Persephone, The Daughter of the Harvest

 

This is Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the Goddess of the Harvest and when older the wife of Hades. To the ancient Greeks she was known as Kore or the Maiden. With hair like the corn in the cornfield and surrounded by wildflowers, her symbols where the wildflowers of her mother's wheat fields and a gentle doe. The fabric I found seemed perfect, featuring gentle deer and poppies with cornflowers. It is an Acufactum print called Deer in Summer Field and is now discontinued which is such a shame.
Persephone's story goes that when she was older she was glimpsed by Hades, the God of the Underworld and she stole his heart. Rebuffed by both Persephone herself and her mother Demeter. Hades kidnapped Persephone and took down into the Underworld. Beside herself with grief, Demeter neglected her duties and the crops withered and the winter came. Eventually Persephone managed to escape but because she had eaten a few pomegranite seeds she was forced to return to the Underworld for six months a year. Hence our seasons with the autumn and winter months when Demeter grieves for her girl only for the spring flowers to emerge with joy of her return.
Persephone is dressed in her pretty dress and is wearing a heavily appliqued and embroidered cape with a design of poppies and wheat running around her cape both front and back. She wears little wool felt boots with a tweedy Rowan yarn bobble hat and carries a sampler sachet. She was a joy to make.