According to Snorri Sturluson in the Heimskringla Roger II (who in the Fagrskinna is called “Jarl Rogeirr”) was visited by the Norwegian King Sigurd Jorsalfare, who famously established the Varangian Guard at Constantinople (or Miklagard.) 

This makes me wonder how well they got on.

You see, Sigurd (who was given a splinter of the True Cross for fighting in defense of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem) led his own crusade (known as Kalmare ledung) against Småland in Sweden after the inhabitants renounced their Christian faith and began worshiping their ancestral Gods once more. (After being beaten back into submission, the Swedes would go on to lead crusades against polytheists in Estonia, Finland and Russia.)

Meanwhile Pope Honorius called for a crusade to depose Roger for his “half-heathenish ways” and the tolerance he showed towards the diverse faiths of his subjects, be they Catholic, Orthodox, Jew, Moslem or other. Outlasting the bastard, Roger backed his successor Anacletus II against a rival papal claimant and was rewarded with an expansion of territory and official coronation on Christmas Day in Palermo.

Then again Sigurd’s pal Emperor Alexios I Komnenos bestowed on Roger the title of protonobilissimos, so maybe they did get along despite their differing beliefs. Sigurd spent a lot of time at the Byzantine court, so if there was bad blood between him and Roger it likely would have come up. 

I bet there were some awkward conversations though.

Here is the trailer for the Royal Opera’s 2015 production of Król Roger by Polish-Ukrainian composer Karol Szymanowski and his cousin librettist Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, which looks pretty fucking cool.  

Król Roger tells the story of that time Roger II, the Norman King of Sicily and Africa, encountered Dionysos in the form of a humble shepherd and had his life turned upside down in the process. Or as karolszymanowski.pl puts it:

The plot takes place during one night, from the sunset in the First Act to the dawn in the Third. It begins with muted sounds of a gong, followed by the superb sound of a cappella choirs (which in places consist of ten voices!) of priests, nuns, courtiers, knights and clerics, lightly stylised to recall old Orthodox church and plainchant vocal forms. The crowd demands that the King should punish the young Shepherd, who has come from the mountains and incites the people. Brought in by the guards, the Shepherd sings a seductive song (“My god is as beautiful as I…”), written in a high register tenor voice. Roger allows him to leave, but requires him to return for a “judgment.” The mood of evening expectancy, which opens the Second Act, is painted by Szymanowski with an enchanting tissue of restless sounds. The Queen sings the breathtakingly beautiful, Kołysanka Roksany [Roxana’s Lullaby] (“Sleep, King Roger’s blood-steeped dreams”); with this song, she hopes to turn her husband’s anger into gentleness towards the strange young man. The song, with its Eastern melismas, is a show piece for lyrical sopranos. The Shepherd arrives with musicians. His followers arrive and dance in ecstasy; Roxana, moved, joins them. The King orders the Shepherd to be put in chains, but the Shepherd breaks his bonds with a mysterious power and leaves, free, with a retinue and the queen; this time it is he who calls Roger “for judgment.” In the Third Act the King, as a pilgrim, arrives with his faithful Edrisi at a ritual to honour the Shepherd-Dionysus. Roxana’s voice responds to the King’s calls, but he understands that he has lost her. Being lured by the Shepherd to sing and dance around the sacred fire, although excited, he cannot accept the new god’s world as his own. With first light everything disappears. Roger intones the Hymn do Słońca [Anthem of the Sun], in which the hero’s dramatic baritone emerges, like hot brilliance, from the shimmering sound of the orchestra.

In this work, Szymanowski presents the conflict between reason and instinct which takes place in the human soul. Undoubtedly this is not a rewarding subject for an opera, but it does find some justification in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, which had a strong influence on the spirituality of Szymanowski’s generation. In his essay The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music Nietzsche proposed the famous distinction between the Apollonian and Dionysian elements in art. For him, Apollo is the god of illusion and intellectual distance from the world (reason), while Dionysus leads to the experience of the highest, sensual truth of existence (instinct). In the opera King Roger reason is personified by the priests, the adviser Edrisi and the whole court with queen Roxana, while instinct is the Shepherd, who preaches another faith. To the King’s despair, Roxana follows the voice of instinct and joins the Shepherd’s retinue. On the other hand, Roger, after hesitating (which takes three acts…), in the finale turns to the Sun – Apollo’s symbolic attribute: “from the depth of loneliness, from the abyss of my power, I will tear out my clear heart and offer it to the Sun.”

The genesis of the play lies in Szymanowski’s own transformative encounters during his travels through Southern Italy and the Middle East in the years leading up to WWI (though the score would not see completion until 1924.) That story, and the Dionysian themes which run through Król Roger are brilliantly discussed in Willem Bruls’ “A Synthesis of the Sensual and the Divine”: Karol Szymanowski and his King Roger:

The culture that had influenced the composer most strongly when he was in Sicily was that of the Byzantine world of the French-Norman King Roger II, son of the Norman count Roger de Hauteville, who had attacked Sicily in 1060 and seized it from the Arabs. His government took on many of the dominant Greek, Roman, and particularly Arabic traditions, and it guided the island to one of its cultural high points. His son Roger II, who lived from 1095 to 1154, continued these traditions. His court in Palermo was the splendid center of his empire. The three populations of the island – Greeks, Arabs, and Latin Sicilians – lived in comparative harmony. Roger’s grandson, Frederick II, would later try unsuccessfully to export this idea of a cultural melting pot to northern Europe.

In Palermo, Szymanowski visited the famous Palatine Chapel that Roger had built in gratitude for his coronation. This church is one of the marvels of Byzantine-Arabic architecture. Colorful mosaic biblical scenes against golden backgrounds cover the walls and cupolas, while the wooden ceiling is decorated with Arabic carvings. The building made a lasting impression on the 29-year-old Szymanowski, and this experience would form the core of his personal and artistic development from then on. What is striking here is less that a composer would be stimulated by architecture and the fine arts, than that these arts are in their essence the very expression of the world from which he had hoped to liberate himself, namely, the Christian world. What Szymanowski saw in Palermo reflected the proverbial rigidity of Byzantine art, of Oriental rites, and the dogma of absolute truth. The mosaics were created largely by Greek artists during the epoch of the second golden age of Byzantine art.

The ceiling of the chapel, produced by Arabic craftsmen, adds to the splendor of the building. The sweeping forms of the Moorish stalactites and carved coffers, recalling the ascendancy of Granada and Cordoba, form a counterweight to the strict Byzantine figures. The blending of Christian and Arabic cultures points to the older culture from which both developed, that of classical antiquity.

After his stay in Sicily in 1914, Szymanowski crossed the Mediterranean on his way to North Africa. Together with his friend Stefan Spiess, he visited Algiers, Constantine, Biskra, and Tunis. On April 11, he wrote from Biskra: “This place is truly divine…” The warmth and beauty that Szymanowski sought in the south meant something else to him, however. One of the reasons that he fled the north so regularly was his homosexuality. In Sicily and in North Africa he probably felt something of the relative freedom toward this form of eroticism.

Alternately, I could do a play based on Sir Orfeo where our hero must journey through the Underworld (transformed into a Celtic Otherworld) and confront the Fairy King who has abducted his beloved wife Dame Heurodis.

To get a sense of what that would be like, check out the following:

• Piotr Spyra, The Terror of the Threshold: Liminality and the Fairies of Sir Orfeo
• Blythe Hsing-wen Tsai, Appropriating the Classical Underworld: The Otherworld and its Spectacle in Sir Orfeo
• Jordi Sanchez-Marti, Insular Sources and Analogues of the Otherworld in the Middle English Sir Orfeo
• Jane Beal, Orphic Powers in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legend of Beren and Lúthien
• Amy Louise Morgan, Fairies, Monsters and the Queer Otherworld: Otherness in Sir Orfeo

Looks like Grigori Rasputin is winning the Dionysia poll with a whopping 2 votes!

