zeus' involvement.
AMANDA: Right on.
JULIA: In this version of the story, Hephaestus is born with his disability, and seeing that he is not quote-unquote, perfect like the other gods, Hera tosses Hephaestus from the heavens.
AMANDA: Classical Olympians, unfortunately, something that doesn't really raise an eyebrow for me.
JULIA: So he falls into the sea and is then adopted by Thetis and Eurynome who care for him, these are two like ocean nymphs. Thetis for example is the mother of Achilles.
AMANDA: I now code Julia, all kinds of water nymphs and creatures as queer in my mind-
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: -after our episode on mermaids and so like classic queer and disabled activists coming together, like Captain Planet, to, you know, break societal bounds together, because there's no liberation of one of us about all of us.
JULIA: Absolutely. Hell yeah. So these two take care of him. In another version of the tale, it was Zeus that tossed Hephaestus from the heavens off of Olympus. Either because Hephaestus attempted to protect Hera from the advances of Zeus or because Zeus in his frustration that Hera had succeeded in bearing a child without him, tosses him.
AMANDA: Patriarchy, Julia it's all in the soup. We're all swimming in the soup of patriarchy, baby!
JULIA: Truly, we are. So when he is thrown from the mountain, it was said that he fell for an entire day and then landed on the Island of Lemnos. The later poets claim that Hephaestus is disability was a result of this fall while earlier poets like Homer claimed that he had his disability from birth. When on the Island of Lemnos in this tale, Hephaestus was taken in by the Cynthians, who were this ancient people of Lemnos and they were the ones that taught him craftsmanship and like how to work a hammer and metalwork and all of that. And so this is the origin of why he became the God of Craftsmen.
AMANDA: And is there a somatic tie in to crafting his own mobility aid?
JULIA: Yes, I mean, later on that is something that he is famous for, because not only is it a mobility aid, but it also shows his handicraft to the other gods, which I think is extremely cool. So there's actually a great poem because, you know, we love poetry corner-
AMANDA: Yes!
JULIA: -especially in these Greek episodes from Milton, who retells how Zeus in this case refers to him as Jove, threw Hephaestus from Olympus. So it goes:
JULIA: "...thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day, and with the setting sun Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, th’ Aegaean isle."
AMANDA: Wow. And of course, summer days are the longest available to us. And so the really the sort of poetic emphasis here on how long he fell.
JULIA: A real real long time, from dusk till dawn, it basically feels like.
AMANDA: Not a mere winter's day, Giulia got an extra like, you know, six to eight hours depending on where you are in the world, summers day.
JULIA: That is true. Yeah, so he felt for a very long time.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And Milton really catches that imagery, which I think is really cool. I also like the image of him as a falling star coming to earth because there is a lot of like, interesting dichotomy between like falling stars and comets, and these being like foretelling of either something great or something terrible coming.
AMANDA: True.
JULIA: Depending on the story of his birth that we choose to believe, Hephaestus is either born with a disability or is disabled later in life. Unfortunately, Hephaestus' original banishment, regardless of the story reinforces this kind of ableism that is common in ancient Greek culture, specifically, like what we talked about before these Athenian values of quote, beauty, and perfection.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: Where he is born of Hera alone, she is basically like ashamed of his disability and that is why he's banished from Olympus. And additionally, the story is often framed as Hephaestus, his disability being a punishment to Hera because she attempted to give birth on her own which we can all agree is super harmful implication and also implies that disabled people are burdens on abled people, which is just not the case.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: So regardless of which story we choose to believe for Hephaestus is dispelling from Olympus, he does eventually return to Olympus otherwise he wouldn't be an Olympian, you know? So we've talked about one of the versions of the story where we discussed Aphrodite and Hephaestus' marriage in the Aphrodite episode, which is The Golden Throne. As you might remember, Hephaestus gifts a golden throne to Hera. Older versions of this tale portray this as actually a revenge tale against Hera as Hephaestus blamed her for rejecting him and so Hephaestus gives her this magical golden throne which Hera loves obviously, it's beautiful, and when she goes to sit on it, she is either bound to the chair or is magically unable to stand again. So in the story that we told before, Hephaestus only agrees to release Hara if she allows him to marry Aphrodite, but there is another version of this tale where Hephaestus just refuses point blank to release Hera claiming that he quote, had no mother when the other gods begged him to return to Olympus and free her.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: Which, you know, I can understand that frustration, certainly.
