Goddess of the Day: Hestia

After writing about Agni, the fire-god of India, I wanted to move on to a fire-goddess, so I chose Hestia, the virgin hearth-goddess of Greek mythology. You can read more about Hestia at Wikipedia; her counterpart in Roman religion was Vesta.

Hestia was one of the Olympian gods and goddesses, being one of the children of Cronus and Rhea. Hestia was the first one that Cronus swallowed, and she was the last to come back out after Zeus compelled Cronus to vomit them back out again; this made Hestia both the oldest daughter (first born) and the youngest daughter (the last to be born again). Later on, though, Hestia was not always included in the list of the Twelve Olympians, having been displaced by the newcomer, Dionysus.

This depiction is from a sixth-century tapestry called the Hestia Tapestry: