Celeus

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in later mythographic summaries (e.g., Apollodorus), Demeter, searching for Persephone, comes to Eleusis disguised (as the old woman Doso) and is received by Celeus, king of Eleusis. She nurses or tends the royal child Demophon and secretly attempts, by nightly rites at the family hearth, to make the child immortal by burning away his mortal part. The attempt is interrupted by Metaneira; when Demeter reveals herself she instead teaches Triptolemus (a son of Celeus in some traditions) the art of agriculture and gives him seed and a winged chariot to spread agriculture among humankind. Variant traditions record different names for Celeus's daughters and differ over genealogical details, and later accounts add that Celeus was killed in a war with Athens (by Erichthonius) and that his mourning daughters were transformed into doves by Demeter.

Primary sources present Celeus as a human king of Eleusis with no preserved physical description. Literary emphasis is placed on his social role—sovereign, husband (Metaneira), and father (Demophon, Triptolemus)—and on his household's function as the setting for Demeter's domestic visit and ritual actions rather than on bodily appearance or distinctive dress.

Celeus possesses no supernatural powers in the surviving accounts; his significance is social and ritual. He functions as hospitable host to a disguised goddess, as an early priestly recipient/initiand of Demeter's secrets (described in the Homeric Hymn as one of the original priests / first people to learn the Mysteries), and as the patriarchal figure through whose household Demeter transmits agricultural knowledge (via Triptolemus). Mythic narratives also cast him as a mortal casualty of regional conflict (killed in war with Athens in some traditions).