Hephaestus - Symbolism

Symbolism

Hephaestus is reported in mythological sources as "lame" (cholōs), and "halting" ((ēpedanos). He was 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: Hephaistos amphigyēeis. He walked with the aid of a stick. The Argonaut Palaimonius, "son of Hephaestus" (i.e. a bronze-smith) was also lame.

Other "sons of Hephaestus" were the Cabeiri on the island of Samothrace, who were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius. The adjective karkinopous ("crab-footed") signified "lame", according to Detienne and Vernant. The Cabeiri were also lame.

In some myths, 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. In the Iliad, it is said that Hephaestus built some bronze human machines in order to move around.

Hephaestus’s ugly appearance and lameness is taken by some to represent arsenicosis, an effect of low levels of arsenic exposure that would result in lameness and skin cancers. In place of less easily available tin, arsenic was added to copper in the Bronze Age to harden it; like the hatters, crazed by their exposure to mercury, who inspired Lewis Carroll's famous character of the Mad Hatter, most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic poisoning as a result of their livelihood. Consequently, the mythic image of the lame smith is widespread.