I remember you who remained faithful to your father even unto death,
Erigone crowned with solemn rites during the festival of flowers,
when the daughters of our city swing in somber joy for you
while the streets run with wine
and revelers flush from the feast of the ox-shed marriage.
Erigone who knows the maze of sorrow
and the seduction of the grape,
Erigone who sits beside the well where the white cypress grows
and waits for those who walk the thirsty road of dust.
Erigone who shoulders the burdens that are impossible for us to endure
and finds the strength to do so in her vulnerability.
We honor you, foremost of the martyrs of the vine
and ask that you guide us into restoration and that our ancestors never thirst
and know no hunger.

This poem was commissioned by Galina as part of my June fundraising event.

Erigone whose tender feet know the dance
of those who desire the ecstatic embrace of the deliverer who comes from afar,
wearing an unfamiliar face and bearing unexpected gifts,
gifts that tear open the heart
and free the mind of the shackles of past conditioning
so that one can kneel trembling in the presence of the holy beloved.
Hear my prayers and help me to become a better vessel
for the pouring out of offerings
that enrich the land and the house that receives all gods who wander in the guise of suppliants.
As every act of yours was an act of devotion
– even the act of swinging from the tree for your father –
never let me falter or lose sight of what and who I am devoted to.

This poem was commissioned by Galina as part of my June fundraising event.

The constellation Bootes. The Bear Watcher. Some have said that he is Icarus, father of Erigone, to whom, on account of his justice and piety, Father Liber gave wine, the vine, and the grape, so that he could show men how to plant the vine, what would grow from it, and how to use what was produced. When he had planted the vine, and by careful tending with a pruning-knife had made it flourish, a goat is said to have broken into the vineyard, and nibbled the tenderest leaves he saw there. Icarus, angered by this, took him and killed him and from his skin made a sack, and blowing it up, bound it tight, and cast it among his friends, directing them to dance around it. And so Eratosthenes says : `Around the goat of Icarus they first danced.’

Others say that Icarus, when he had received the wine from Father Liber, straightway put full wineskins on a wagon. For this he was called Boötes. When he showed it to the shepherds on going round through the Attic country, some of them, greedy and attracted by the new kind of drink, became stupefied, and sprawling here and there, as if half-dead, kept uttering unseemly things. The others, thinking poison had been given the shepherds by Icarus, so that he could drive their flocks into his own territory, killed him, and threw him into a well, or, as others say, buried him near a certain tree. However, when those who had fallen asleep, woke up, saying that hey had never rested better, and kept asking for Icarus in order to reward him, his murderers, stirred by conscience, at once took to flight and came to the island of the Ceans. Received there as guests, they established homes for themselves.

But when Erigone, the daughter of Icarus, moved by longing for her father, saw he did not return and was on the point of going out to hunt for him, the dog of Icarus, Maera by name, returned to her, howling as if lamenting the death of its master. It gave her no slight suspicion of murder, for the timid girl would naturally suspect her father had been killed since he had been gone so many months and days. But the dog, taking hold of her dress with its teeth, led her to the body. As soon as the girl saw it, abandoning hope, and overcome with loneliness and poverty, with many tearful lamentations she brought death on herself by hanging from the very tree beneath which her father was buried. And the dog made atonement for her death by its own life. Some say that it cast itself into the well, Anigrus by name. For this reason they repeat the story that no one afterward drank from that well. Jupiter, pitying their misfortune, represented their forms among the stars. And so many have called Icarus, Boötes, and Erigone, the Virgin, about whom we shall speak later. The dog, however, from its own name and likeness, they have called Canicula. It is called Procyon by the Greeks, because it rises before the greater Dog. Others say these were pictured among the stars by Father Liber.

In the meantime in the district of the Athenians many girls without cause committed suicide by hanging, because Erigone, in dying, had prayed that Athenian girls should meet the same kind of death she was to suffer if the Athenians did not investigate the death of Icarus and avenge it. And so when these things happened as described, Apollo gave oracular response to them when they consulted him, saying that they should appease Erigone if they wanted to be free from the affliction. So since she hanged herself, they instituted a practice of swinging themselves on ropes with bars of wood attached, so that the one hanging could be moved by the wind. They instituted this as a solemn ceremony, and they perform it both privately and publicly, and call it alétis, aptly terming her mendicant who, unknown and lonely, sought for her father with the god. The Greeks call such people alétides.

– Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 2

Thankfully I published this version in Ecstatic.

