The cornucopia, literally 'horn of plenty,' adorns the Thanksgiving table thanks to Greek mythology. The horn may originally have belonged to a goat, but Zeus used to drink from it as a baby. The story of Zeus' childhood says that his mother, Rhea, sent him to a cave on the island of Crete for safe-keeping in order to prevent his father, Cronus, from swallowing him.

• See Cannibalism in Greek Mythology

Sometimes it is said that a goat named Amalthea (various spellings) nursed the infant Zeus; sometimes that a nymph of the same name fostered Zeus and fed him on goat's milk. His nurse has also been named Adrasteia, which Timothy Gantz says may be another name for Nemesis, and Ida.

While an infant, Zeus did what other babies do -- cry. To cover up the noise and keep Cronus from finding out his wife's plot to protect her son, Amalthea asked the Kuretes or Korybantes to come to the cave where Zeus was hidden and make lots of noise by clashing their weapons.

There are various versions of the evolution of the cornucopia from a horn sitting on the head of the nurturing goat. One is that the goat tore it off herself to present it to Zeus; another that Zeus tore it off and gave it back to the Amalthea-goat promising her abundance; another, that it came from the head of Achelous, the river god, which the Naiads filled with fruit.

The cornucopia is most frequently associated with the goddess of the harvest, Demeter (Roman Ceres) -- as in the harvest song lyrics: "Ceres came with Plenty's Horn and showered wheat and golden corn" -- but is also associated with other gods, including the aspect of the Underworld god that is the god of wealth, Pluto, since the horn symbolizes abundance.

Woman holding cornucopia image © Clipart.com

When the Underworld god Hades abducted the young maiden Persephone, her mother, Demeter, wouldn't feed the world, and so, winter came upon the land. When Persephone was restored, an elated Demeter gave the gift of agriculture to mankind.
The goddess Demeter was called Thesmophoros because she gave certain thesmoi 'laws' to mankind, and the holiday of Themophoria honors her. Learn more about the unusual customs of the ancient Greek fall festival known as Thesmophoria.
See

• Thesmophoria - Greek Thanksgiving
  
• In Aristophanes' comedy, The Thesmophoriazusae, a man tries to infiltrate the all-women rites of the Thesmophoria holiday.
  
• Persephone
  
• Demeter
  

Image of Demeter and Persephone © Clipart.com

When John Frobisher, the underling minister in the BBC science fiction Torchwood Children of Earth, takes a gun to his two daughters, and then his wife, and, after a pause, himself, in a scene set behind doors (rather like the offstage murders in Medea), the viewer's response contains pity rather than the outrage we all tend to feel at Medea's murderous action in Euripides' Medea. Frobisher is saving the children from what he considers a fate worth than death. Medea's motives are less pure, but maybe she is saving the children, too. Read more...

On Friday, November 22, 1963, C.S. Lewis died. While Lewis is known for his children's Narnia series and writings on Christianity, he was a scholar trained in the Classics. Among my favorite works by Lewis is Till We Have Faces, which is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which comes from The Golden Ass of Apuleius. In Apuleius' version of the beauty and the beast motif, Psyche marries the goddess Aphrodite's son and then violates the rules of that marriage. To regain her divine husband, she must perform four impossible tasks, including a trip to the Underworld. C.S. Lewis puts on a spin on the story by telling it from the perspective of one of the wicked sisters.

On the day of Lewis' death, JFK and Aldous Huxley also died.
Also see the Guide to Classical Literature's review of a biography of C.S. Lewis.

Apuleius © Clipart.com