Thesmophoria

Evoking early agrarian rituals which celebrated the primal mysteries of birth, death, and resurrection, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter has the distinction of being amongst humankind’s first literary compositions honoring agricultural renewal and the Great Mother Goddess tradition. Thought to have been composed within 50 or so years after Homer’s epics, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter was penned in the seventh century BC and is one of a series of 33 Homeric hymns which honor individual deities. They are called Homeric, not because they were composed— or sung— by the poet known as Homer, but because they employ the same meter used in the epics: dactylic hexameter or six feet per line. These Homeric Hymns were originally sung as prayers