Rasputin would indeed make a good subject for a play. I’d portray him as a surrogate sacred king slash pharmakos in addition to being a mendicant holy man, and have him warn that if an aristocrat sheds his blood it’ll bring great calamity upon the land (i.e. the Communist revolution.) There’ll also be a chorus of dancing and flagellating Khlysty ecstatics like the eponymous Asian Mainades of Euripides’ Bakchai. 

Of course I wouldn’t rule Aleksandr Dugin out just yet, considering he’s besties with Putin and you know how much Vladimir likes tampering with elections – almost as much as the DNC.

Although Dugin is often presented as a far-right or fascist intellectual literally hell-bent on destroying the West:

Finally, Heiser comments on Dugin’s worship of Chaos, and the adoption of the occult symbol of the eight-pointed “Star of Chaos” as the emblem (and, when inscribed in gold on a black background, the flag) of the Eurasianist movement.

“For Dugin, logos is replaced by chaos, and the very symbol of chaos magic is the symbol of Eurasia: ‘Logos has expired and we all will be buried under its ruins unless we make an appeal to chaos and its metaphysical principles, and use them as a basis for something new.’ Dugin dressed his discussion of logos in the language of Heidegger, but his terminology cannot be read outside of a 2,000-year-old Western, biblical tradition which associates the Logos with the Christ, and Dugin’s invocation of chaos against logos leads to certain inevitable conclusions regarding his doctrines.”

In short, Dugin’s Eurasianism is a satanic cult.

The truth, however, is something altogether very different as you can hear for yourself in this interview he gave.

Indeed, Joseph Gelfer posed the intriguing question:

Could it be that Dugin has been an undercover queer theorist all along and is playing a long game, positioning himself as an intellectual heavyweight on the far right in order to subvert it from within? If you think that is far-fetched, consider the following, as chronicled in Masha Gessen’s recent book, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. Dugin’s first wife was Evgeniya Debryanskaya, who he taught English by reading the suspiciously queer The Picture of Dorian Gray. They eventually broke up, after which Evgeniya Debryanskaya went on to become a prominent feminist and LGBT activist in Russia. This part is not in Gessen’s book: shortly before they parted ways, the young couple made a pact: “Sasha, darling. I will fight openly for the rights of women and gay people. Your task is far more difficult. You must pretend to be an ultra-nationalist until the time is right. Then we will reveal to them the joy of androgyny and sex as practised by the angels.” Stranger things have happened.

It sounds pretty out there, but back in the 1980s Aleksandr Dugin was involved with a number of groups which comprised a mystical underground resistance movement fighting Soviet totalitarianism. As Charles Clover writes in Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism:

In 1980, in preparation for the Olympic Games in Moscow, police cleared the riff-raff from the streets, and it was strongly suggested that the group should move out of the capital. They found new beatnik digs at a dacha in the suburb of Klyazma. It was owned by Sergey Zhigalkin, a wiry and energetic man who made a name for himself translating Heidegger and publishing Golovin’s poetry.

While writing this book I met Zhigalkin. He offered to help recreate a typical (albeit much tamer) evening get-together of the mystical underground, taking me to the Klyazma dacha, which he still owns. We sat around a bonfire and drank cognac all night long, while he explained to me the magnetic, dark charisma of Golovin, who emerges from the tales of his followers much like the leader of a cult. ‘In Golovin’s presence the limits of the natural world fell away, the earth became a bigger place, a limitless place. It was like being flung out of a centrifuge. We used alcohol to start the energy, but Golovin could manipulate this  energy. He could destroy your perception of the world.’ 

One evening, a young man appeared at the Klyazma dacha, brought by an acquaintance. He looked no more than 18. His head was shaved, but he had an aristocratic bearing and a quick wit. He was immediately charismatic and came carrying a guitar. Strumming away around a bonfire in the evening sunset, he belted out a song: ‘Fuck the Damned Sovdep.’ Even by the extreme tastes of the mystical underground this was borderline stuff.

[…]

‘We all just fell down and worshiped him,’ said Dudinsky. ‘What a great song! He was like the messiah.’ He was Alexander Dugin, and he was the newest recruit to the Moscow mystical underground. A brilliant if uninformed teenager, he soon learned to idolize his guru, Golovin. Few people from those years have forgotten their first encounter with Dugin, who had a gift for making an entrance. […] Serebrov recalls meeting Dugin at Moscow’s Kievskaya metro-station:

A look of rapture came over Alexander’s face. He pulled a bottle of port wine out of his bag and threw it on the platform. “Sieg Heil! I make this sacrifice to the god Dionysus!” The bottle shattered into a million pieces, spreading a wave of port across the platform.

Tell me Aleksandr Dugin wouldn’t make a fascinating protagonist, especially if Gelfer is correct.

Though, personally, I’d prefer to do a play about Mithridates Eupator, King of Pontus, scourge of Rome and Neos Dionysos, with a keen interest in pharmakeia.

Or Skyles the Bacchic martyr-king, whose story is told in Herodotos’ Histories 4.78-80:

Such-like, then, was the fortune that befell Anacharsis, all for his foreign usages and his companionship with Greeks; and a great many years afterwards, Scyles, son of Ariapithes, suffered a like fate. Scyles was one of the sons born to Ariapithes, king of Scythia; but his mother was of Istria, and not native-born; and she taught him to speak and read Greek. As time passed, Ariapithes was treacherously slain by Spargapithes, king of the Agathyrsi, and Scyles inherited the kingship and his father’s wife, whose name was Opoea, a Scythian woman, and she bore to Scyles a son, Oricus. So Scyles was king of Scythia; but he was in no wise content with the Scythian manner of life, and was much more inclined to Greek ways, from the bringing up which he had received; so this is what he did: having led the Scythian army to the city of the Borysthenites (who say that they are Milesians) — having, I say, come thither, he would ever leave his army in the suburb of the city, but he himself, entering within the walls and shutting the gates would doff his Scythian apparel and don a Greek dress; and in it he went among the townsmen unattended by spearmen or any others (the people guarding the gates, lest any Scythian should see him wearing this apparel), and in every way followed the Greek manner of life, and worshipped the gods according to Greek usage. Then having so spent a month or more, he put on Scythian dress and left the city. This he did often; and he built him a house in Borysthenes, and married and brought thither a wife of the people of the country.

But when the time came that evil should befall him, this was the cause of it: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw a wondrous vision. He had in the city of the Borysthenites a spacious house, great and costly (that same house whereof I have just made mention), all surrounded by sphinxes and griffins wrought in white stone; this house was smitten by a thunderbolt and wholly destroyed by fire. But none the less for this did Scyles perform the rite to the end. Now the Scythians make this Bacchic revelling a reproach against the Greeks, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men on to madness. So when Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the Borysthenites scoffed at the Scythians: “Why,” said he, “you Scythians mock us for revelling and being possessed by the god; but now this deity has taken possession of your own king, so that he is revelling and is maddened by the god. If you will not believe me, follow me now and I will show him to you.” The chief men among the Scythians followed him, and the Borysthenite brought them up secretly and set them on a tower; whence presently, when Scyles passed by with his company of worshippers, they saw him among the revellers; whereat being greatly moved, they left the city and told the whole army what they had seen.

After this Scyles rode away to his own place; but the Scythians rebelled against him, setting up for their king his brother Octamasades, son of the daughter of Teres. Scyles, learning how they dealt with him and the reason of their so doing, fled into Thrace; and when Octamasades heard this he led his army thither. But when he was beside the Ister, the Thracians barred his way; and when the armies were like to join battle Sitalces sent this message to Octamasades: “Wherefore should we essay each other’s strength? You are my sister’s son, and you have with you my brother; do you give him back to me, and I give up your Scyles to you; and let neither of us endanger our armies.” Such was the offer sent to him by Sitalces; for Sitalces’ brother had fled from him and was with Octamasades. The Scythian agreed to this, and received his brother Scyles, giving up his own uncle to Sitalces. Sitalces then took his brother and carried him away, but Octamasades beheaded Scyles on the spot. So closely do the Scythians guard their usages, and such penalties do they lay on those who add foreign customs to their own.

