Hermes is a god in the old Greek stories. His job was to carry messages for the other gods, and also between gods and people — he was their runner and their speaker. In pictures he usually has little wings on his shoes and on his helmet, so you can see that he is fast. The Romans told almost the same story, but they used another name: Mercury. (That is why English later used Mercury for a planet and for a metal too.) Though actually, later magic and alchemy stories mixed him with a wise figure called Hermes Trismegistus, who was said to seal a treasure chest so tightly that nothing could get in; that tale is how English got hermetic. There is also a famous French fashion house called Hermès, but that is a brand, not the god. In a mythology class, Hermes means the messenger god.