Vulcan

Also known as: Hephaestus / clubfooted son Vulcan · Family: gods · Role: god · First appears: BOOK I

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Hephaestus) · The Aeneid (as Vulcan) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Vulcan) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Hephaestus)

In Book I, Jove is Vulcan’s parent. In Book V, Vulcan saves Idaeus by wrapping him in a cloud of darkness, and Idaeus is listed as his ward. In Book XVIII, Vulcan is married to Charis; Eurynome and Thetis are named as guardians who took him in, and he says he must repay Thetis for saving him. When Thetis asks him to make armour for Achilles, he agrees.

At Olympus in Book XVIII, Vulcan completes Achilles’s armour, which Thetis carries away to him. In Book XIX, Achilles puts on the armour Vulcan made for him. In Book XX, Vulcan is matched against Scamander as the gods enter the war; in Book XXI, he burns the river until it can no longer flow and yields. That book also names Juno as Vulcan’s parent.

Relationship record

Life events

• Thetis promises to bring Achilles new armour from Vulcan before he returns to battle.(BOOK XVIII)
  • With: Thetis Achilles
  • “to-morrow at break of day I shall be here, and will bring you goodly armour from King Vulcan.””
• Vulcan completes Achilles's armour, and Thetis carries it away from his house.(BOOK XVIII · 📍 Olympus)
  • With: Thetis Achilles
  • “Lastly, when the famed lame god had made all the armour, he took it and set it before the mother of Achilles; whereon she darted like a falcon from the snowy summits of Olympus and bore away the gleaming armour from the house of Vulcan.”
• Achilles dons the divine armour made by Vulcan and prepares himself for combat.(BOOK XIX)
  • With: Achilles
  • “In the midst of them all Achilles put on his armour; he gnashed his teeth, his eyes gleamed like fire, for his grief was greater than he could bear. Thus, then, full of fury against the Trojans, did he don the gift of the god, the armour that Vulcan had made him.”
• The gods choose sides and enter the conflict between Trojans and Achaeans.(BOOK XX)
  • With: Juno Minerva Neptune Mercury Mars Apollo Diana Leto Scamander Venus
  • “Thus spoke Jove and gave the word for war, whereon the gods took their several sides and went into battle.”
• Vulcan burns the river until Scamander yields and stops helping the Trojans.(BOOK XXI · 📍 Scamander)
  • With: Scamander Juno
  • “He could flow no longer but stayed his stream, so afflicted was he by the blasts of fire which cunning Vulcan had raised.”

BOOK I

• parent: Jove “my dear father Jove”

BOOK V

• with Idaeus (interaction) “whereon Vulcan saved him by wrapping him in a cloud of darkness”
• ward: Idaeus “whereon Vulcan saved him by wrapping him in a cloud of darkness”

BOOK XIV

• parent: Jove “your son Vulcan has made me”

BOOK XVIII

• married with Charis “Charis, of graceful head-dress, wife to the far-famed lame god”
• guardian: Eurynome “had not Eurynome, daughter of the ever-encircling waters of Oceanus, and Thetis, taken me to their bosom”
• with Thetis (interaction) “Therefore I am suppliant at your knees if haply you may be pleased to provide my son, whose end is near at hand, with helmet and shield”
• with Thetis (interaction) “I must make her due requital for having saved me”

BOOK XIX

• with Achilles (Vulcan made and gave the armour.) “accept from Vulcan this rich and goodly armour, which no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders”

BOOK XX

• enemies with Scamander (Xanthus faces Vulcan.) “the mighty eddying river whom men can Scamander, but gods Xanthus, matched himself against Vulcan.”

BOOK XXI

• enemies with Scamander “Vulcan, there is no god can hold his own against you. I cannot fight you when you flare out your flames in this way”
• parent: Juno “Crook-foot,” she cried, “my child, be up and doing”

BOOK XXII

• with Achilles (interaction) “The thick tresses of gold with which Vulcan had crested the helmet floated round it”

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Extracted from the original text of The Iliad. Made with Rho MD.