But I’ll leave the decision up to you guys. The poll will remain open through Presidents’ Day weekend.

Or perhaps I’ll dispense with the democratic process altogether and write an interconnected trilogy, complete with accompanying Satyr Play. But that’s probably too ambitious considering the Dionysia is only a couple weeks away.

Alright, democracy it is!

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. 

I was googling something in anticipation of having the post where I praise immigrant and queer heroes used as proof that I’m a crypto-Nazi because the meander is a Nazi symbol, just like the triskelion, wolfsangel, sonnenrad, labrys and other symbols of the Starry traditions.

Specifically I googled:

ursa major nazi

And sure enough, I was directed to a Wikipedia article that says:

According to the Russian archaeologist Gennady Zdanovich, who studied some of the oldest examples of the symbol in Sintashta culture, the swastika symbolizes the universe, representing the spinning constellations of the celestial north pole centred in α Ursae Minoris, specifically the Little and Big Dipper (or Chariots), or Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. Likewise, according to René Guénon the swastika is drawn by visualising the Big Dipper/Great Bear in the four phases of revolution around the pole star.

Oopsies.

So I’m reading Valeriya Kozlovskaya’s The Harbour of Olbia (which, aside from being tremendously informative has some really great maps and illustrations) and wondering if she’s going to mention the ship on the the bone plaque, when she does: 

Another schematic representation of a ship is drawn on a bone plaque. The ship, probably a commercial vessel, has a rounded outline and a sail. The inscription ∆ιον next to the prow of the ship, interpreted as Διόν(υσος), prompted scholars to connect the plaque with the cult of Dionysus, which was very prominent in Olbia from the 5th century BC onwards.

Minor correction: ∆ιον isn’t inscribed next to the prow of the ship, as you can see in figure 4a – the delta actually forms part of the prow. (Or at least overlaps it.)

I don’t believe that’s accidental; rather, I take it to be a representation of the Black Ship paraded through the city during Anthesteria, with the blessings and energy of the God graphically radiating out from it via the Dionysiac tag. I’ll have to go back and see if any scholars have hit on this interpretation. If I’m correct that would mean the festival was celebrated at Olbia pretty early in its history. This would make sense considering that Anthesterion appears on the civic calendar and a couple of inscriptions, but I have no idea when it was formally adopted.

Wanna know something else pretty neat?

Ancient Olbia occupied a triangularly-shaped territory on a plateau and topographically consisted of three parts: the Upper City on top of the plateau, the Lower City down at the water, and the Terrace Area on the slopes of the plateau. Today the extant territory of the settlement measures about 30 ha, but it is estimated that over time the waters of the Bug liman have destroyed about 20 to 25 ha. In antiquity the populated area of the city must have continued for at least 200 m east beyond the modern cliff, and the ancient shoreline probably lay 300 to 500 m away from the cliff.

Actually, two things.

First, the city was shaped like a delta, the first letter in Dionysos’ name.

And secondly, that probably answers a question many a scholar has posed, namely: if evidence of Dionysian cultus is so prevalent in Olbia why has nearly a century of excavations not turned up any trace of a Bakcheion or other temple for him?

Well, in many poleis his sanctuaries were located on the outskirts, especially near marshes, lakes or grottoes (natural or man-made) hence the epiklesis Λιμναιος. As such it probably would not have survived the shifting of the shoreline.

All this, and I’m just a couple pages in. I can’t wait to see what else Kozlovskaya uncovers, and the insights that inspires!

PGM IV.1716-1870
Sword of Dardanos: Rite which is called “sword,” which has no equal because of its power, for it immediately bends and attracts the soul of whomever you wish. As you say the spell, also say: “I am bending to my will the soul of him NN.”

Take a magnetic stone which is breathing and engrave Aphrodite sitting astride Psyche and with her left hand holding on her hair bound in curls. And above her head: “ACHMAGE RARPEPSEI”; and below Aphrodite and Psyche engrave Eros standing on the vault of heaven, holding a blazing torch and burning Psyche. And below Eros these names: “ACHAPA ADONAIE BASMA CHARAKO IAKOB IAO E PHARPHAREI.” On the other side of the stone engrave Psyche and Eros embracing one another and beneath Eros’s feet these letters: “SSSSSSSS,” and beneath Psyche’s feet: “EEEEEEEE.” Use the stone, when it has been engraved and consecrated, like this: put it under your tongue and turn it to what you wish and say this spell:

“I call upon you, author of all creation who spread your own wings over the whole world, you, the unapproachable and unmeasurable who breathe into every soul life-giving reasoning, who fitted all things together by your power, firstborn, founder of the universe, golden-winged, whose light is darkness, who shroud reasonable thoughts and breathe forth dark frenzy, clandestine one who secretly inhabit every soul. You engender an unseen fire as you carry off every living thing without growing weary of torturing it, rather having with pleasure delighted in pain from the time when the world came into being. You also come and bring pain, who are sometimes reasonable, sometimes irrational, because of whom men dare beyond what is fitting and take refuge in your light which is darkness. Most headstrong, lawless, implacable, inexorable, invisible, bodiless, generator of frenzy, archer, torch-carrier, master of all living sensation and of everything clandestine, dispenser of forgetfulness, creator of silence, through whom the light and to whom the light travels, infantile when you have been engendered within the heart, wisest when you have succeeded; I call upon you, unmoved by prayer, by your great name: AZARACHTHARAZA LATHA IATHAL Y Y Y LATHAI ATHA LLALAPH IOIOIO AI AI AI OUERIEU OIAI LEGETA RAMAI AMA RATAGEL, first-shining, night-shining, night rejoicing, night-engendering, witness, EREKISITHPHE ARARACHARARA EPHTHISIKERE IABEZEBYTH IT, you in the depth, BERIAMBO BERIAMBEBO, you in the sea, MERMERGO U, clandestine and wisest, ACHAPA ADONAIE MASMA CHARAKO IAKOB IAO CHAROUER AROUER LAILAM SEMESILAM SOUMARTA MARBA KARBA MENABOTH EIIA. Turn the ‘soul’ of her NN to me NN, so that she may love me, so that she may feel passion for me, so that she may give me what is in her power. Let her say to me what is in her soul because I have called upon your great name.”

And on a golden leaf inscribe this sword: “One THOURIEL MICHAEL GABRIEL OURIEL MISAEL IRRAEL ISTRAEL: May it be a propitious day for this name and for me who know it and am wearing it. I summon the immortal and infallible strength of God. Grant me the submission of every soul for which I have called upon you.” Give the leaf to a partridge to gulp down and kill it. Then pick it up and wear it around your neck after inserting into the strip the herb called “boy love.”

The burnt offering which endows Eros and the whole procedure with soul is this: manna, 4 drams; storax, 4 drams; opium, 4 drams; myrrh, [f drams;] frankincense, saffron bdella, one-half dram each. Mix in rich dried fig and blend everything in equal parts with fragrant wine, and use it for the performance. In the performance first make a burnt offering and use it in this way.