I find the story of Arakhne as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses a lot more profound than many people do. What I get out of the story, that a lot of others don’t, isn’t necessarily the moral about avoiding hubris, but the hints about the relationship between Arakhne and Dionysos that Ovid slipped in there. First off, Ovid sets the story in Lydia, specifically around Mount Tmolos. Lydia is a very early center of Dionysian worship – some even claim that it was the original center of his cult, though equal claims have been made for countless other places. In Euripides’ Bakchai Dionysos is disguised as a Lydian stranger who has come from Mount Tmolos itself.

Arakhne’s father is a wool-dyer who specializes in purple. Purple, aside from its connotations of royalty – a point that will be more important later on – has a strong connection to Dionysos. Ovid mentions that the nymphs love to watch Arakhne weave – but not just any nymphs, mind you, he specifically says that they are the nymphs of the vineyard. That is a significant point since vineyard-nymphs are not common in legendary poetry. Next he goes on to say that Arakhne is so talented that she draws the attention of Athene. When Arakhne will not credit the goddess for her skill Athene is angered and contrives to compete with the girl to show her up.

How does she do so? By disguising herself as an old woman. When Athene goes among mortals, she often dons a disguise – for instance appearing as an old friend or mentor to Odysseus. But in this instance she disguises herself as an aged woman, a nurse. Why, you might ask, is that important? Well, also in his great epic, Ovid has Hera disguise herself as Semele’s nurse, which leads to the destruction of Dionysos’ mother. Ovid never does anything haphazardly; he loves repeating themes and playing them off of each other. And the Greek goddesses are always depicted as youthful and vigorous – to deviate from that is important, especially when you have the scenario ‘goddess disguised as crone causes death of upstart or bragging young woman.’ In both instances, Dionysos is in the background.

The next overt reference comes in the theme that Arakhne uses for her tapestry during the competition. She creates love scenes: Europa being turned into a bull; Zeus begetting the demigods Dioskouroi and Herakles; the serpent and Persephone. While none of these explicitly mention Dionysos, except for the last, all conjure an atmosphere suggesting the god’s presence. And then, finally, she comes to the most important part of her tapestry: Dionysos seducing Erigone with the grape.

Now, why would she include that? It’s a marginal story, certainly not the most famous of Dionysos’ love escapades, or considered as canonical as the others she depicts. Most accounts of Erigone pass over her seduction by Dionysos, giving her only an accidental role in the story; but Ovid explicitly mentions a love affair between them. Why? Because it foreshadows the fate of Arakhne herself.

Athene is threatened by the talent of Arakhne, so before it’s even done she beats the girl, destroys her tapestry, and mocks her. Arakhne, crestfallen, commits suicide by hanging herself. Athene relents, raises her soul from Haides, and transforms her into a spider.

Many of these themes are found in the tale of Erigone. In that myth Dionysos gives his wine to Ikarios (either in return for the man’s hospitality, or as a bride-gift for seducing his daughter). Ikarios shares the wine with his
neighbors, who never having tasted wine drink it undiluted and pass out. Their families mistakenly think that they have been poisoned and murder Ikarios, dumping his body in a well. Erigone searches for her father, discovers his body in the well, and hangs herself in despair. Dionysos is enraged by the treatment of his people and curses the Athenians with a plague and madness. All of their wives and daughters start hanging themselves like Erigone. They go to Apollon, who tells them to institute a festival of swings where young maidens will swing in trees to commemorate Erigone, who is transported into the heavens along with her dog.

This festival, the Aiora, takes place during Anthesteria, which is quite appropriate considering that Anthesteria deals with death, pollution, sensuality, the dangerous properties of wine, and the fertility of the underworld. During Anthesteria the wife of the Arkhon Basileos is given to Dionysos and they consummate a holy marriage. The Basilinna represents both Erigone and Ariadne – as well as the land of Attica which is mystically fertilized through the union. Like Arakhne, both of these women suffered terrible heartache – Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus after destroying her family; Erigone saw her family destroyed and then killed herself in anguish – but like them, both were transformed through the love of Dionysos and made immortal. The date of all of this is significant. Anthesteria took place on the 11th through the 13th of the month Anthesterion. The sacred marriage is thought to have been on the 12th – so was the Aiora according to Kallimakhos and certain scholia. And, interestingly, Hesiod (Works and Days ll. 770-779) says “but the twelfth is much better than the eleventh, for on it the airy-swinging spider spins its web in full day.”