AMANDA: Definitely. Yeah.
JULIA: In this version of the tale where he is like, I'm not coming back to Olympus, I'm not going to free Hera. Fuck that. Dionysus, our boy the god of wine is sent to appeal to Hephaestus because Dionysus for whatever reason is the only one that Hephaestus will trust.
AMANDA: I would also trust the guy who always shows up with wine in his hand like that's- that's a good way to endear yourself
JULIA: Exactly, and in this case, Dionysus manages to get Hephaestus to return because he gets him drunk on wine and then he brings the now pliant Hephaestus back to Olympus on the back of a donkey.
AMANDA: Oh, I mean, okay.
JULIA: And because Dionysus is the god of revelers, it's quite a procession like he has people like dancing like singing and having a great time all the way back to Olympus.
AMANDA: Dionysus is like, "Are we going to the club?" Dionysus is like, "Just just hold on, bro."
JULIA: The best club, Olympus!
AMANDA: Ugh!
JULIA: So once he's brought back to Olympus he releases Hera and the gods welcome him among the ranks being like, "That was a cool chair you made pretty tight, man. Do you want to like make us some other shit?"
AMANDA: I mean, again, so classic, so unfortunate that disabled people have to sort of doubly prove worth or be useful to somebody in some way as a fucked up view of like overcoming something that doesn't have to be overcome it you know, it's neutral. It's them and that sucks.
JULIA: Yeah. So once he is welcomed back the Hephaestus is an extremely respected god among the Pantheon and we recently covered Ares and Ares is the opposite of that, not respected whatsoever.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: We appreciate that he is being respected for his skill set.
AMANDA: I'm sorry that he had to, you know, become a god's level craftsman in order for people to take him seriously, but I'm glad that they do.
JULIA: Yeah, absolutely. But he becomes the armorer of the gods which we talked about a little bit before, Amanda, when you were making such great points about like, as long as he's like working for the state or working for the military, he has some value. Anyway, he becomes the armorer of the gods he becomes their smith. He makes their dwellings he makes their furniture, he's making their jewelry and of course their weapons. Unlike many of the kind of war-like gods again, what up, Ares? They're constantly like getting into trouble and getting into fight, Hephaestus is portrayed as much more like peace-loving and therefore much more well loved by mortals. So he is one of the gods of the city like the concept of the city not like a particular city, along with Athena and they are both patrons of handicrafts which I think is very cute.
AMANDA: I love it. I'm picturing like visiting a city walking around the open-air market like buying myself a nice basket, a nice pillow a nice you know, like bronze cuff and just being like, thank you, Hephaestus.
JULIA: Thanks, Hephaestus. Thanks, Athena. [Amanda whispers] I got embroidery done and I got some metalwork, yeah!
AMANDA: Look at me supporting local craftspeople and bringing home cute accessories.
JULIA: Adorable! I love that. Much like the other gods, Hephaestus has many epithets that were given by the poets or in his worship. A few of them referenced his disability such as Amphigýeis which translates to lame one but most of them actually are more of a reference to his role as a craftsman so calceus or coppersmith, klutotékhnēs, which is renowned artificer which I think is also very, very cool.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: He was also not only a craftsman but an inventor as well and so had names like Polýmētis, which is shrewd, crafty orderly of many devices as well as Polyphrôn which is ingenious or inventive, and these were very commonly used for him and then there is my personal favorite which is Aithaloeis Theos which means sooty god.
AMANDA: Yes, so fun!
JULIA: You know, because he's a blacksmith.
AMANDA: Yeah!
JULIA: And often he was found near his forge, sooty appearance kind of cute.