Phryne was accused of asebia because she held a komos in the Lykeion. This is what Euthias, who prosecuted her, said: I have now proven that Phryne is impious because she has participated in scandalous revelry, because she has introduced a new God, and because she has assembled unlawful thiasoi of both men and women.
— Works of the Attic Orators 2.320

Isodaites. Mentioned by Hypereides in his oration for Phryne. Some foreign daimon, in whose honor women of the lower classes, and particularly the ones that did not excel in virtue, used to hold teletai.
— Harpokration, Lexicon s.v. Isodaites

Now Phryne came from Thespiae. When she was brought to trial by Euthias on a capital charge she was acquitted; this so enraged Euthias that he never again pleaded another case at law, according to Hermippus. When Hypereides, who was defending Phryne, was making no progress in his plea and it became apparent that the judges meant to condemn her, he had her brought forward so that everyone could see her. Then her tore off her clothes, even her undergarments so that her body was laid completely bare. He then broke into such piteous lamentation at the sight of her that he caused the judges to feel superstitious fear of this handmaid and ministrant of Aphrodite. Indulging their feeling of compassion they refrained from putting her to death, and after she had been acquitted a decree was passed that no person speaking in a defendant’s behalf should indulge in lamentation, nor should the accused man or woman on trial be bared for all to see. As a matter of fact, Phryne was more beautiful in the unseen parts. Hence one could not easily catch a glimpse of her naked; for she always wore a tunic which wrapped her body closely, and she did not resort to the public baths. At the great assembly of the Eleusinia and at the festival of Poseidon, in full sight of the whole Greek world, she removed ony her cloak and let down her long hair before stepping into the water; she was the model for Apelles when he painted his Aphrodite Rising from the Sea. So, too, the sculptor Praxiteles, being in love with her, modelled his Cnidian Aphrodite from her, and on the pedestal of his Eros below the stage of the theatre he wrote an epigram: “Praxiteles hath portrayed to perfection the Passion (Eros) which he bore, drawing his model from the depths of his own heart and dedicating Me to Phryne as the price of Me. The spell of love which I cast comes no longer from my arrow, but from gazing upon Me.” He also gave her a choice of his statues, to see whether she wished to take his Eros, or his Satyr, which stood in the Street of the Tripods. She chose the Eros and set it up as a votive offering in Thespiae. Of Phryne herself the neighbors made and set up a golden statue at Delphi, on a pillar of Pentelic marble; Praxiteles executed the work … Now Phryne was very rich, and used to promise that she would build a wall about Thebes if the Thebans would write an inscription upon it, that “Whereas Alexander demolished it, Phryne the courtesan restored it”; so records Callistratus in his book On Courtesans. Aristogeiton, in the speech Against Phryne, says that her real name was Mnesarete.
— Athenaios, Deipnosophistai Book 13

As for his passage and distribution into waves and water, and earth, and stars, and nascent plants and animals, they hint at the actual change undergone as a rending and dismemberment. In addition to Dionysos he is called Zagreus or Nyktelios or Isodaites. Deaths too and vanishings do they construct, passages out of life and new births, all riddles and tales to match the changes mentioned. So they sing to Dionysos dithyrambic strains, charged with sufferings and a change wherein are wanderings and dismemberment.
— Plutarch, On the E at Delphi 9

Isodaites means “he who divides the sacrifice equally.”

Around the year 95 e.v. Dio Chrysostom visited Olbia, where he delivered a speech to the city elites in the forecourt of the temple of Zeus on Platonic politics and Zoroastrian mythology.

Due to constant incursions from their Thrakian, Skythian and Goth neighbors the fortunes of the city had waned considerably since the days of Pharnobazos the Orpheotelest. Though they spoke barbarous Greek, grew out their hair and beards and – shock! gasp! – wore baggy trousers instead of chitons (in the fucking Ukraine, mind you; they were just trying to avoid having their balls freeze off, not Skythize!) they still cherished Homeric values, worshiped Achilles and many of them had the Iliad memorized.

You can read an account of the speech he gave after returning home here.

And for some context I recommend Alexandr Podossinov’s Barbarians and Greeks in the Northern Pontus in the Roman Period: Dio Chrysostom’s Account of Olbia, and Archaeology.

The next festival on our calendar is the Dionysia, which spans the 10th through the 17th of the month Thyrsos (or March 4-10 by the common reckoning.)

Although it’s still a ways off I spent much of last night doing research on theatrical culture in the Black Sea region, starting with Edith Hall’s masterful study.

One of the things that stood out for me is that historical subjects seem to have been nearly as popular as mythological; which further got me thinking that it might be fun to write a play for the festival.

But I’m uncertain if I should do one on Themistokles, Skyles, Mithridates Eupator, Grigori Rasputin, or Aleksandr Dugin.

What do you guys think?

Cast your vote in the comments section below.

On the anniversary of her death, here is Sylvia Plath reading “Lady Lazarus.”

I may have solved the conundrum mentioned here, regarding the obscure Olbian month-name Kúanepsion. If you recall I hypothesized that it could have been derived from the Nymph Kyanê, who was one of Kore’s flower-gathering attendants in Sicily. I dismissed the idea because she seemed to be a figure of limited, local significance so they were unlikely to have even heard of her all the way over in the Ukraine, let alone honored her in their civic calendar.

But then this morning I was reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses looking for something completely unrelated when I discovered that Kyanê was the daughter of the river-God Maiandros who was hugely important in the region, and is the origin of the “Greek key”  symbol (and labyrinth double) meander, which I’ve written about here. Furthermore, Kyanê was married to Miletos the eponymous hero who founded the famous polis in Asia Minor, of which Olbia was an apoikia or colony. (His parentage varies depending on the source, but candidates include both King Minos and Asterion.) The story of Kyanê’s  incestuous children Byblis and Caunus is told in Book IX:439-516, beginning with this significant bit:

When he was in his prime, Minos had made great nations tremble at his very name: now he was weak, and feared Miletus, who was proud of his strength and parentage, the son of Phoebus Apollo and the Nymph Deione. Though Minos believed Miletus might plot an insurrection, he still did not dare to deny him his home. On your own initiative, Miletus, you left, cutting the waters of the Aegean in your swift ship, and built a city on the soil of Asia, that still carries its founder’s name. There you knew Cyane, the daughter of Maeander, whose stream so often curves back on itself, when she was following her father’s winding shores. Twin children were born to her, of outstanding beauty of body, Byblis and her brother Caunus.

So, yeah. I think it entirely possible that’s where Kúanepsion comes from.

Interestingly, after the publication of the Metamorphoses Ovid was exiled to Tomis on the Black Sea where he wrote several books complaining about the marijuana-smoking Skythians and their strange customs. 

Oh, and the other month name I couldn’t figure out, Kalamaion?

Well, as it turns out, Maiandros had a son by the name of Kalamos (meaning “reed”) whose boyfriend Karpos became the personification of the vine after he drowned, as told in Nonnos’ Dionysiaka 11.370-481. At first he does not realize that the “rosy-armed youth” has died, and so Kalamos wanders in search of him like an Aletide. Eventually he arrives at the truth and:

To honour the dead he cut with sorrowful steel a dark lock of his hair, long cherished and kept, and holding out this mourning tress to Maiandros his father, he said these last words: “Accept this hair, and then my body; for I cannot see the light of another dawn without Karpos. Karpos and Kalamos had one life, and both one watery death together in the same stream. Build on the river bank, ye Naiads, one empty barrow for both, and on the tombstone let this verse be engraved in letters of mourning: I am the grave of Karpos and Kalamos, a pair of lovers, whom the pitiless water slew in days of yore. Cut off just one small tress of your hair for Kalamos too, your own dying brother so unhappy in love, and for Karpos cut all the hair of your heads.” With these words, he threw himself into the river and sank, as he swallowed the sonslaying water of an unwilling father. Then Kalamos gave his form to the reeds which took his name and like substance; and Karpos grew up as the fruit of the earth.

Eros tells their tragic story to Dionysos after the death of his own beloved Ampelos who was gored by a bull, in an effort to assuage his grief – which only stirs up a greater frenzy in the God.

Later in Dionysiaka 12.98-102 the river Hydaspes begs Dionysos not to destroy the kalamoi which grow along his banks, for the reeds will support the vine which he loves  and his fruit will proudly hang from their struts.  

You can read the story for yourself here. 

I am pretty sure that’s where Kalamaion comes from, and that it would make a great aition for a festival. Perhaps including a reading of Walt Whitman’s “Calamus” poems from Leaves of Grass, to make the Antinoan undercurrent explicit. 

 

This post was already getting a little long (plus I wanted to begin it with fuck and end it with fuckers, so I had to stop where I did to preserve the ring composition) but it’s not just the Greeks, Mysians and Skythians who had a strong relationship with hemp. 

