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Hestia arrived right on time. The goddess was soft-spoken and diminutive. After looking askance at my papasan chair with her smoldering gray eyes, she created a side room for our lessons that contained a simple wooden table and two wooden chairs. The most interesting thing in the room was the fireplace.

Then she took one of the seats, motioning for me to take the other. In her soft voice she gave me a brief rundown on all the living gods and proceeded to tell me the history of the gods of Olympus. She spoke for precisely one hour and fifty minutes, leaving ten minutes for questions.

~@~

Hestia was one of the original six children of Cronus and Rhea. She was the goddess of the hearth and home. The Romans called her Vesta. She is both the oldest and the youngest daughter (born first, thrown up last). However, I replaced that bit of her with Demeter for story telling purposes. Hestia never married, swearing to always be a virgin (hence the vestal virgins). She chose no symbol for herself, and for a god as widely worshiped as she was (every house honored Hestia) was remarkably quiet and drama free. When any offering was made to any god, a small offering to her preceded it. In my story, she teaches Persephone the history of the gods.