AMANDA: Hot as hell. I mean come on like that you show up and someone is like covered in soot. Like wearing their apron, you know making a thing over a fire sweaty like come on. That's just a romance novels are made of.
JULIA: Exactly if you've ever watched like any sort of like medieval or like, you know, historical fiction and there's a hot blacksmith, that's exactly what Hephaestus looks like in my mind.
AMANDA: I am googling queer blacksmith romances as soon as we hang up this call.
JULIA: Yay! We'll actually want you to do that while we grab a refill and then when we come back, I can tell you a little bit more about Hephaestus, his craft his love life, and a couple of his famous inventions
AMANDA: Let's do it.
AMANDA: Julia, welcome to the refill. How's it going bud?
JULIA: I'm doing great Amanda. You know what, I'm just chillin’. This party is really like flowing to having a great time and there's just something about like vibing with a group of people, you know?
AMANDA: Absolutely and sometimes it's like you know, maybe expected if you want people to come to the party, maybe they're going to be coming later and joining you but for now you're like this is the perfect vibe and that's how I feel about our patrons no one knew to welcome this week but I would love to just put extra special attention if I had like house lights that could go down and do a spotlight on individual people just picture that in front of you like like the opening of a chorus line. Okay, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Jaybaybay, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Kneazlekins, Lily, Little Vomit Spiders Running Around, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, Taylor, and Zazi and right next to them by the Punchbowl are our legend level patrons, Arianna, Audra, Bex, Clara, Iron Havoc, Morgan, Mother of Vikings, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty. We got to tell you guys, we're working on some new merch. And guess who's gonna get it first? Yeah, it's our legend level patrons.
JULIA: And if you want to join the ranks of these cool people just hanging out at our party, and also get stuff like a bunch of recipe cards for cocktails and mocktails stuff like poetry corner where we don't just do it in the episodes. We also talk about poems that Amanda brings. And so so much more like literally six years' worth of content more, you can sign up at our Patreon at patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
AMANDA: And Julia speaking of catching up on good stuff, or what have you been reading, watching or listening to recently?
JULIA: Well, Amanda, I opened up Netflix the other day because I've been watching Bridgerton with my friend and we are slowly going through the second season and I was waiting for her to finish cooking dinner so that we could start watching and Netflix was like, "Hey, here's a show for you." And I was like, "Netflix you have never put a show in front of me that has been more my brand in my entire life."
AMANDA: Oh my gosh, I'm excited.
JULIA: And it was called Old Enough. It is a Japanese show about small children like ages two to five and they're 10-minute episodes, and they are being tasked to like do errands for the first time by themselves. And it is both the cutest and most chaotic thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And if you're looking for a little joy in your life and like little 10-minute bursts, this is the show for you.
AMANDA: So cute. I can't stand it.
JULIA: It's so cute. Netflix was like, "Hey, this seems like 98% your interest." I'm like, "No Netflix it's 100% my interest. Get it right!"
AMANDA: That's so cute. And Jules, if people are doing that or they need another podcast to add to their rotation. Why don't you check out the other fabulous shows that Multitude makes you can always of course plug the word Multitude into your podcast player and see what else is up. But each week we bring you a recommendation highlight of another member show that you would enjoy and this week we'd love to recommend that you check out the Percy Jackson podcast that our friend Mike Schubert makes called The newest Olympianm we're coming toward the end of our it's All Greek To Me series but the Greek never stops over at The Newest Olympian.
JULIA: It always makes me happy when these lineup together, It's All Greek To Me episodes and The Newest Olympian because I'm like anyone who's listening to It's All Greek To Me would also get a kick out of Mike trying to figure out what's going on in Greek mythology.
AMANDA: And whether you have read the Percy Jackson books or not, that's okay because every episode Mike chats with a longtime Percy Jackson fan to cover a portion of the series recapping the plot diving into the mythology of the story, and talking about Percy's incredible snark because no one does dialogue like him.