Indeed the word itself comes from Old English hænep, from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz (also the source of Old Saxon hanap, Old Norse hampr, Old High German hanaf, German Hanf, etc.) which likely derives from the same Skythian loan that the Greek κάνναβις comes from. According to Wikipedia, “the etymology of this word follows Grimm’s Law by which Proto-Indo-European initial *k- becomes *h- in Germanic. The shift of *k→h indicates it entered into the Germanic parent language at a time depth no later than the separation of Common Germanic from Proto-Indo-European,” about 500 BCE or roughly contemporaneous with the ethnographic studies carried out by Herodotos.

But it was around long before then. According to Jane Renfrew’s Paleoethnobotany: The Prehistoric Food Plants of the Near East and Europe cultivated hemp seeds (Cannabis sativa) were found at the stratum of the “hand ceramics culture” in a dig at Eisenberg near Thuringia dating back nearly 7,500 years ago, representing some of the earliest evidence of agriculture in the region.

While hemp remained a staple crop in Germanic, Scandinavian, Baltic and Slavic lands through Christianization and beyond it was primarily used for making ropes, sails, textiles and linen-like clothing. The plant was so versatile and important to the country’s economy that King Christian V even included the duty of growing hemp in his Danish Law of 1683, which states:

Every farmer who holds a full farm, and does not sow a bushel of hemp seed should by his lord be charged and punished as an obstinate and reluctant servant, unless he proves that he has no suitable soil therefore.

It was also cultivated for its plentiful medicinal properties. Sula Benet notes in Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Hemp:

In Russia and Eastern Europe hemp was widely used in folk medicine, and references can also be found to its use in Western Europe. In Germany for example, sprigs of hemp were placed over the stomach and ankles to prevent convulsions and difficult childbirth, and in Switzerland hemp was also used to treat convulsions. In Poland, Russia and Lithuania, hemp was used to alleviate toothache by inhaling the vapor from hemp seeds thrown on hot stones (Biegeleisen 1929). Szyman of Lowic (16th century) gives the following prescription: “For worms in the teeth, boil hemp seeds in a new pot and add heated stones. When this vapor is inhaled the worms will fall out.” This method is varied somewhat in Ukranian folk medicine, the fumes of cooked hemp porridge are believed to intoxicate the worms and cause them to fall out. In Czechoslovakia and Moravia, as in Poland, hemp was considered an effective treatment for fevers. In Poland, a mixture of hemp flowers, wax and olive oil was used to dress wounds. Oil from crushed hemp seeds is used as a treatment for jaundice and rheumatism in Russia. In Serbia, hemp is considered an aphrodisiac (Tschirch 1911). Hemp is also thought to increase a man’s strength. In the Ukraine there is a legend of a dragon who lived in Kiev, oppressing the people and demanding tribute. The dragon was killed and the city liberated by a man wearing a hemp shirt.

According to Jan Bojer Vindheim it has been utilized against snakebite, “heatedness of the heart” and for eye problems up to the present. (The History of Hemp in Norway)

Even with Christianization its inherent sacredness has not been forgotten, as Vindheim goes on to relate:

In the Norwegian valley of Gausdal, people in the nineteenth century would lift their hats in greeting as they approached a field of hemp. The plant was known to house a vette, a nature spirit best treated with respect. In Norwegian folklore hemp cloth symbolized the beginning and end, and it was the first as well as the last in which people were swathed in in this life. These traditions may be relics from a time when hemp had a religious function in the pre-Christian religion.

Which we see, for instance, in its possession by the Oseberg shaman (or queen or shaman-queen) as M. Michael Brady writes in Viking ship cannabis conundrum:

In 2007, some cannabis seeds were found in a small leather purse among the grave goods of two women buried for more than 11 centuries on a Viking ship. The ship was discovered in 1903 in a mound at the Oseberg Farm near Tønsberg on the west bank of the Oslofjord. The find raised new questions in the research on Viking uses of psychoactive agents as well as on the significance of the burial of the women.

[…]

The find of the cannabis seeds deepened the mystery of their burial. Two explanations of the new mystery suggested themselves, practical and ritual. The practical explanation was that the Vikings needed cordage for their ships. The best cordage was made from hemp. In 2012, archaeologists found that hemp had been grown from as early as 650 to 800 at Stosteli, an Iron Age farmstead in Vest-Agder County. This implied that the cannabis seeds found on the Oseberg burial ship were intended to enable the women to cultivate it upon their arrival in the next world.

But none of the ropes or textiles found on board the Oseberg ship were made from hemp. Likewise, the two women had clothing made from flax, nettle, silk, and wool, but not from hemp. This suggests that the cannabis seeds were intended for ritual use.

One or both of the women may have been a Völva (“priestess” or “seeress”), a high position in Viking society, as implied by the ship being moored to a large stone. Such ritual mooring may well have been reassuring to a Völva, who on her voyage after death wished to be tethered to this world.

Völvas are presumed to have employed psychoactive substances, as in burning cannabis seeds to induce a trance. Moreover, a metal rattle of the sort that a Völva could have used in rituals was found on the ship, fixed to a post topped by a carved animal head and covered with sinuous knotwork. 

The divinity most often associated with hemp among the Norse is the Goddess Freyja (and I don’t just mean under her guise of Kírkē, mistress of magical potions and brews.) According to The Sacred Plants of Our Ancestors by Christian Rätsch:

The workings of the love goddess Freya were recognized in hemp. Sowing and harvest were conducted in her honor with an erotic ritual, a Hochzeit—a “high time.” In the feminine flowers lay the eroticizing and love-generating power of Freya (Neményi 1988). Those who became intoxicated from them experienced the sensual joy and aphrodisiac ecstasies of the love goddess. From archaeological digs it has been discovered that the Germanic and Celtic tribes were already placing female hemp flowers (marijuana) in the graves of their dead 2,500 years ago (Kessler 1985).

Hemp never lost its connection with the cult of the dead, as Sula Benet relates:

Even today in Poland and Lithuania, and in former times also in Russia, on Christmas Eve when it is believed that the dead visit their families, a soup made of hemp seeds, called semieniatka, is served for the dead souls to savor. In Latvia and the Ukraine, a dish made of hemp was prepared for Three Kings Day.

This should hardly be surprising since Freyja is considerably more than just a Marilyn Monroesque “love Goddess,” as reflected in her heiti Eidandi Valfalls “Possessor of the Slain” (Skaldskaparmal) and Valfreya “Mistress of the Chosen” (Njals saga) and the fact that an army of the dead dwell with her in Folkvangr:

And Freyja is the most excellent of the Ásynjur, she has that homestead in heaven which is called Fólkvangar, and wherever she rides to battle she has half of the slain, but the other half belongs to Óðinn, as is said here:

Fólkvangr is called where Freyja decides the seat choices in the hall. Every day she chooses half the slain but half belongs to Óðinn.

Her hall Sessrúmnir is large and beautiful. (Grimnismal 14)

Even her hall Sessrúmnir is suggestive of the burial mound and funerary ships:

One very widespread phenomenon in the archaeological record of the Northern Germanic peoples is the ship motif. There are numerous ship images on rune stones, ornamental stones and coins, but most intriguing is the connection of boats with burials. Not only are there hundreds of burials with real boats deposited in graves, but also many stone ships: burial sites with lines of stones erected in the shape of a boat. Naturally enough, scholars have sought to throw light on the ship burial custom by referring to Icelandic literary records of Norse paganism. It is tempting to think of the buried boats as vehicles for the voyage of dead warriors to the afterlife in Valhǫll with Óðinn. However, the mythological record does not contain any tales of the dead travelling to Valhǫll by boat. Nor is Óðinn strongly associated with boats or the sea. Another, perhaps more promising, idea is to connect the ship motif with the Vanir gods, who certainly do have associations with seafaring. […] Perhaps Sessrúmnir was conceived of as both a ship and an afterlife location in Fólkvangr. ‘A ship in a field’ is a somewhat unexpected idea, but it is strongly reminiscent of the stone ships in Scandinavian burial sites. ‘A ship in the field’ in the mythical realm may have been conceived as a reflection of actual burial customs and vice versa. It is possible that the symbolic ship was thought of as providing some sort of beneficial property to the land, such as the good seasons and peace brought on by Freyr’s mound burial in Yinglinga Saga. (Joseph S Hopkins,
The Ship in the Field)

Many Vanic-style fertility rites were associated with the cultivation of hemp, as reported by Sula Benet:

Since the plant was associated with religious ritual and the power of healing, magical practices were connected with its cultivation. In Europe, peasants generally believed that planting hemp should take place on the days of saints who were known to be tall in order to encourage the plant’s growth. In Germany, long steps are taken while sowing the seed which is thrown high into the air. In Baden the planting is done during the “high” hours, between 11:00 a.m. and noon. Cakes baked to stimulate hemp growth are known as ‘hanfeier.’

