19th June: Day of All Heras

Day of all Heras celebrates all the aspects of the Greek goddess Hera. Here are 10 facts about her:

1. Hera is the Greek goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno.
2. Hera's parents are Rhea and Cronus. She has five siblings, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, and Zeus, who is also her husband. Her children are Ares (the god of war), Enyo, Hebe (the goddess of youth), Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth), Hephaestus, and Eris (the goddess of discord).
3. According to myth, Hebe wasn't Zeus's daughter - Hera had her after being impregnated by a Lettuce.
4. Despite being the goddess of women, the myths about Hera do not show her displaying much in the way of sisterhood. She is usually seen plotting revenge against Zeus's mistresses and their children, or women voted more beautiful than herself. For example, she dogged Heracles, her step-son, for most of his life, beginning with trying to stop him being born by tying his mother's legs in knots, and sending Snakes to kill him as a baby. A servant who lied to Hera about the birth of Heracles was turned into a weasel.
5. In another story, Gerana, queen of the Pygmies boasted she was more beautiful than Hera. The goddess turned her into a crane and proclaimed that her bird descendants should wage eternal war on the Pygmy folk.
6. It was partly Hera's vengeful and jealous nature which started the Trojan War. Hera's daughter Eris lived up to her name as goddess of discord by stirring things up when she wasn't invited to a wedding. She turned up anyway with a golden apple, inscribed with "for the fairest goddess". Hera, Aphrodite and Athena all thought they were the most beautiful. Zeus (quite wisely) refused to judge which of them was the fairest and got Paris to do it instead. He couldn't (or wouldn't) choose either, so they bribed him. Hera offered Paris control over all Asia and Europe, Athena offered wisdom, fame, and glory in battle, and Aphrodite offered the most beautiful mortal woman in the world as a wife. The trophy wife was the most desirable thing to Paris, so Aphrodite won. The slight complication was that the woman in question, Helen, was already married. He kidnapped her, which started the war.
7. She also got mighty annoyed with a priest of Zeus, called Tiresias. Tiresias became a woman for some years as a result of hitting two mating snakes with a stick. During his time as a woman, he was a priestess of Hera, married and had children, before finding two more mating snakes, hitting them with a stick and turning back into a man. Therefore,Tiresias was deemed best placed to settle the question of whether sex was more pleasurable for men or for women. Zeus claimed it was women; Hera claimed it was men. When Tiresias sided with Zeus, Hera struck him blind.
8. Hera is said to have renewed her virginity every year at the spring of Kanathos.
9. Animals sacred to Hera are Cows, Lions, Cuckoos, panthers, and peacocks (which pull her chariot). As a goddess associated with cattle, she resembles the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Other symbols of Hera are Pomegranates, peacock feathers, a diadem, lilies, lotuses, a sceptre and a throne.
10. Hera appears in the Wonder Woman comic book, sometimes as a patroness of the heroine, sometimes as her enemy.