This line of Greek Mythology is a little complex with all of the relationships between the characters, so watch carefully. Persephone is best known for giving us the seasons, spring and fall. Born from Zeus (all-seeing god of the gods) and Demeter (mother goddess of the earth, giving us fruits and flowers), the beautiful Persephone attracted the attention of Hades, king of the underworld and brother of Zeus. Hades wanted Persephone as a wife but Zeus knew that Demeter wouldn't allow her daughter to be confined to the underworld, so he allowed Hades to abduct Persephone while she was picking flowers in a field. Demeter was so overcome with grief that she neglected her responsibility of bearing fruits, flowers, and all plant-life on earth while she searched for her daughter. Zeus, seeing the earth slowly die, demanded that Hades return Persephone. While she was in the underworld Persephone fasted in protest, but at the excitement of going home to her mother she ate a pomegranate seed, forgetting that anyone who eats anything in the underworld is destined to return (how could she have forgotten such a common rule??). Zeus, stuck between a distraught wife, a kidnapped daughter, a near dead planet, and a brother who lives in the underworld (see, we all have those days), ruled that Persephone would spend half of the year with her husband, Hades, and half with her mother, Demeter. Accordingly, for part of the year the earth becomes cold and seems dead when Demeter misses Persephone, and then the earth becomes covered with the beauty of spring when Demeter welcomes her daughter home again.