HEPHAESTUS ~ THE MASTER OF FIRE AND METAL

Hephaestus ( Greek: Ήφαιστος) is the Greek God of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes. In the Greek Religion, Hephaestus is either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus, by his mother, because of his deformity.

Hephaestus being cast off Olympus. 

Hephaestus is sometimes portrayed as a vigorous man with a beard and is characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton. Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.

Hephaestus is described in mythological sources as "lame" (cholōs), and "halting" (ēpedanos). He is also depicted with crippled feet and as misshapen, either from birth or as a result of his fall from Olympus. In vase paintings, Hephaestus is usually shown lame and bent over his anvil, hard at work on a metal creation, and sometimes with his feet back-to-front. He walked with the aid of a stick. 

Hephaestus was one of the Olympians to have returned to Olympus after being exiled. After he was thrown away by Hera, Thetis-the mother of Achilles- found him and nursed him for nine years. After the shock of rejection, Hephaestus felt strong bitterness towards his mother.
In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for throwing him off Olympus by making Her a magical golden throne,as a 'gift'.However, when She sat on it, Hera got trapped and couldn't stand up. The other Gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let Her go, but He refused, saying "I have no mother".
In the end, Dionysos fetched Him, intoxicated Him with wine, and took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers – a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and of Corinth.

Hephaestus, holding his tools, is being guided back to Olympus by Dionysos. 

The traveller Pausanias reported seeing a painting in the temple of Dionysus in Athens, which had been built in the 5th century but may have been decorated at any time before the 2nd century CE. When Pausanias saw it, he said:
" There are paintings here – Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. One of the Greek legends is that Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge he sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hera sat down she was held fast, and Hephaestus refused to listen to any other of the gods except Dionysus – in him he reposed the fullest trust – and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to heaven. "

Epithets

The epithets and surnames by which Hephaestus is known, generally allude to His skill in the plastic arts or to His figure or lameness. The Greeks frequently placed small dwarf-like statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations. Some of these epithets are the following :

Amphigýeis: the Lame One 

Kyllopodíōn : the Halting 

Khalkeús : Coppersmith 

Klytotékhnēs: Renowned Artificer 

Polýmētis : Shrewd, Crafty or Of Many Devices 

Aitnaîos : Aetnaean, owing to his workshop being supposedly located below Mount Aetna.

Consorts 

According to most versions, Hephaestus's consort is Aphrodite, who is unfaithful to Hephaestus with a number of Gods and mortals, including Ares. However, in Homer's Iliad, the consort of Hephaestus is a lesser Aphrodite, Charis or Aglaia– the youngest of the Graces, as Hesiod calls Her.

On the island of Lemnos, Hephaestus' consort was the sea nymph Cabeiro, by whom he was the father of two metalworking Gods named the Cabeiri. In Sicily, his consort was the nymph Aetna, and his sons were two gods of Sicilian geysers called Palici. With Thalia, Hephaestus was sometimes considered the father of the Palici.

Craft of Hephaestus

As a smithing God, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the Gods in Olympus. He is the blacksmith of the Gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens.

Hephaestus has His own palace on Olympus, containing His workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at His bidding. Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the Gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek Religion has been forged by Hephaestus. Among other objects, He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Achilles' armor, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios's chariot and Eros's bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the chthonic Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes, Steropes and Pyracmon.

Hephaestus created automatons made of metal to work for him. This included tripods that walked to and from Mount Olympus. In some versions of the story,Prometheus stole the fire that He gave to man from Hephaestus's forge. Hephaestus also created the gift that the Gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.

In some stories, Hephaestus built himself a "wheeled chair" or chariot with which to move around, thus helping Him overcome his lameness while demonstrating his skill to the other Gods.
The Greek Religion and the Homeric poems sanctified in stories that Hephaestus has a special power to produce motion. He made the golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders. 

Volcano God

Hephaestus was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus of Mount Etna and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus".
In the Trojan war, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks, but was also worshipped by the Trojans and saved one of their men from being killed by Diomedes. Hephaestus’ favourite place in the mortal world is the island of Lemnos, where He likes to dwell among the Sintians, but He also frequents other volcanic islands such as Lipara, Hiera, Imbros and Sicily, which are called His abodes or workshops.

EDITED FROM: Wikipedia