JULIA: That's true. So you can search for The Newest Olympian in your podcast app or go to thenewestolympian.com and start listening right now. Well, after this episode. Now, Amanda, I am not Aphrodite. So I don't have a wonderful husband like Hephaestus to make me a magical girdle or bra but I do have the next best thing and that is Third Love and Amanda if you told me that there 24/7 classic t-shirt bra was made by her Hephaestus, I wouldn't think you're wrong. I would believe you.
AMANDA: If during this episode you were like Festus learn to sew and made you these like incredible silky shorty pajamas set that you wear to bed almost every night except when you have to wash them. I'd be like yeah, I do. It's so comfortable. It's from Third Love.
JULIA: And I mean like they have this fitting room quiz that you can take to kind of figure out exactly what your perfect style and size is. And it was like talking to Hephaestus and he crafted this perfectly shaped bra for me and Third Love does comfort incredibly well. They are bras that were made to fit feel and look great. And did you know that your bra size can change six times in your lifetime and you might be one of 80% of women who are wearing the wrong bra size? Oh my gosh.
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AMANDA: Julia, we are also sponsored today by Blue Land which has inspired me to actually start a new habit which is cleaning my kitchen sink every night.
JULIA: Wow.
AMANDA: Because I think it's nice, things can get nasty and once you clean it regularly it's less of a big deal, you know if there's like a mess. But mostly it's because I love the lemony smell of there all purpose household cleaners so much as even the coffee I just love it so much. It's so elegant. It's so wonderful. They come with beautiful they say Instagrammable and they are glass bottles where you put in a tablet of their cleaning product, put in some warm water, and then within minutes you have powerful cleaning products in the most delicious scents. Perine lemon is what I'm talking about. There's lavender, eucalyptus, there's Iris agave, so many to choose from
JULIA: Amanda, they also have these toilet tablet cleaners, which I didn't realize were so popular until I went to order more and they were sold out on the website. But it's like a little bath bomb that makes cleaning my toilet fun. I love it so, so much.
AMANDA: It's adorable. I love it. I put it in there and I just watch it. It's so it's so exciting. We're in our late 20s and early 30s Now, like we find comfort and amusement wherever we can, and honestly it's Blue Land cleaning products. So right now you can get 20% off your first order when you go to blueland.com/spirits That's 20% off your first order of any blue land products at blueland.com/spirits.
JULIA: Blueland.com/spirits. Amanda, there are a lot of ways that stress can manifest for me, I find my jaw clenches a lot when I'm super stressed. Sometimes I just get migraines out of nowhere. I'm like, "Hey, why are you doing this brain?" Sometimes even like it affects my stomach and stuff like that. But it's definitely sleeping too much or sleeping too little or doom scrolling on your phone. Those all have to do with stress and a great way of learning to deal with that stress is by going to therapy and that's where BetterHelp comes in.
AMANDA: Absolutely. I woke up from a really stressful My nightmare very early this morning and found myself doing some breathing exercises that my therapist and I had talked about and I meet with her therapist, Amanda, we gotta love her every single week over BetterHelp. And BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in person therapy. Give it a try and see if online therapy can help lower your stress. Spirits listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/spirits. That's b e t t e r h elp.com/spirits.
JULIA: This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.
AMANDA: And now let's get back to the show.
JULIA: So we're back at it and I'm going to roll our cocktail recommendation for this week and with a little bit more info about Hephaestus.
AMANDA: Ooh!
JULIA: So one of the pre-Olympic Greek tales said that Hephaestus was originally a spirit of fire that came up out of the earth or that he was the spirit of gas quote-unquote, which takes fire and burns and is considered by many people to be divine.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So this association with flame later turns into an association with volcanoes, particularly Mount Etna and then later, Vulcanus both of which claimed to be the kind of like volcanic location of Hephaestus' Forge
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, I mean, nature's forge, come on.
JULIA: Exactly. So because the Hephaestus is this volcanic city god, which like honestly, we just talked about extremely hot. A smoky drink is going to be a must-have, right?
AMANDA: Yes, please.