There are further connections. First, of course, there’s the hanging and weaving: Erigone, Ariadne and Arakhne all hang themselves; Ariadne gives a ball of thread to Theseus to wind his way through the labyrinth; countless instances in poetry and myth mention the mainades refusing to weave, or temporarily leaving behind their loom and shuttle to run wild with the god, and Dionysos punishes the Minyades for refusing either to do this or to permit their slaves to. Secondly, Ariadne can be seen as a spider-like figure. She is Mistress of the Labyrinth, and the Labyrinth is a complex web of winding passages in which the victim gets lost and stuck and waits to be devoured by a ferocious creature. Dionysos himself possesses spider-like qualities. He is a hunter, but also patient. In Euripides’ Bakchai he teases and coaxes Pentheus, setting a trap for him and waiting for the foolish king to spring it upon himself. He taunts him, he gives him the rope to hang himself with – but he does not directly act against Pentheus, waiting for the king’s own base desires and self-destructive madness to surface. According to Aelian, when deer or other creatures are bitten by certain spiders, the only antidote that can cure the poison is wine. Why? Because like the spider’s venom, wine is a dangerous poison, a pharmakon with the power to heal or to kill.

Another interesting fact is that Dionysos’ cult was popular in Magna Graecia. Livy describes how it was introduced into Italy by a Greek prophet and how it involved ecstatic group dances and collective orgiastic rites. We have a good deal of information on the cult of Dionysos-Bacchus there (see Kerenyi’s Dionysos for a powerful evocation of this cult and its understanding of the god), including some lovely Apulian vases which depict young women who are either being initiated into his cult or are passing into the world of the dead. They have expressions of joy and sensuality; they are dressed up as if for a wedding, taken by hand by winged Erotes and guided to Dionysos in his role as lord of the dead. They are experiencing a marriage to death, at once sensual and ecstatic, full of life and full of death. They must leave behind this world and all of the limitations associated with it to experience a fullness of being that transcends our dualistic conceptions. This phrase ‘married to death’ is found countless times in poetry in connection to Dionysos – it is also, if I may be so bold, a large part of the theme of Anthesteria and of his mysteries generally. And it is also part of the folklore of the spider, especially the black widow who consumes her mate after having sex with him. He passes from the little death of orgasm into the bigger death of finality – and by so doing ensures the continuance of their species.

The same holds true for Dionysos – his mainades play a vital role in his existence. They are his nurses, his hunting companions, his brides – and in time, also his murderers, falling upon him and tearing him to pieces. But that is not the end, for they are also the ones who call him up from death back into life as the young god, that the cycle (and with it the vegetative fertility of the earth) may begin anew.

But that is not all. During the Middle Ages there was an outbreak of collective frenzy and uncontrollable ecstatic dancing. The cause of this was said to be the bite of the tarantula. People afflicted with this disease would become morose and depressed. They might even hang themselves, if they did not dance. And once they began dancing nothing could stop them until they heard one song, the song of the spider that had bit them. This mirrors something that Plato said: he mentions that the mainades are in a state of frenzy until they hear a particular tone, and that tone is the song of Dionysos. No other song will set them free. Interestingly, outbreaks of tarantism occurred in exactly the same localities that Dionysos had previously been worshiped in: Southern Italy, Tarento, Apulia. I don’t believe that is simply an accident.

Although it’s not usually intended that way these days, it’s actually a fairly value-neutral term to me. One of the most important philosophical schools that developed during the Hellenistic era was Eclecticism, which derived its name from the adherents’ reputation for ἐκλεκτικός or the ability to select the very best from competing systems of thought and I’d have no trouble copping to that if I felt it was an accurate description.

But I’m not sure that it is, at least with regard to my interest in folk Catholicism, which no doubt comes across as the most anomalous and eclectic part of my practice.

The reason that I don’t think it fits is because I’m highly selective in what I draw on from that tradition. Basically it all comes back to Spider and what she’s shown me. I’ve actually had to curb my enthusiasm for this stuff so that I don’t end up diluting her message. I mean, it would be very easy to fall into “put a corpse on it” mode.

Sacred Heart, Saint Francis, Saint Christopher, Santa Muerte, rosaries, lectio divina, the Virgin of Guadalupe, stigmata … this shit is cool. Real cool. But it does absolutely nothing for me. Just leaves me totally spiritually flaccid, you know. And all the stuff that’s the actual reason most people are Catholic today? Sporfle.

No, for me it’s all about John the Baptist, Saint Paul, Doubtful Saint Margaret, Mary with all those daggers piercing her heart, the temptation of Saint Anthony, bone chapels, weird ass processions and folk traditions, flagellant nuns and lots and lots of severed heads.

That’s pretty much the extent of my interest in Catholicism and all of it is directly because of Spider.

For instance, the other day I was out on a magical walk and suddenly heard her say, very clearly, “Read the Apocryphal Acts of Paul.” And I’m like, “Okay. I really hope such a text exists!”

