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Vulcan (Mythology the Roman god)

in mythology, the Roman god of fire and the patron of all metallic handicrafts; the son of Jupiter and Juno, and identical with the the Greek Hephæstus. Being extremely ugly and deformed, Juno, ashamed to own such a child, dropped him from heaven, when the infant god, falling into the sea, was rescued and adopted by Thetis, who kept him till nine years of age. He was then restored to his parents. Soon after his return to Olympus, Vulcan took his mother's part in one of the quarrels between husband and wife; Jupiter, enraged at Vulcan's audacity, flung him from heaven. After traveling a whole day, the youth alighted on the island of Lemnos, breaking his ankle in the fall; here he raised forges and workshops, and became the chief of artificers; some poets, however, fix his workshop on Olympus, another on Etna, where Cyclops were his ministers and chief as sistants, by whose aid he fabricated all the great works attributed to him. He fashioned Pandora, and had Venus given him for his wife, by whom he was father of Cupid. Vulcan is represented bearded, covered with dust and soot, and blowing the fires of his forges, or else in the act of forging Jove's thunderbolts.