Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Searching for Persephone, Demeter comes to Eleusis in the likeness of an old woman and sits by the Maiden Well. The daughters of King Celeus find her and bring her to their mother Metaneira. Demeter refuses wine but accepts the kykeon (barley, water, mint) after Iambe’s jesting lifts her grief. She agrees to nurse the infant Demophon. By day she anoints him with ambrosia; by night she hides him in the fire like a brand, to burn away his mortality and make him ageless. Metaneira spies the fire-rite, screams in terror, and breaks the charm. Demeter, enraged, snatches the child from the hearth, reveals her divinity, rebukes mortal folly, and commands that the Eleusinians build her a temple and altar below the city. She withdraws; the rites that will become the Mysteries are foreshadowed. Demophon does not receive full immortality, though he grows godlike among children. This entry isolates the nursing-and-fire episode as the aetiology of Demeter’s temple at Eleusis, distinct from the later gift of grain through Triptolemus and from the cosmic bargain over Persephone.