Following the planting, magical means are applied to make the hemp grow tall and straight. The custom of dancing or jumping to promote the growth of the plant is known throughout Europe. In Poland, married women dance “the hemp dance” on Shrove Tuesday, leaping high into the air. The hemp dance (‘for hemp’s sake’) is also danced at weddings by the young bride with the ‘raiko,’ the master of ceremonies (Kolberg 1899). In the wedding rituals of the Southern Slavs, hemp is a symbol of wealth and a talisman for happiness. When the bride enters her new home after the wedding ceremony, she strokes the four walls of her new home with a bunch of hemp. She is herself sprinkled with hemp seeds to bring good luck. In Estonia, the young bride visits her neighbors in the company of older women asking for gifts of hemp. She is thus “showered” with hemp.

Women play a leading role in the festivities. In Poland, initiation ceremonies are held during the harvest. Young brides are admitted into the circle of older married women on payment of a token fee. Since the Catholic Church never deemed it necessary to interfere with these festivals, it must have regarded them as harmless and perhaps even socially benevolent. In Eastern Europe hemp is evidently not considered addictive and no case of solitary use among the peasants has been reported: it is always used in a context of group participation. In many countries, hemp gathering is an occasion for socializing. The Swiss call it ‘stelg’ (Hager 1919). Young men come to the gathering wearing carnival masks and offer gifts to the girls.

Hemp gathering rituals also reveal the sacred character of the plant. In certain areas of Poland, at midnight, a chalk ring is drawn around the plant which is then sprinkled with holy water. The person collecting the plant hopes that part of the flower will fall into his boots and bring him good fortune. The flower of a hemp plant gathered on St. John’s Eve in the Ukraine is thought to counteract witchcraft and protect farm animals from the evil eye.

You can easily see why this most important of plants was associated with Freyja and that it has uses far beyond just getting high. It is the key that opens up the Green Way, and the ship we use to travel to other worlds, especially that of the dead. This ship is full of Nature’s bounty and blessings, like the Black Ship of Dionysos at Anthesteria. 

Timaeus of Tauromenium relates that there was a certain house at Akragas called the Trireme, on this account:— At a festival of Dionysos once a group of young men were drinking and became so wild when overheated by the liquor that they imagined they were sailing in a trireme, and that they were in a bad storm on the ocean. Finally they completely lost their senses, and tossed all the furniture and bedding out of the house as though upon the waters, convinced that the pilot directed them to lighten the ship because of the raging storm. Well, a great crowd gathered and began to carry off the jetsam, but even then the youngsters did not cease from their mad actions. The next day the military authorities appeared at the house and made a complaint against the young men when they were still half-seas over. To the questions of the magistrates they answered that they had been much put to it by a storm and had been compelled to throw into the sea the superfluous cargo. When the authorities expressed surprise at their insanity, one of the young men, though he appeared to be the eldest of the company, said to them: ‘Ye Tritons, I was so frightened that I threw myself into the lowest possible place in the hold and lay there.’ The magistrates, therefore, pardoned their delirium, but sentenced them never to drink too much and let them go. (Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 2.37)

Fuck, I just realized I overlooked something pretty significant in the passage I posted back at the start of the month:

Asterios conceived a bastard passion for the strange country, being hard of heart. He was not again to see his native land and the cave of the Idaian mount shimmering with helmets; he preferred a life of exile, and instead of Dikte he became a Knossian settler in Skythia. He left greyheaded Minos and his wife; the civilized one joined the barbaric tribes of guest-murdering Kolchians, called them Asterians, they whose nature provided them with outlandish customs (Nonnos, Dionysiaka 13.238-252)

What stood out for me then was the Minotaur deciding to immigrate from Crete to somewhere between the modern Ukraine and Georgia. (Let’s split the difference and say that he came to live among the Sanni.) Once I got over the pure WTF factor of the quote I took it as confirmation that I’m on the right track with all this Starry Bear stuff. 

And then it struck me. 

Ονομα Αστεριος. 

Do you know who said that?

No, not a Bacchic Orphic initiate from Thurii – though good guess!

Some Orphic shaman in Skythia, stinking of reefer.

Let’s jump back a bit, specifically to a temple of Hera in the northeastern Peloponnese:

Fifteen stades distant from Mycenae is the Heraion. Beside the road flows the brook called Water of Freedom. The priestesses use it in purifications and for such sacrifices as are secret […] On its banks grows a plant, which is called asterion. They offer the plant itself to Hera, and from its leaves weave her garlands. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.17.1-2)

The reason this plant is called “Starry” is because of the distinctive shape of its leaves. Perhaps you’ve even seen it before:

The asterion plant in the elder Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, as in many of his contemporaries is called cannabis or hemp. 

κάνναβις is a plant of considerable use in this life. It is good for twisting very strong ropes. It bears leaves with a bad scent, similar to the ash; long hollow stalks, and a round seed. Eaten in quantities these quench conception. The herb (juiced while green) is good for earaches. It is also called cannabium, schoenostrophon, or asterion; the Romans call it cannabis. (Pedanius Dioscorides, De Materia Medica)

Most Greco-Roman authors focus on its medicinal properties, without mentioning recreational or religious usage. A notable exception to this comes in Herodotos’ account of Skythian customs in the Histories:

When a Skythian dies his nearest kin lay him upon a waggon and take him round to all his friends in succession: each receives them in turn and entertains them with a banquet, whereat the dead man is served with a portion of all that is set before the others; this is done for forty days, at the end of which time the burial takes place. After the burial, those engaged in it have to purify themselves.

In order to cleanse their bodies, they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woollen felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp-seed.

Hemp grows plentifully in Skythia: it is very like flax, only that it is a much coarser and taller plant. Some grows wild about the country, some is produced by cultivation. The Thracians make garments of it which closely resemble linen; so much so, indeed, that if a person has never seen hemp he is sure to think they are linen, and if he has, unless he is very experienced in such matters, he will not know of which material they are.

The Skythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Skyths, delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves them instead of a water-bath. (4.72-75)

Nor were the Skythians alone in enjoying the psychoactive properties of the asterion plant, according to Poseidonios:

Poseidonios goes on to say of the Mysians that in accordance with their religion they abstain from eating any living thing, and therefore from their flocks as well; and that they use as food honey and milk and cheese, living a peaceable life, and for this reason are called both Theosebes (“God-fearing”) and Kapnobatai (“walkers-in-smoke”) and there are some of the Thracians who live apart from womankind; these are called Ktistai, and because of the honour in which they are held, have been dedicated to the Gods and live with freedom from every fear. (Strabo, Geography 5.3.3)

Scholars such as Dan Attrell believe that Poseidonios is describing a group of religious specialists who employed entheogens to communicate with their Gods, Spirits and Ancestors:

As the undisputed masters of healing herbs (according to the Greeks), the Thracians were no strangers to the shamanic techniques of ecstasy well known among other cultures of the steppe. Working from the texts of Posidonius, Strabo reported that the Mysians, a Thracian group from north-western Anatolia, possessed members of their society called both θεοσεβεις (“those who fear god”) and καπνοβαται (“those who walk in smoke”) who practiced strict vegetarianism and consumed nothing but honey and dairy products. This reference to the “walkers in smoke” may allude to the ecstasy achieved by mass cannabis consumption as reported by Herodotus among the Scythians. […] One Orphic bone inscription from Olbia dated to the 5th century BC reads “for Dion(ysos) and Psyche,” revealing the importance of a transcendent soul in connection with the Greek god of intoxication in Thracian territory. Another of these bone inscriptions containing the words “Βιος Θανατος Βιος” and marked with little “Z” pictograms (which might represent little orphic serpents) reveals the widespread and consistent nature of Dionysian symbolism reaching as far north as modern Ukraine. In the shamanic mystery initiations as practiced by the Orphic cults, near-death experiences and the use of dangerous doses of hallucinogenic plants went hand in hand. Whereas the Divine Bridegroom Sabazios (Dionysus) was primarily the god who presided over ecstasy and entheogenic intoxication, the Thracians held him in equally high regard as a dying-and-rising saviour god and a master over the souls of the deceased. Long before the introduction of alcohol, shaman exploited the ecstatic and oracular properties of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Amanita muscaria and various types of coprophilic Psilocybin-containing mushrooms); opium (Papaver somniferum); “jimsonweed,” “horsemad,” or “thornapple” (Datura stramonium); mandrake root (Mandragora officinarum); cannabis; deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). The experience of death and the ecstatic evacuation of the soul from the body appears commonly in the Thracian funeral iconography on which is depicted the Tree of Life. To be in a state of ekstasis – that is, to stand outside the body – was to experience death itself. (Dead Kings and Saviour Gods – Euhemerizing Shamanism in Thracian Religion)

Their diet certainly fits in with certain accounts of what was called the bios Orphikos, for instance in Plato:

Again, the practice of men sacrificing one another still exists among many nations; while, on the other hand, we hear of other human beings who did not even venture to taste the flesh of a cow and had no animal sacrifices, but only cakes and fruits dipped in honey, and similar pure offerings, but no flesh of animals; from these they abstained under the idea that they ought not to eat them, and might not stain the altars of the Gods with blood. For in those days men are said to have lived a sort of Orphic life, having the use of all lifeless things, but abstaining from all living things. (Plato, Laws 6.782)

While I have argued in the past that Orphism does not require vegetarianism (on the contrary, certain ceremonies preclude it) you will note I mentioned there may have been specific states and types of work where it was temporarily necessary. In my own practice when I ingest heavy psychedelics I generally avoid any animal products, sometimes for a couple days leading up to the session. Not only does this help me feel lighter, cleaner and more open to the Spirits of the Green Way but the heightened somatic awareness they produce can make it rather unpleasant to be carrying around a bunch of half-digested carcasses in my gut. Also, depending on the entheogen, nothing aids in transitioning back like a big old juicy cheeseburger and they taste even better when you’ve been denying your natural carnivorous instincts. So yeah, I can totally see why that might be a thing.

Entheogen, by the way, means “God-producing,” as in:

Doing the bacchus: he boasts of knowing the foolishness of many books. For having been caught makes it become a terrible practice; ‘honoring the smoke’: this adds he is possessed by the deity. (Scholiast on Euripides’ Hippolytos 954.1)

Which experience, I believe, was beautifully expressed by Aelius Aristides:

For there was a feeling as if taking hold of the God and of clearly perceiving that he himself had come, of being midway between sleeping and waking, of wanting to look, of struggling against his departure too soon; of having applied one’s ears and hearing some things as in a dream, some waking; hair stood straight, tears flowed in joy; the burden of understanding seemed light. What man is able to put these things into words? Yet if he is one of those who have undergone initiation, he knows and is familiar with them. (Orations 48.32)

As well as Plato:

There was a time when with the rest of the happy band we saw the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we saw shining in pure light, pure ourselves. (Phaedrus 250)

Back when I was working with Starry Bull folks we were in the process of developing a Green Way strain of the tradition, under the aegis of Orpheus and Medeia. I’m not sure how far they’ve gotten with it since we stopped talking, but that quote about Asterios relocating to Skythia and Kolchis has me thinking I should develop a Starry Bear version; after all Hera and Dionysos aren’t the only Gods to whom the plant is sacred. (And why it’s these two specifically I’m going to let you piece together for yourself from the Theoi.com entry on Pasithea. Waits for cries of “Oh no! I can’t unsee it!” and heads exploding. Don’t blame me; I already warned you fuckers.) 

. 

Bid your blessed dead a fond farewell, remembering that we hold them always in our hearts! Appease those who drowned in the great flood! Make the porridge of all grains, all seeds and honey for Chthonic Hermes and the souls he guides! Smear pitch on your door and chew buckthorn! And don’t forget to say the words, “Thuraze Kêres, ouket’ Anthestêria!”

I almost forgot: as an addendum to this post – there is a variant tradition that instead of Parnassos Deukalion and his wife sought refuge on Mount Aetna in Sicily:

When the cataclysm which we call the flood or deluge occurred, all the human race perished except Deucalion and Pyrrha, who fled to Mount Etna, which is said to be the highest mountain in Sicily. When they could not live on account of loneliness, they begged Jove either to give men, or to afflict them with a similar disaster. Then Jove bade them cast stones behind them; those Deucalion threw he ordered to become men, and those Pyrrha threw, to be women. Because of this they are called laos, ‘people,’ for stone in Greek is called las. (Hyginus, Fabulae 153)

There’s always an epilogue in Italy, at least when Dionysos is involved. It’s even been said that the place is dearer to him than his own Nysa:

This is Vesuvius, green yesterday with viny shades; here had the noble grape loaded the dripping vats; these ridges Bacchus loved more than the hills of Nysa; on this mount of late the Satyrs set afoot their dances; this was the haunt of Venus, more pleasant to her than Lacedaemon; this spot was made glorious by the fame of Hercules. All lies drowned in fire and melancholy ash; even the High Gods could have wished this had not been permitted them. (Martial, Epigrams IV.44)

You know what else Dionysos loves?

His brother.

With the posts here, here and here I don’t want to imply that Dionysos stole Hebe the immortal wife of Herakles away from him. He just borrowed her.

Not only are the two sons of Zeus really close friends who share a great deal – including the fabled lion-skin – but there’s a whole lot more to the story than you’re likely to find in Bullfinch or D’Aulaires.

For instance, did you know that in Etruscan myth it is Herakles (or rather Hercle) not Theseus who braves the Labyrinth to win the hand of Ariadne (otherwise known as Esia) facing down the terrible Minotaur (whom they call Θevrumineś) to do so? (Their version of the story of Ikarios is also radically different from that of the Athenians.)

So basically what that means is that Dionysos had history with Hebe before she was given in marriage by Zeus to Herakles (contrary to the wishes of Hera) just like Ariadne had history with Herakles before she was claimed on Naxos by Dionysos, and none were willing to let societal norms or even the machinations of other Gods get in the way of that, let alone ruin their friendship.

And that is a lovely note to end things on. (Especially since the rest of the story is deeply unsettling and not something I share in public.)

