Biography for
Hephaestus (Character)
from Clash of the Titans (1981)

(hee FEHS tus) Son of Zeus and Hera; the smith-god. Lord of artificers, patron of crafts. This most industrious of the gods had a troubled childhood. He was born twisted and ugly and Hera hated him on site. She flung him from Olympus; he broke both legs in the fall and forever aftewards was lame. A sea-goddess, Thetis, found the crippled infant on the beach and took him to her underwater grotto where she raised him as her own. He contrived beautiful ornaments of coral and pearl for his foster-mother and entertained her by setting living jewels to swim in the warm waters; we know them now as tropical fish. Nevertheless, he fretted in exile and resolved to take his rightful place among the gods. He won back his birth-right by a clever ruse. He built a golden throne and sent it to Hera as a gift. She sat upon it, its golden arms clamped about her and she could not rise. She remained a prisoner of the throne until Hephaestus had extracted a promise from the gods that he would be accepted into the Pantheon. Hera avenged herself upon him by marrying him to Aphrodite, who tormented him with her infidelity. However, Hephaestus loved his wife so much that he found happiness despite his mother's evil design. But he did not spend much time on Olympus; he preferred his workshop on the crater of Mt. Aetna in Sicily. There he stood at a mighty anvil, forging thunderbolts for Zeus and weapons for special heroes. His apprentices were the one-eyed Cyclopes, whom he kept teaching new skills even though they had been born skillful. He patched up his quarrel with his mother and made her many marvelous gifts, among them a table that ran about by itself serving food and drink. Despite his grimy appearance and modest manner, Hephaestus was much revered among mankind. For, in ancient times, the smith was considered a potent sorcerer who could lend magical properties to the tools and weapons he forged. In Roman mythology, Hephaestus was known as Vulcan.