JULIA: So naturally, that means we're breaking out the Mezcal because that's you and me. And the cocktail I'm going to recommend is the honey and smoke, which is very simply a little bit of honey simple syrup mezcal, some ginger beer, and a little bit of lime juice. So it is smoky and smooth and perfect for quenching your thirst after you've been working on a hot forge for hours.
AMANDA: Delightful. I could drink it all day. It's really good.
JULIA: If you're going into summer. This is a summer drink, for sure. So now let's talk about her Hephaestus, his children, his marriages. We've already talked a bit about his marriage to Aphrodite, so I don't really think we need to touch on it all that much more. Homer notably mentions that he has a consort in the Iliad, which is the youngest of the graces that Homer refers to both as Charis which is just "the grace") or Aglaia which is "the glorious. So she is specifically the grace that is associated with the delightfulness of art, Amanda, which I think is extremely cute, and also makes her an excellent pairing for the craftsman Hephaestus
AMANDA: Yeah, I'm picturing them on a date you know where you can like tour an outdoor forge and then like dip into the gallery maybe they collaborate on some mixed medium pieces.
JULIA: They definitely collaborated on some mixed medium pieces and also some children.
AMANDA: There you go.
JULIA: The two of them were said to have had four children together the first was Eucleia, who is the personification of glory and good reputation.
AMANDA: No big deal classic oldest child come on I mean setting up impossible standards for the next.
JULIA: They're all pretty good though Euthenia, is the spirit of prosperity.
AMANDA: Good.
JULIA: Eupheme, who's the spirit of good omens, praise, and applause. And finally, Philophrosyne who is the spirit of welcome friendliness and kindness.
AMANDA: I mean, these people sound like a great time. I hope they had a great home life.
JULIA: Oh my god. Yeah, they absolutely did. So after their birth they actually joined the graces along with their mother, their mother was the youngest but now they were the youngest.
AMANDA: Sure and I mean that's- that's a fun dynamic for you know, all of your aunts and uncles to be kind of like older to your parent also. And then there's a fun that after you get to see your parents the youngest child you're like, oh, man, Oh, totally made fun of by like Uncle Uncle John over there.
JULIA: It makes so much sense. Now I understand her dynamic perfectly.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So those were some adorable, great children. In another myth, there is a nymph named, Aetna who he was said to have fathered two sons with and they were known as Palici. He who were said to be these gods of these famous Sicilian geysers of the same name, which I think is really cool.
AMANDA: It is.
JULIA: I mean, because like think about it. It's like a water nymph and the volcano god, obviously, they would be geysers, right. That makes so much sense.
AMANDA: I'm pretty sure it's a thing in nature. volcanologists get on us.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. If you're a volcanologist what up? You good? Everything's good.
AMANDA: You okay?
JULIA: That's cool.
AMANDA: What's your life like? Please tell me it's a cool job.
JULIA: Yeah. So similarly, when he was being raised on the island of Lemnos, he was said to have had a romance with a nymph named Cabeiro who bore him two sons that were known as Cabeiri, both of which were gods of metalworking, much like their father.
AMANDA: I'm just picturing those kids hanging out at some point they must have like varied interests that seems pretty fun.
JULIA: Yeah. Also, notably, the two sons were also shown as being disabled as well, which I think is very interesting. So I think there is another story that's also worth noting, which I personally actually hadn't heard of until I was researching this episode, but effect Hephaestus and Athena were sometimes paired together like we talked about before, part of this was that they're both patrons of crafts and they were both said to have taught mortals the skills of their arts alongside each other. So that's kind of nice and cute. There is a Athenian founding myth, not the one that we've talked about before with Athena and Poseidon in the naming of the city, but one where her Festus plays a role. Does it portray Athena in the best of light, but here we go. Basically, Hephaestus proclaimed his love for Athena and according to the Roman poet Hyginus, Hephaestus went to Zeus and asked for permission to marry the goddess. Now, in this version of the tail, Hephaestus was older than Athena and was said to be the one that cracked Zeus his head open, which allowed Athena to break free and be born fully formed from Zeus his head. In this tale, like Hephaestus is like, "Hey, helped you out quite a bit with that? Do you think maybe I could marry her." and Zeus is like, "Yeah, sure, whatever. Sounds great." Athena, not super into this union, was not asked, was not a big fan. So the two of them are married in the marriage bed, the night after the wedding during intercourse Athena disappeared the moment before Hephaestus climaxed which then he spilled his semen onto the earth instead of into Athena and impregnated Gaia, who is the earth incarnate and Gaia then gave birth to the founding king of Athens named, Erichthonius.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So their marriage because never fully consummated, therefore was dissolved.
