I might be resigned to the fact that no caretakers of young Hera other than Tethys and Okeanos will ever get any meaningful attention (shout out to the second book in „Olympian Confessions” by Erin Kinsella though for giving Hera's Argive nurses a role in the story), but that doesn't mean I'm not upset about it.
Take Makris as an example and consider her potential.
According to Plutarch (Eusebios' Praeparatio evangelica Book 3 chapter 1), Hera was being raised on Euboia by Makris when Zeus kidnapped her and took her to mt. Kithairon in order to sleep with her. Makris came looking for Hera but Kithairon lied to her so that she would go away and not discover what was going on:
„This symbolical style is more common in the tales and legends. As for instance, they relate that Hera, being brought up in Euboea. was stolen away while yet a virgin by Zeus, and was carried across and hidden in this region, where Cithaeron afforded them a shady recess, nature's own bridal-chamber. And when Macris----she was Hera's nurse----came to seek her, and wished to make a search, Cithaeron would not let her pry about, or approach the spot, on pretence that Zeus was there resting and passing the time in company with Leto.”
According to Book 4 of Apollonios Rhodios' Argonautica, Hera banished Makris from Euboia for nursing the infant Dionysos:
„And straightway they mingled a bowl to the blessed ones, as is right, and reverently led sheep to the altar, and for that very night prepared for the maiden the bridal couch in the sacred cave, where once dwelt Macris, the daughter of Aristaeus, lord of honey, who discovered the works of bees and the fatness of the olive, the fruit of labour. She it was that first received in her bosom the Nysean son of Zeus in Abantian Euboea, and with honey moistened his parched lips when Hermes bore him out of the flame. And Hera beheld it, and in wrath drove her from the whole island. And she accordingly came to dwell far off, in the sacred cave of the Phaeacians, and granted boundless wealth to the inhabitants.”
And to make things even more interesting, Makris was also close to Demeter , again according to Book 4 of the Argonautica:
„Fronting the Ionian gulf there lies an island in the Ceraunian sea, rich in soil, with a harbour on both sides, beneath which lies the sickle, as legend saith -- grant me grace, O Muses, not willingly do I tell this tale of olden days -- wherewith Cronos pitilessly mutilated his father; but others call it the reaping-hook of Demeter, goddess of the nether world. For Demeter once dwelt in that island, and taught the Titans to reap the ears of corn, all for the love of Macris.”
How much fun is it to imagine Hera and Dionysos being raised by the same person? And these strange connections between them are not limited to this example: Rhea is Hera's biological mother and in some accounts she is Dionysos' foster one; Tethys was Hera's nurse according to the Iliad and in some vase paintings she appears in the entourage of Dionysos. These two are just bound to share mother figures, it seems.