And lo and behold I find a translation on the web. Turns out that although I hadn’t read it I was already familiar with the content as a large part of it is concerned with the passion of Saint Thecla which may have started off as an independent tradition later grafted onto Paul’s legend.

So I read it and discover:

Saint Paul is a shape-shifter.
He comes as a stranger to the city, preaching personal liberation through the dissolution of gender roles and societal norms.
His presence drives everyone out of their minds, especially the women who go utterly, completely bonkers for him.
One girl in particular loses it bad for him. She spurns her mother and fiance and sits at the window — like a spider — desperate for any sound or sight of him. She shifts between catatonia and ecstatic raving. Nothing any of them do has any effect on the girl. She can only have her wits restored by the saint.
After labyrinthine ordeals the pair are supernaturally reunited and there is much love in the tomb.

And I’m like “Motherfucker. You have got to be shitting me!”

It’s practically a fucking etiological myth for tarantism.

Written almost a thousand years before the phenomenon surfaces and in a completely different part of the world.

And yeah, I was reminded of another story — an older story — while reading that too.

Circles, man. Circles.

So that’s why there’s now Catholic elements in my stuff. It wouldn’t be right to ignore what this spirit is telling me — or to go beyond that. Blurry as they may be, I know where my boundaries are.

Happy Nativity of John the Baptist everybody!

The hemp was rough and scratched her throat as Mary slid the noose down into place. She closed her eyes and stood there for a moment with her white linen dress, beautiful as a bride, and her rosary wrapped tightly around her wrist. She took a large, deeper breath catching the strong scent of apple blossoms from the branch above her and the dry heat of midsummer that made the air in the distance shimmer like something from a dream. With that final breath she felt the tears begin to slide down her brown cheeks and then Mary kicked the three-legged stool out from under herself.

Darkness.

Mary awoke with a jolt, heart pounding so hard she feared it would burst.

It amazed her that the dream still had the ability to affect her so. Since February the same exact scene had played itself out in her slumbering mind. Each night, always the same dream, ever since she woke that one morning back in February to find her arm swollen, feverish and throbbing from some sort of bite.

All these months later she clearly remembered the dream she had been having when the bite woke her up.

She was nude and spread on a tigerskin rug with her hair, golden as the sun, loose and fanning out behind her. She was holding a bunch of ripe, juicy grapes to her chest. The skin of the grapes was warm against her own and throbbed with vegetal life. She found herself slipping deeper into a languid bliss that made forming thoughts difficult and words impossible. And she wanted to be taken even deeper but from a distance she heard the plaintive cries of a dog mourning its kind master and Mary, too, began to weep.

She knew the details well because that was the last thing she dreamed before the bite. Since then every night brought her back to the tree, reliving that terrible moment over and over again.

She did not react well to the bite — it grew inflamed from infection and her limbs became stiff like those of a wooden doll and even when she clamped her eyes shut the world spun dizzyingly around her. It got so bad that she feared for her life and sought medical attention. There were able to treat the physical symptoms so that by midsummer there was only a faint white scar to remember the bite by. The nausea and vertigo also diminished and she regained use of her limbs. But the bite had changed Mary in ways far beyond the monotony of her dreams.

Mary hungered tremendously, no matter what great lengths she went to satisfy her carnal appetites. Often she could think of little else and was in danger of losing her job and alienating all of her friends and family. She knew that she should be troubled by this but just couldn’t force herself to care enough to do anything about it. When she was unable to get out of such social obligations she was always sullen and withdrawn, everything they said or did grating on her nerves. All she wanted was to be left alone to wander among the woods and bathe herself in frigid streams. Sometimes the need to be wild and free of the oppressive presence of others grew so great that her hand would tremble and her feet begin to stamp out a rhythm only she could hear. Often the agitation was so extreme that Mary had to be physically restrained, bound to her bed. She would open her legs invitingly and toss her head side to side, gnashing her teeth savagely until they stuffed a rag in her mouth so that she did not accidentally — or as they feared, intentionally — bite through her tongue. When she was in such a fit the only thing to be done was to wait it out and hope that her wits would return to her. Then, utterly exhausted, she would slip into a restless slumber and dream of the tree once more.

One day a stranger came to her remote village, a doctor from Germany who was making a pilgrimage through the south of Italy to visit an ancient shrine famed for its healing. The doctor was a very learned and widely traveled man; he had seen much in his time and instantly recognized from its symptoms the affliction of poor Mary.

Although he had only been witness to the therapeutic cure he was confident that he could oversee the ceremony himself. So with the permission of Mary’s parents who had run out of options and were considering sending their daughter to the asylum run by the Good Sisters as a final resort, the doctor performed a series of tests on the girl to diagnose her affinities and antipathies. Then with this information in hand he began to weave together the ritual exorcism of the spider.