AMANDA: Fascinating.
JULIA: Definitely interesting. Both sides don't really look great in that story, necessarily. But it is an interesting one because Hephaestus does not have a lot of big romantic notable relationships. Unlike some of the other gods. In this case, most of his relationships are either unrequited like his relationship with Aphrodite and with Athena or they're like very consensual. He's not out there having children for no reason and through, you know, sexual assault or rape.
AMANDA: And I'm really curious to read what scholars of disability say about some of these stories as well, which I'm totally going to dig into after this episode because so often disabled people are of course under sexualized and assumed to have no sexual desire or agency or fetishized. And so seeing a disabled person have relationships is in its way kind of subversive, at least in my first reading. So I'm curious to dig in more.
JULIA: Right? I do have a feeling that because of Hephaestus is not out there as much as let's say the other Greek gods, it does tend to be like he's under-sexualized, especially in the context of Greek Mythology, you know what I mean? Like he is like out there having sexual relationships and also, you know, having children he is not like impotent or anything like that, but it is kind of notable that his one like most famous marriage, he doesn't bear any children with Aphrodite.
AMANDA: Gotcha. So it does kind of heed to one of those stereotypes, in fact.
JULIA: It does, it is a little bit ableist. I know typically, we save worship and the like what worship looks like for the end of the episode, but this story transitions so nicely into how Hephaestus was worshipped and I do love a transition. Obviously, the Island of Lemnos is central to the Cult of Hephaestus as that was said to be where he landed when he was expelled from Olympus. The entire island is said to be holy to him, but he also had a city that was named for him on the island, which was Hephaestia. Outside of Lemnos, However, Festus as I mentioned, was a very popular god to worship in Ancient Greece. Mainly his worship was focused in the like manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece. But as we can imagine, that includes cities like Athens, right? And of course, often he and Athena were worshiped together in Athens sharing both temples and festivals. So a lot of times if there was a Athenian festival happening, Hephaestus was also either like worshipped equally or in like some sort of secondary capacity. The current and most well preserved temple of a Hephaestus is the Hephaisteion, which was formerly referred to incorrectly as the Theseum on and it is located and like still very well preserved, like I've been there, it's beautiful in the Ancient agora of Athens and archeologists have found evidence it's funny that you mentioned like, "Oh, I'm gonna go to the city and buy a bunch of like cute boots from both Athena and Hephaestus." It's worth mentioning that many shops such as like potter's workshops, and metalworking shops were set up sometimes either in or at least around the temple. So you would go to worship Hephaestus and then you'd stop by and be like, what the potter's got, like, I need a new cup. What's he got going on?
AMANDA: It's the Hephaestus version of like, go into the Farmers Market on your way home from like worship.
JULIA: Exactly, which I love. It's so cute. I love the idea of being like alright, Hephaestus, thank you, appreciate you and now I gotta go buy a bunch of like nice bronze bracelets.
AMANDA: So good, so good.
JULIA: You had the shops like set up in and also around there, a lot of the Greeks would often place miniature statues of Hephaestus on their hearths, which makes sense again like he is related to fire. He's not like the god of the hearth, but it is like, you know, a place of fire and also like care and home in the center of the home.
AMANDA: And creation for cooking and things like that.
JULIA: Exactly. So these depictions of these little statues often again, he set up the beard, he's got a hammer or some other crafting tool. He's got his recognizable oval-shaped hat, which I couldn't find like why he has an oval-shaped hat, it's just like he's got one.