Anthesteria has so many densely interwoven layers that different things stand out for me each year. One of them this time around was the Black Ship of Dionysos, which is mounted on a wagon and paraded through the city on Pithoigia to open the festival:

For in the month Anthesterion a trireme raised into the air is escorted into the agora which the priest of Dionysos steers like a helmsman.  (Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists 1.25.1)

In the Black Ship are contained all the blessings Dionysos dispenses to the lands and people that graciously receive him:

Hermippus in a play called Stevedores launches into a mock-Homeric hymn to Dionysus in which the god is praised as a merchant-shipper (PCG F 63): ‘Tell me now you Muses who dwell in Olympus how many good things Dionysus brings here to men in his black ship since the time he began to carry merchandise over the wine-faced sea. From Cyrene, silphium stalk and ox hide. From the Hellespont, mackerel and every sort of salted fish. From Thessaly, barley and sides of beef and the mange for the Spartans from Sitalkes, and from Perdikkas a great many ships-full of lies. The Syracusans provide pigs and cheese …’ After a lacuna the list goes on to include products that originate from cities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, from Carthage to Phoenicia. Most modern readers fail to see the humour that such lists of food are supposed to generate. There is none really. It is mainly about sustaining the buoyancy of the audience with effervescent reminders of the festival’s blessings. […] Four Attic vases, produced at the end of the sixth century show Dionysus and satyrs riding wagons, fitted out like ships. Later antiquity’s larger and more international festival economies seem to have required the magnificence of actual wheeled ships. By contrast the images on the Attic skyphoi are very much ‘wagons’ in the shape of ships—and unlikely to be called anything other than ‘wagons’ in ancient texts. Even the Panathenaic ship was referred to as a ‘wagon’ (in Latin currus) as late as the first century AD. In the case of the Tarquinian amphora, the vehicle is mythicised as an actual ship, but incorporates features of the ritual wagon including the piper and the mysterious wicker-like object at the keel. […] Some object that Dionysus Eleuthereus did not come to Athens by ship but overland. We have to respond that the ship is a symbol, not historical reconstruction. In part it suits the Athenian Dionysus because, as we saw, he brings for his festival food and wealth from overseas. But there is something deeper. The utopic vision inspired by the Athenian carnival is one of things spontaneously appearing and spontaneously moving under the influence of Dionysus. In the first messenger speech of Euripides’ Bacchae the presence of Dionysus is revealed by the sudden appearance of springs of water, wine, milk and honey (705-11), and by the effortless coordination, energy and equilibrium of the bacchants’ movements (esp. 693, 755-8). The spontaneous springs of water, wine, milk and honey recall the αὐτόματος βίος of the Cronian Golden Age when the earth freely produced an abundance of food and drink for all men at no cost or effort. This was of course also an ideal embodied by the Dionysian festival where food and wine really were abundant and free. But effortless coordination and equilibrium are also an expression of the processional god. Dionysus sets people and things in motion, particularly in a graceful and rhythmic motion: the power of music to animate the body (even at times against one’s will) is perhaps the supreme expression of this particular aspect of the god. (Eric Csapo, The Dionysian Parade and the Poetics of Plenitude)

However, on Chytroi which closed the festival, a different ship was on people’s minds, the one that Deukalion and his wife used to escape the great deluge:

Zeus by pouring heavy rain from heaven flooded the greater part of Greece, so that all men were destroyed, except a few who fled to the high mountains in the neighborhood. It was then that the mountains in Thessalia parted, and that all the world outside the Isthmos and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. But Deukalion, floating in the chest over the sea for nine days and as many nights, drifted to Parnassos, and there, when the rain ceased, he landed and sacrificed to Zeus Phyxios (God of Escape). And Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to get men. And at the bidding of Zeus he took up stones and threw them over his head, and the stones which Deukalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people (laos) from laas, ‘a stone.’ (Apollodoros, Bibliotheca 1.7.2)

Note the role that Hermes plays in this myth, which is why he was honored alongside those who drowned in the flood:

Those who had survived the great deluge of Deukalion boiled pots of every kind of seed, and from this the festival gets its name. It is their custom to sacrifice to Hermes Khthonios. No one tastes the pot. The survivors did this in propitiation to Hermes on behalf of those who had died. (Theopompos, in the Scholia to Aristophanes’ Acharnians 1076)

However, those familiar with Delphic lore and the origin of the Thyiades would have extra reason to honor Deukalion and Hermes:

They say that the oldest city was founded here by Parnassos, a son of Kleodora, a Nymph. Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one they say was the God Poseidon, the human father being Kleopompos. After this Parnassos were named, they say, both the mountain and also the Parnassian glen. Augury from flying birds was, it is said, a discovery of Parnassos. Now this city, so the story goes on, was flooded by the rains that fell in the time of Deukalion. Such of the inhabitants as were able to escape the storm were led by the howls of wolves to safety on the top of Parnassos, being led on their way by these beasts, and on this account they called the city that they founded Lykoreia (Mountainwolf-city).

Another and different legend is current that Apollon had a son Lykoros by a Nymph, Korykia, and that after Lykoros was named the city Lykoreia, and after the Nymph the Korykian cave. It is also said that Kelaino was daughter to Hyamos, son of Lykoros, and that Delphos, from whom comes the present name of the city, was a son of Kelaino, daughter of Hyamos, by Apollon. Others maintain that Kastalios, an aboriginal, had a daughter Thyia, who was the first to be priestess of Dionysos and celebrate orgies in honor of the God. It is said that later on men called after her Thyiades all women who rave in honor of Dionysos. At any rate they hold that Delphos was a son of Apollon and Thyia. Others say that his mother was Melaina, daughter of Kephisos. (Pausanias, 10.6.1-4)

Cool, right? And something I’ve explored elsewhere in my writings on the Thyiades. But it doesn’t stop there.

Do you know why Zeus sought to destroy mankind with the storm of all storms? It was the Wolf King’s fault:

Lykaon, reigning over the Arcadians, begat by many wives fifty sons … and these exceeded all men in pride and impiety. Zeus, desirous of putting their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a day-laborer. They offered him hospitality and having slaughtered a male child of the natives, they mixed his bowels with the sacrifices, and set them before him, at the instigation of the elder brother Maenalus. But Zeus in disgust upset the table at the place which is still called Trapezus, and blasted Lykaon and his sons by thunderbolts, all but Nyktimos, the youngest; for Earth was quick enough to lay hold of the right hand of Zeus and so appease his wrath. But when Nyktimos succeeded to the kingdom, there occurred the flood in the age of Deukalion; some said that it was occasioned by the impiety of Lykaon’s sons. (Apollodoros 3.8.1-2)

Happen to know the name of that male child of the natives they butchered and tried to serve to Zeus? 

Of course you do. The child he killed was Arkas, the Starry Bear:

He is said to be the son of Jove and Callisto, whom Lycaon served at a banquet, cut up with other meat, when Jupiter came to him as a guest. For Lycaon wanted to know whether the one who had asked for his hospitality was a God or not. For this deed he was punished by no slight punishment, for Jupiter, quickly overturning the table, burned the house with a thunderbolt, and turned Lycaon himself into a wolf. But the scattered limbs of the boy he put together, and gave Arcas to a certain Aetolian to care for. (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.4)

And Deukalion, too, was placed among the stars:

The constellation Aquarius or Water Bearer. Many have said he is Ganymede. Hegesianax, however, says he is Deucalion, because during his reign such quantities of water poured from the sky that the great flood resulted. (ibid 2.29)

Ganymede, as in the male double of Hebe. 

Also, did you know that some folks claim that the Wagon constellation (which is also a bear) is the same one which bears the Black Ship of Dionysos as it makes the procession through cities and the countryside.

Which brings it all full circle, like a wheel. 

Despite the influx of hipsters from Brooklyn and Westchester our little town is decidedly lacking in swings. There are some in a couple schools (though not as many as you might imagine) and a gated kiddy park, and that’s about it – which is very different from other places I’ve lived, unfortunately.

The housemate and I snuck into the kiddy park (while Galina and the cat remained behind to hold down the fort) so we could hang the paper dolls the three of us drew, colored and cut out earlier in the evening for Erigone and the Athenian maidens. Then we swung for a while until we saw a car pull up next to ours and the cops started searching it with a flashlight. As we approached, I loudly greeted the police and waved at them in a friendly manner to show I wasn’t carrying. They cheerfully reminded us the park was closed after dark and sent us on our way.

Heading home we paused by the statue of Hebe in the center of town to pay our respects, thereby bringing our Choës observance to a close. Almost as soon as we arrived there was a sudden torrential downpour reminding me of Deukalion’s flood, which seems like an auspicious start to Chytroi. This, by the by, is part of why I made the Hebe posts earlier, as she is the closest thing we have to a polis-Goddess. If you’d like to learn more about our Hebe (not depicted below) click here.