First he had Mary’s parents bathe the girl in the river and dress her all in white with a crown of ivy adorning her head of long black hair, dark as a raven’s wing. Then he had them lead her into a room that he had specially prepared for her.

The room was small and cramped, with people lining the walls to watch, which made the air hot as the gusts from a furnace. A circle had been made in the middle of the room, giving her plenty of space to move around in. The floor was littered with greenery which she immediately stooped down to fondle, absorbed in the tactile sensation. From the rafters hung streamers of brightly colored fabrics, carefully chosen based on her earlier reactions to the colors. There was a mirror, a ball of yarn, a framed picture of Saint Paul holding snakes in his hands and various other objects that the doctor had ordered the family to collect, even if they had to beg the items from their neighbors. No one understood what their use and meaning were and the doctor refused to elaborate.

Much of the space in the room was taken up by a band of local youths nervously adjusting their instruments. Their leader, on account of his age, was an apprentice to the barber and was tuning his violin. Mary sat enraptured watching him, a strand of ivy cradled in her lap. She was mesmerized by his facial hair — made even more noticeable by the fact that all of the others went clean-shaven or were too young to grow hair on their lips let alone their chins and cheeks. Mary longed to run her fingers through it for it seemed soft as a sheep’s coat. Before she had an opportunity to act on the impulse the doctor began reciting prayers in a clipped, bookish Latin made barbaric by his thick Rhenish accent. When he was finished he raised his hands in a gesture of benediction and commanded the boys to play in emphatic Italian.

At first their playing was clumsy and jarring and it sent a searing pain through Mary’s skull as if a fiery brand had been shoved through her eye socket. She screamed for them to stop and pounded her fists against the floor. Eventually Mary felt a rhythm take hold and her fists beat out a staccato pattern that found its way into the playing of the musicians. As they took up the rhythm and performed subtle variations on it Mary stopped hitting the ground and began swaying in place to the song. She was especially mesmerized by the violin of the bearded youth and grew more bold in her movement whenever he could be heard above the din of his companions. Noting the effect he was having on her he rose from his seat and began playing louder and faster. Mary got on all fours like an animal and rocked back and forth bobbing her head in sync with him. Then the concertina-player caught her attention and she leapt up to her feet and began stomping and growling, trying to goad him on, challenging him to take firmer control of her body through his music. Then she heard a boy on the other side of the room playing a piccolo and she rushed over to watch him closely. Then, suddenly, the whole band fascinated her and she was dancing wildly between them. Then she forget them entirely and there was only the dance which she lost herself in. She moved in ways her body never had before, violently graceful and grotesquely flexible. At one point she was thrashing her head with such vigor she was sure it would come loose and fly across the room — then she found herself supine on the floor, inching herself along like a creeping spider or slithering serpent. Then she was leaping about and laughing hysterically though she couldn’t have said why even if she still possessed the faculty of speech.

Hours passed, though it seemed like mere moments to Mary until she stopped dancing. Then the weight of fatigue dragged her down to the floor where she lay panting, chest heaving, hair plastered to her face by sweat, while the boys refreshed themselves with wine and bread and cheese. They offered some to her but she shook her head no and growled. She was too hungry for food. Her body ached for other nourishment.

Mary felt a hand on her knee, cold and hard like the wall of a cave. Though the touch was shocking, it felt good. Her flesh felt like it was on fire and the touch was soothing, calming and Mary opened her eyes to see who was leaning over her. It was the German doctor and he was grinning wolfishly down at her. Stray movement on the periphery of her vision caught her attention and confused her: there, across the room, talking to a boy with a tambourine, was the German doctor.

Then who was here with her?

The man’s features blurred so that he seemed to resemble both the doctor and Saint Paul, though the men looked nothing alike ordinarily. He grinned again and there was something ancient and savage and possessive in his eyes. A hunger that surpassed even her own shown through them. He was going to devour her like a horrible fat spider and she would not resist him. She wanted to be devoured by one like him and always had.

“My poison is in you.” He whispered, sliding his hand further down her bare thigh until it reached the place where her linen dress had bunched up. His fingers crawled beneath the fabric. “I claimed you with my bite. There is no escaping me so don’t even try. I am in you. You cannot flee from me any more than you could flee from yourself.”

His fingers found her opening and forced their way inside her roughly. She winced at the sudden, unexpected intrusion but put up no fight; Mary arched her hips to give him easier access.