AMANDA: Okay, yeah.
JULIA: He was also depicted in Athena's temple in Sparta, notably giving Achilles' armor to Thetis to protect him in battle, a lot of war focus to fester stories, which is not super surprising, and the worship of Hephaestus in Sparta is notable because unlike other depictions of him elsewhere, his disability is downplayed considerably. And given what we know about the ableism of Sparta, which we talked about before makes sense. I would also love to talk about the various crafts and inventions of Hephaestus because that is kind of where he truly shines. We talked about before his invention of his wheeled chair or basically like one person chariot that he created both as a mobility aid and also to kind of show off his craftsmanship to the rest of the gods. And we've also talked about a few other ones we talked about the golden throne that trapped Hera the cursed necklace that he gave to Harmonia, which we talked about in the Ares episode, the enchanted girdle that he gave to Aphrodite as a wedding present, etc. Hephaestus, as we've mentioned was the craftsman and armorer of the gods and thus he had a workshop set up on Olympus and he was said to have created stuff that like is extremely recognizable among the gods. So like Hermes is winged helmet and sandals Helios' chariot that he uses to bring the sun across the sky. Eros' bows and arrows like these are all like things that are so inextricable from the images of these gods and they all come from Hephaestus.
AMANDA: Yeah, like if we had action figures of all these gods, which I'm sure exists out there, this is the thing they'd be holding or like the thing that comes in the box.
JULIA: Exactly. Yeah, like the lightning bolts of Zeus. The Aegis of both Athena and Zeus like these are all inventions and craftwork done by Hephaestus and that highlights his importance among the rest of the gods. Additionally, he like even occasionally made weapons and armor for mortals, heroes, demigods, that kind of thing. Agamemnon staff was forged by Hephaestus, Achilles' armor, like I mentioned before. The bronze clappers of Heracles which he used to scare away the enormous flock of birds that were part of his sixth labor.
AMANDA: Oh, right.
JULIA: It's so it's so cool. Like he's so like central to so many stories, even though the stories are not central to him, which I feel like again, it's probably a form of ableism but at the same time, like I love that it highlights his importance to all of Greek Mythology.
AMANDA: Yeah, definitely.
JULIA: One of the more notable inventions of Hephaestus is his golden automatons, which I think is so cool that he just has these golden automatons, Edith Hamilton refers to them as his golden handmaidens, which I think is really interesting.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And these are basically just these golden robots that worked as assistants in his craft.
AMANDA: Right on.
JULIA: He also had these like tripods that could move on his own and like, carried stuff for him like up and down Olympus and also would sometimes be mobility aids for him as well, which I think is really great man.
AMANDA: People are still inventing, like self-balancing robots as ways to carry stuff.
JULIA: Yeah. And Hephaestus was like one of the inventors of that which I think is awesome. If you're familiar with the story of Pandora It was said that have Hephaestus was the one that created the pithos or the jar that was given to Pandora. We call it a box now, but it was traditionally like a sealed jar. And that was the thing that contained all of the evils of the world, but also the spirit of hope down.
AMANDA: No big deal.
JULIA: Yeah. And then finally, one of the skills that was said to be a power that like only have Hephaestus has was this idea of producing motion is how the Greeks describe it. So basically, this ability to turn the inanimate into animate objects.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So there are many tales of him like creating bronze or gold or iron statues that then came to life and protected cities.
AMANDA: That's awesome.
JULIA: Isn't that tight. He's got so many inventions. I love this for him.
AMANDA: I love this for him too.
JULIA: So lastly, I want to finish out with a little poetry corner.
AMANDA: Yay!
JULIA: Because we love poetry corner here and this time we're going to feature Hephaestus in both a Homeric hymn and a Orphic hymn. So let's start with the first one. I'm excited to hear what you think. So this is Homeric Hymn Number 20. And this is:
“[1] Sing, clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaestus famed for inventions. With bright-eyed Athena he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world, —men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. [5] But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round.
Be gracious, Hephaestus, and grant me success and prosperity!”
