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Mercury (Greek: Hermes)
The prematurely born son of Zeus and Maia (Maia was
a fertility goddess; one of seven Pleaids/Pleaides, a group of nymphs that
were changed into a constellstion). He
seemed to be a very intelligent baby; by noon of the day of his birth, he
left his cradle, and invented the lyre, building it from the shell of a
tortoise. Hermes was the god of good luck, wealth, commerce, sleep,
and dreams. He was a patron of merchants, thieves, and deception, the
messenger and herald of the gods, and the conductor of the souls
of the dead to Hades. He appeared as a young man, wearing a
broad-brimmed hat and winged sandals, holding the caduceus (Hermes'
staff, which was the symbol of the art of medicine), and was a staff with
two snakes wrapped around it.
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