From across the room the doctor watched her, concerned by the girl’s lewd display. What demonic insolence! To spread her legs and moan like a cheap whore with a room full of spectators — and in the presence of the image of the blessed Saint Paul no less! Something would have to be done about this.

To his eyes she was entirely alone.

“You are my wife now,” the man with the face of a saint said. “And I will have you whenever I want. As your dowry,” his fingers stopped moving within her. Fingers that felt like the thick, hairy, black legs of a spider. She closed her thighs to trap them there. “I will return your sanity.” He withdrew and rose to his feet. “But whenever I wish, no matter what is going on for you, you will dance for me.”

She could still feel the coldness of his touch inside her. She knew it would always be there. He had caught her in his web and it was good to be prey of a hunter such as him. With that realization Mary convulsed, her whole body spasming in the throes of grace and deliverance, which washed away all of her accumulated impurity. The doctor rushed over to the screaming girl, deeply concerned by her queer behavior. Once he had given her wine and managed to calm her down a bit, he said that they needed to resume the exorcism. Could she continue?

“I will dance for my taranta always,” she panted. And then the music started playing once more and Mary rose to her feet and danced until nightfall.

Nor did the morn of the Broaching of the Jars pass unheeded, nor that whereon the Pitchers of Orestes bring a white day for slaves. And when he kept the yearly festival of Ikarios’ child, thy day, Erigone, lady most sorrowful of Attic women, he invited to a banquet his familiars, and among them a stranger who was newly visiting Egypt, whither he had come on some private business.

– Kallimachos, Aitia 1.1

I must sincerely apologize, dear friends, but I’ll be doing the weekly ritual for the community tomorrow instead of as planned, this past Sunday.

As I was getting ready to start on the 1st I was hit with an overwhelming feeling that something was off with the rite for the Dionysian Dead so I did some divination and worked out the details, then spent a couple hours writing a whole new ceremony from scratch. By then I was totally wiped and it was far too late to properly do the sacrifices so I postponed it until today.

Unfortunately today I had a pretty nasty allergy attack that resulted in massive sinus pain, I was overwhelmed with preparations for the trip, stressed about how the situation in Syria could affect my return flight since I’ll be coming home on September 11th and a couple other minor irritations. Plus, I’ve just been in a weird headspace for about a week, as things in my spiritual life shift about. I found myself really struggling to get into priest mode and while I knew could push through all of that and do the work anyway (I have plenty of times before, often with far more serious things to contend with) I didn’t feel that was right.

You guys deserve better than half-assed bootstrapping, to say nothing of the gods who are owed far more than our best. Since I’ll be doing ritual tomorrow night anyway to thank Hermes for bringing me safely in (no libations if I go splodey!) I figured I’d just make the communal offerings and petitions and do the promised divinations then.

Sorry to let you guys down my first time out, but hey, sometimes life gets in the way of our best-laid plans.

I’ll be doing the next weekly ritual on behalf of the community on Sunday, September 8th so if you wish to be included contact me at sannion@gmail.com before then.

Going to be fucking insane couple of weeks for me, ritual-wise.

Let’s see.

Off the top of my head I’ve got the make up communal ritual and divination session tomorrow tonight.

Wednesday I’ve got a trip to a winery and then the Wyrd Ways Radio show where we’ll be talking with devotee of Ares Pete Helms. (And yes, after visiting the winery, I will most likely be drunk on the air. Should make things … entertaining.)

Thursday is my monthly devotional day for the Dionysian Dead, and I also plan to do some intense purification work that night in preparation for Saturday.

Friday I’ll be celebrating the noumenia of the month Bakcheion.

Saturday I’ll be teaching a class on ancient Greek and other systems of divination, then leading the big ritual for Dionysos and his dead with House Sankofa.

Sunday I’ll be making the weekly offerings on behalf of the community.

Monday is my monthly devotional day for Hermes.

Tuesday is my monthly devotional day for the Women of Dionysos.

Wednesday I fly back to Oregon.

Friday is my monthly devotional day for Spider.

Then on Saturday I’ll be celebrating Antroneia, a festival honoring Dionysos of the Caves.

On the 18th I’ll be doing the oracles again, after my annual August hiatus.

And the weekend after that it’s the Oread Nymphaia and Thalusia, a harvest festival honoring Dionysos and Demeter.

I’m sure I’m leaving a ton of stuff out, but you get the picture.

Busy.

Crazy.

Good.

Heh. And things are just getting started. This is nothing compared to what October and November are like.