AMANDA: Wow. Nice endorsement. Yeah, seriously, and
JULIA: Yeah, seriously, and like talking about how he is a god of the cities, which we talked about like before, like, he is a god of the city, like the idea of like, yes, because of Hephaestus, we were able to learn crafts and learn how to like build buildings, and now we can take care of ourselves and don't have to dwell in caves like we once did. And again, that's kind of going back to this kind of folk memory idea that we had before where he is like, from another time and we remember what it was like to live in that time and now things are better.
AMANDA: Yeah, and there are so many examples throughout history of disabled people, you know, making accommodations for themselves that then the rest of society is like, you know what, it is good to have ramps, there are decades of disabled activism advocating for themselves. So I am seeing kind of echoes of disabled activism in some of these pieces.
JULIA: Yeah, I love that and not something that I thought about so thank you for bringing up Amanda. So the next one we're gonna do is the Orphic Hymn so this Orphic Hymn goes:
“Strong-spirited Íphaistos, mighty, inexhaustible fire, 1
Gleaming flaming sunlight, light-bringing divinity,
Torch-bearing, strong-handed, eternal, mighty craftsman,
Workman, portion of the Kózmos, perfect foundation,
All-devouring, all-subduing, highest of all, all-consuming, 5
Aithír, sun, stars, moon, unblemished light,
For these are the limbs of Íphaistos which manifest to mortals.
The dwellings of all belong to you, all cities, all peoples,
You dwell in our mortal bodies, blessing us, mighty one.
Hear, happy one, we invite you to this holy libation, 10
Come to us always, gentle one, and make work joyful.
Cease the raging madness of your tireless flame
For it is your fire which burns in Nature within our bodies.”
AMANDA: Wow, what a praise worthy of him I would be happy to be the god having this said to me.
JULIA: I mean absolutely. I really like this imagery of like, yes, all dwellings all society, all of these cities and all of these people belong to you because we wouldn't be here without you. And then this idea that he also, Hephaestus dwells in our mortal bodies blessing us mighty one. I think that is such a beautiful thing. And also like from a disability standpoint, like this idea that like Hephaestus is all bodies, I think is like a really interesting and beautiful conclusion like yes, like all bodies can be an arm made by Hephaestus.
AMANDA: Yeah. And I think it invites us to think about bodies not in a binary state of good bad, perfect, imperfect, mine other most people will experience disability at some point and thinking about yourself not as exempt from that category, or people who are as something or someone that you don't have to deal with, or feel yourself lucky not to be a part of like these are these are the kinds of thoughts that- that are taught to us by society, but I hope that people can start noticing and kind of pulling themselves away from and questioning. Yeah.
JULIA: I 100% agree. And again, there are some great people out there who have talked about disability and mythology as a whole but also disability in Ancient Greek Mythology. So I highly recommend going and checking them out. Amanda, I know that you have a great amount of like resources of people that our listeners can follow if they are interested in learning more about disability and disability activism.
AMANDA: Yes, Disability Visibility. Alice Wong is one of the real leaders of like Disability Visibility on social media and wrote a book by that name that I think is a really great source, the subtitle of which is First Person stories from the 21st century. And so every person that contributes to that book is a great person to get to know and start following. And also, Amanda Leduc. In our episode on disability and fairy tale provided a number of other recommendations and it really is again, an invitation to start following people start listening, and go from there.
JULIA: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope that you Amanda, and also the conspirators learned a little something new and exciting. While learning about Hephaestus. I think that he is probably one of my favorite gods in the Greek pantheon and I am sorry that the ancient Greeks did him dirty.
AMANDA: Totally. I think it's a perfect send-off and thank you for teaching me more about him. I can't wait to think about Hephaestus next time I appreciate some very A nice kind of middle craftsmanship and to dive more into criticism and insight from disabled scholars about Hephaestus.
JULIA: Absolutely and remember listeners when you're buying your pottery and your cool bronze bangles to-
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
AMANDA: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
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JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye.
Transcriptionist: KM