Hades is the Greek God of the death and the Underworld. While the underworld is associated with hell and evil, Greeks looked at the underworld as a place of darkness and Hades was regarded as the tab keeper of the deadly world laws.  He is looked upon as the jailor of the dead souls and is responsible to keep the gates of the underworld locked so that no dead soul can escape from his kingdom.

Hades is depicted as a grown man with a beard and a crown holding a two-pronged staff, often with his three headed dog, Cerberus. Symbols associated with Hades include a sceptre, Cerberus, drinking horn and the cypress tree. One of Hades’ special powers is invisibility. Mortals are generally scared of him and thus he does not have many worshippers or temples.

Hades wears a helmet called the Helm of Darkness that allowed him to become invisible. He once loaned his helmet out to the hero Perseus to help him defeat the monster Medusa. 

The famous legend of Hades is about his relation with his wife Persephone. Persephone was Hades’ sister and Demeter’s daughter. It is said that when Persephone and her friends were plucking flowers, suddenly she saw a unique flower appear on the ground. Out of curiosity, she went to pluck the flower and suddenly the earth opened up. Hades came out of the ground in his horse-chariot and kidnapped Persephone. Demeter started searching for her daughter. Even after 9 days, she would not find Persephone and that is when she met Hekate who is the Goddess of ghosts and Helios who is the Sun God. As both Hekate and Helios had witnessed the kidnapping, they told Demeter the entire truth. To get back her daughter, Demeter disguised herself as an old woman for almost a year. As she is the Goddess of fertility, the world got famine struck and the earth and land lost it’s fertility. Zeus wanted Demeter to return to Mount Olympus and so he sent Iris with lovely gifts to tempt Demeter to come back. But Demeter was adamant that she would return only after she found her daughter. That is when Zeus intervened and sent Hermes to convince Hades to release Persephone. While Hades agreed, he tricked Persephone and gave her pomegranate seeds to eat which ensured that she was tied to the underworld for infinity. Later Zeus asked Demeter and Hades to compromise and arrive at one mutually beneficial solution. It was thus decided that Persephone would stay with Hades for 1/3rd of the year as his wife and with her mother and other Gods for 2/3rd of the year. It is because of this unique arrangement that Persephone is called a dual nature Goddess- for one part she is the queen of the underworld and for the other part she is the goddess of fertility.