Greek city.
He even had a fling with a nymph named Etna, who was the goddess of Mount Etna over in Sicily. If you’re keeping track, that’s the mountain Zeus used to smash Typhoeus the storm giant. I’m not sure why Hephaestus wanted to date a slightly smashed mountain nymph, but they had some children together called the palikoi, who were the spirits of hot springs and geysers. If you ever go to Yellowstone Park to see Old Faithful doing its thing, be sure to yell, “Hephaestus says hello! Call your dad more often, ya bum!”
Hephaestus’s most interesting kids were twin boys he had with a sea nymph named Kabeiro. They were called the Kabeiroi, after their mother, but their real names were Alkon and Eurymedon. (And no, you will not have to remember that for the test. If your teacher says different, your teacher is WRONG.)
The Kaberoi were a lot like Hephaestus, meaning they were good at metalwork and incredibly ugly. Sometimes they’re described as dwarfs, though maybe they just looked small next to their dad. They would help out around his forges in Lemnos and even go to war in his name. Once they rode east with Dionysus when he marched to India. Then they got in trouble, and Hephaestus had to rescue them.
You didn’t know the wine god had declared war on India? Sure. We’ll get to that in a bit. But right now, I feel like some poetry.
You feel like poetry? No?
Well, TOO BAD. Apollo is getting impatient. He wants me to write his chapter, and since he’s the coolest Olympian god (even if he does say so himself), you can only put off the Golden Boy for so long.
APOLLO SINGS AND DANCES AND SHOOTS PEOPLE
YOU HAVE TO PITY APOLLO’S MOM.
Being pregnant is hard enough. (Not that I would know, but my mom has told me about a million times.) Apollo’s mother, the Titan Leto, was pregnant with twins, and she couldn’t go to the hospital when she went into labor. Instead she had to run for her life, rushing from island to island, pursued by a vengeful goddess and a giant snake.
Would it surprise you to learn that the whole thing was Zeus’s fault?
Old Thunderbritches fell in love with Leto and convinced her it would be totally fine to have kids together.
“Hera will never find out!” he promised.
Zeus had told that lie to so many different women, he probably even believed it.
Of course, Hera found out. She glared down from Mount Olympus at the beautiful pregnant Leto, who was glowing with health, sitting in a meadow and patting her swollen tummy, singing to her unborn children.
Hera grumbled to herself, “How dare she be happy? Let’s see how happy she is in eternal pain!” The Queen of Heaven spread her arms and addressed the entire earth below her. “Hear me, world! Hear me, Mother Gaea! I forbid any land with roots in the earth to receive Leto when it is time for her to give birth. Any land that dares to oppose me, I will curse for all eternity! Leto will have no bed to lie in, no place to rest! She will be forced to wander without a place to give birth, she will stay pregnant and in labor forever, suffering for the crime of taking my husband! HAHAHA!”
Yeah, Hera was definitely channeling her inner Wicked Witch of the West that day. The ground rumbled. All the nature spirits on every land with roots in the earth promised not to help Leto. Now, you’re wondering, why couldn’t Leto just buy a boat and give birth at sea? Why couldn’t she go underwater, or down into Erebos, or rent a helicopter and give birth one thousand feet in the air?
Near as I can figure, Hera included all that in the curse. She created an impossible situation, where Leto could only give birth on solid ground, but all solid ground was forbidden to accept her. Hera was tricky that way.
When Leto was seven months pregnant, she went into early labor.
“Oh, great,” she groaned. “These kids aren’t going to wait!”
She tried to lie down, but the earth shook. Trees burst into flame. Fissures opened in the ground, and Leto had to run for safety. No matter where she moved, she couldn’t find a safe place to rest. She took a boat to another island, but the same thing happened. She tried a dozen different places all over Greece and beyond. In each spot, the nymphs refused to help