And here is the script that we started with. I say “started with” because we left a lot of room for improvisation. It’s my general feeling a script should be a guide or suggestion only. Depart from it as much as you need to, especially if the participants are getting caught up in the moment. That’s what you want! That openness makes room for one to encounter the divine, which is the whole point of doing ritual in my opinion. I went over it with the priests first and then with the regular participants before we started so that they would have a vague sense of what to expect, especially since a lot of them came from other traditions. (Speaking of which, Galina has an interesting article comparing and contrasting what it’s like to honor Greek and Norse divinities that you should read.) I also explained why Hermes and Spider were included in this ritual for Dionysos and his dead and why we were even honoring the Dionysian dead. I further explained how this whole thing was my own personal riff on Hellenic ritual and not in any way attempting to reconstruct or replicate what the ancients themselves did so no one was under any false pretenses. Then the magic happened. Seriously, I can’t thank the participants enough. I think it meant a lot to Dionysos to have his dead honored. I also got this strong sense of how much he cares for them during it. Wow. It was overwhelming and indescribable and made me even more resolved in their cultus. Oh, and since I’m a superstitious bastard (don’t ever walk in another man’s footprints and remember what slimy eyeballs there are online when you’re thinking of posting anything) I altered some of the text and left out a couple of the steps that we did. So, again, feel free to adapt as you see fit should you choose to do this ritual with some friends of your own. And remember, results are subject to variance.

A Feast of Friends version 2.0

Dramatis personae
Priest of Dionysos
Priest of Fire
Priest of Hermes
Priest of Spider
Priest of the Drum
The thiasos of Participants

Things needed
Masks
Drum
Bell
Wine for the gods
Wine for the participants
Wine for the dead
Milk
Mead
Olive oil
Warmed honey
2 candles for Dionysos
Candle for Hermes
Candle for Spider
Candle for the dead
Offering bowl for Hermes
Offering bowl for Spider
Large bowl
Small bowl
Ladle

Preparations
The shrine is to be set up in the following manner. At the center will be placed an image of Dionysos flanked by two candles. In front of that will be a large bowl, a small bowl and a ladle. Spread out around these will be the communal offerings to Dionysos and his retinue. There will also be candles and offering bowls for Hermes, Spider and the Dionysian Dead. To the side will be a table of chthonic offerings. Next to the communal offerings will be a cup with the names of thirteen Bacchic martyrs in it.

While everyone is milling about, the Priest of Dionysos will light the two candles flanking the image of the god and people can begin arranging the offerings to Dionysos and his retinue that they brought.

Once the shrine is properly arranged it will be time to begin the ritual.

The Ritual

The Priest of Hermes calls everyone to order by ringing a bell nine times.

The Priest of Fire purifies all of the Participants and then waits beside the shrine.

The Priest of Dionysos says:

Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please put on your masks.

When everyone has, the Priest of Dionysos says:

Silence!

When the period of holy silence is done the Priest of Dionysos says:

Hail to you Hermes, Guide of Souls!

The Priest of Hermes steps forward and recites the invocation:

The Invocation of Hermes

Come and receive the hospitality of our feast
O Hermes who wanders the lonely roads by night,
stone-faced stranger, clever with words, thief of secrets,
powerful magician who carries the keys of initiation,
luck-bearer, mediator and messenger, navigator in the land of dreams
who brings the souls of the dead safely into the arms of their loving master,
guide through illusion and protector against adversity, hail!
As you come from the land below to receive this good wine and honors in our rite,
friend and brother of Dionysos Bakcheios,
lead the furious host in the dances of the Liberator through the halls of Haides
until they reach this welcoming House.

The Priest of Fire lights the candle of Hermes.

The Priest of Hermes kneels, pounds their fist on the floor four times and then pours some wine into his bowl. Then they return to the crowd of Participants.

The Priest of Dionysos says:

Hail to you Spider, who weaves the way between the worlds!

The Priest of Spider steps forward and recites the invocation:

The Invocation of Spider

O maiden wise and remorseful,
you who know the ecstasy of the grape’s seduction
and unbearable grief at the loss of your father,
you who make your home beneath the earth with the dead
and climb the tree to the high heavens to speak with the blessed immortals –
proud in your sacred craft,
teller of the stories of the forgotten and despised,
keeper of the mysteries of holiness,
leader of the dance that brings release,
reader and spinner of the golden threads of fate,
carry the dead on your back like a sac of eggs,
so that they may rise up and join us in the feast,
receiving their rightful share of the sacrifice.
Hail!

The Priest of Fire lights the candle of Spider.

The Priest of Spider kneels, pounds their first on the floor eight times and then pours some wine into her bowl. Then they return to the crowd of Participants.

The Priest of Dionysos says:

Listen! Remember!

