- Hermes is the Greek god of trade, thieves, travellers, herdsmen, sports, athletes, border crossings, invention, orators, wit, literature and poets. His Roman counterpart is Mercury.
- His parents were Zeus and Maia, who is one of the Pleiades and a daughter of the Titan Atlas. Thanks to his maternal grandfather, he is sometimes called Atlantiades. His mother gave birth to him in a cave in Arcadia.
- He achieved quite a bit before he was even a day old, according to legend. In his first 24 hours of life, it's said he invented the lyre from a Turtle shell and stole cattle from Apollo – and even had the idea of putting boots on the cattle's feet so Apollo couldn't follow their tracks.
- He was faster than any other god, and had the gift of the gab, and it was this, plus his ability to pass easily from one world to another, including the underworld, that he ended up with the job of messenger to the gods.
- Part of his job was escorting souls to the underworld.
- His father Zeus reckoned that the best thing about Hermes was that, despite having the gift of the gab, he could keep a secret.
- He was a randy so and so, too, known for his many love affairs with goddesses and mortals alike. He had several children, including the half man half goat god Pan, Abderus, a friend of Hercules, and Hermaphroditus, an androgynous deity who was the result of his affair with Aphrodite.
- The symbols of Hermes include Talaria (winged sandals), a pouch, Caduceus (two Snakes wound around a staff which is used as a symbol for medicine today), tortoise, lyre, rooster, palm tree, Goat and the number four.
- He gets a mention in the Bible. In Acts 14, Paul the Apostle visits the city of Lystra and the people there mistake him for Hermes and his companion Barnabas is mistaken for Zeus.
- In modern psychology, Hermes' ability to enter and leave the underworld at will makes him, according to Carl Jung, the god of the unconscious and the mediator between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, making him an excellent guide for inner journeys. Jung also associates him with the Egyptian god Thoth, the phenomenon of synchronicity and narcissistic disorder. Because the ancient Greeks ascribed healing magic to him, he is often seen as the archetype healer.
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