(Hephaestos), in pagan worship, the god of subterranean fire and metals, was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was said to be so remarkably deformed that his father threw him down from heaven to the Isle of Lemnos, in which fall he broke his leg, and there he set up his forge, and taught men how to soften and polish brass and iron. Thence he removed to the Lipari isles, near Sicily, where, by the assistance of the Cyclops, he made Jupiter's thunderbolts, and armour for the other gods. Notwithstanding the deformity of his person, he had a passion for Minerva, and by Jupiter's consent paid his addresses to her, but without success. He was, however, more fortunate in his suit to Venus; but after their marriage she chose Mars for her gallant, and Vulcan exposed them to the ridicule of the other gods, by taking them in a net. The stories of Vulcan and Hephaestus have become so closely interwoven that they defy human skill to disentangle them.