The Samians held that Hera was born in Samos on an

island by the river Imbrasus under a very old willow tree.

The Titans Ocean and Ththys brought her up. The ancient

Greeks believed that she was an immortal goddess who

will never die.
 

Hera was an ancient goddess existing long before the

 time of the migrations and their new gods, including Zeus.

 Hera’s original newcomers from the north had to accept it and

 absorb it into their own religion by making Hera the consort of

 Zeus, the king of Olympian Gods.

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Hera’s marriage was founded in strife with Zeus finally

 resorted to trickery in order to win her over, and transformed

 himself into a sad-looking and bedraggled cuckoo, soaked

 from a sudden thunderstorm. Hera did not see through his

 mask, took pity on his poor creature and held it in her breast

 to warm the bird. Zeus then ravished her and in shame she agreed to

 marry him.

 The wedding feast was a huge and amazing party. The

gods brought wonderful gifts for the new pair. In particular,

 Gaea (Mother Earth) gave Hera a tree with golden apples,

 which she placed in her orchard on Mount Alas.
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Following the wedding party Hera and Zeus spent their

 honeymoon on the island of Samos and it lasted three

 hundred years. To them were born the gods Ares, Hephaestus

 and Hebe, even though some say that Ares and his twin sister

 Eris (Strife) were conceived when Hera touched a flower

 (perhaps the may blossom), and Hebe when Hera touched a

 lettuce. Some claim that Ilithyia (or Eileithyia), goddess of

 childbirth, was her child by Zeus.
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Hera and Ixion
 

Hera, wife of Zeus, was a faithful to her fickle husband.

 However, she was very beautiful and men found her desirable.

 Ephialtes, one of the Aloeids, was convinced to capture Hera

 and make her his wife. Therefore he and his brother

 precipitated a war with the Olympians. Another admirer was

 King Ixion of Lapith. Invited a banquet at Olympus, he fell in

 love with Hera. When Zeus found out about his advances, he

 was angry and jealous. Zeus used his magic to shape a cloud

 in the likeness of Hera. Ixion made love to the cloud, whose

 name was Nephele, and from this union was born Centaurus,

 father of the Centaurs. Ixion was bound to a hot wheel and

 doomed to spin eternal through the sky.

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Hera and Io
 
 

One of loves of Zeus was the maiden Io. Zeus turned Io

 into a beautiful white heifer to protect her from Hera, but Hera

 was not deceived. She demanded to be given the heifer and

 Zeus could not refuse her. Hera then tied up the heifer and

 her guarded by the hundred-eye Argus. The god Hermes

 rescued Io by using songs and stories to close all the eyes of

 Argus in sleep, and then killed him. But Io remained a heifer;

 never give up being chase by a gadfly sent by Hera, until she

 reached Egypt. Hera transferred the eye of Argus onto the

 magnificent tail of the peacock. The peacock is sacred to Hera.

 Some students believe that Io possessed by the Olympians. In

 Homer the goddess Hera is often define as “ox-eyed.”
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        Hera and Her Rages
 

        Hera, sister-wife of the Olympian god Zeus, had to face

 the fact that her husband had a wandering eye. Hera fought

 back as best as she could.

 Zeus was a faithful husband, so Hera in her turn was not

 a loyal wife. In fact, when he was young, Zeus drove his wife so

 mad with his antics that she convinced the other gods to join

 in a revolt against her husband. Her part was to drug Zeus

 until he was unconscious, and she did so successfully. The

 scheming gods then took away the King of the Olympians’

 fearsome thunderbolts and bound the sleeping Zeus with

 rawhide thongs to a couch, taking care to tie 100 strong knots

 so that he couldn’t move.
 
 

They had not, planned what to do next and began to have

 an argument about who would take Zeus’ place. Their leader

 awoke and threatened his wife and the other mutineers with

 certain death unless they immediately released him, but they

 had placed his thunderbolts out of reach and just laughed at

 him.

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The Nereid Thetis saw the Olympians arguing over the

 leadership and knew that a civil war was about to break out

 on Olympus. She hurried in search of the hundred-handed

 Briareus, whom Zeus had freed from the prison of Tartarus,

 and snuck him into the palace. Still full of gratitude to Zeus,

 Briareus was more than happy to come to his master’s help

 and, using every hand at once, was able to quickly untie the

 many knots. Before the quarrelsome gods knew what was

 happening, Zeus sprang from the couch and grabbed his

 thunderbolts. As the gods fell to their knees begging and

 pleading for mercy, he seized Hera and hung her from the sky

 with gold chains.
 
 

To further to punish her, Zeus tied heavy anvils on her

 feet to weigh her down. In excruciating pain she moaned and

 groaned all night but none of the others dared to help her. For

 four days and nights she was suspended from the sky, but her

 loud weeping kept Zeus from falling asleep and finally he

 agreed to release her if she would swear to never again rebel

 against him. She had little choice but to agree.

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