This is the work of memory, when you are about to die.
… remembering hero…
You will find beside the house of Haides a spring and standing by it a white cypress.
Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves.
Do not even go near to this spring!
You will find another one, from the Lake of Memory, with cold water pouring forth;
there are guards before it.
They will ask you, with astute wisdom, what you are seeking in the darkness of murky Haides.
“Who are you? Where are you from?”
You tell them the entire truth.
Say: “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky. My name is Starry: my race is heavenly; you yourself know this. I am parched with thirst and I am dying. But quickly grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink!”
And they will announce you to the Chthonian King,
and they will grant you to drink from the divine spring.
And thereafter you will rule with other heroes.
You, too, having drunk, will go along the sacred road with other glorious initiates
and possessed by Dionysos travel.

The Priest of Dionysos then continues:

We have come here today to honor the Lord Dionysos. But as he has great love for those who have gathered around him, we will begin by honoring his blessed dead. Hail the dead!

All of the Participants respond:

Hail the dead!

The Priest of Dionysos leads them in this a total of nine times.

The Priest of Dionysos continues:

Let us give to the dead the offerings of heroes.

Each of the Participants approaches the table of chthonic offerings and pours some into the large common bowl. When the offerings have been made and the Participants have retaken their positions the Priest of Fire lights the candle for the dead and then rejoins the crowd of Participants.

The Priest of Dionysos kneels before the shrine and says:

Lay aside your mask and listen for the wisdom of the dead. If you feel moved to do so you may come forward and retrieve one of the holy Bacchic Martyrs. You shall take it upon yourself to learn who they are and care for them during October, that month during which they declared our god illegal and hunted his followers like dogs in the streets. Otherwise just honor the dead as you feel moved to.

The Priest of the Drum then begins to play.

Once that portion of the ritual is finished, the Priest of Dionysos stands and says:

Where is the wine?
The new wine that we were promised?
Dying on the vine.

I prefer a feast of friends.

Let us praise the Good Lord together.

The Priest of Dionysos reads the hymn of the kōmastaí and any other devotional poetry they have on hand. One should give pride of place to contemporary, especially that provided by the members themselves.

The Priest of Dionysos then says:

Hail Dionysos!

All of the Participants respond:

Hail Dionysos!

The Priest of Dionysos leads them in this a total of nine times.

Come. Sit. Relax.

We are in the presence of the Lord of the West, the Loosener of Cares, He who Frees, Dionysos Bakcheios.

Come. Take his liquid grace. It matters not whether you prefer him young or mature – he’ll have you ecstatic by ritual’s end.

While the participants are seating themselves the Priest of Hermes brings around cups for everyone, followed by the Priest of Spider carrying wine and grape juice. Each Participant is given a choice of sacraments. When everyone is served they will take their place in the crowd.

The Priest of Dionysos then says:

Let us call to him in our own words. We’ll go around, each of us hailing him by one of his epithets or however you’re move to greet him. This will be met by the response “Hail Dionysos!” Then we all take a drink. We do this until we run out of wine or names.

The Priest of Dionysos then puts aside the ritual book and hails Dionysos as Opener of the Door.

Once this portion of the ritual is finished it will transition into freeform worship. Participants are encouraged to dance or approach the shrine or just sit quietly and continue drinking. Whatever the spirit in them is moved to do. When they’re done, or if it gets too intense, the Participants are encouraged to go off and lay down, gently riding it out. The ritual will end when it ends.

So as I mentioned previously Idmon of Kolophon, the father of Arachne, was a phoinekes or dyer of purple from Lydia.

In Arachne’s tapestry she includes a scene involving the seduction by Bacchus of Erigone, who is in many respects her prototype:

It was during the reign of Pandion that Demeter and Dionysos came to Attika. Keleus welcomed Demeter to Eleusis, and Ikarios received Dionysos, who gave him a vine-cutting and taught him the art of making wine. Ikarios was eager to share the god’s kindness with mankind, so he went to some shepherds, who, when they had tasted the drink and then delightedly and recklessly gulped it down undiluted, thought they had been poisoned and slew Ikarios. But in the daylight they regained their senses and buried him. As his daughter was looking for him, a dog named Maira, who had been Ikarios’ faithful companion, unearthed the corpse; and Erigone, in the act of mourning her father, hanged herself. (Apollodoros, Bibliotheca 2.192)

Maira was placed in the heavens and granted cultic honors by Dionysos:

On his right hand hung a napkin with a loose nap, and he had a bowl of wine and a casket of incense. The incense, and wine, and sheep’s guts, and the foul entrails of a filthy dog, he put upon the hearth–we saw him do it. Then to me he said, ‘Thou askest why an unwonted victim is assigned to these rites?’ Indeed, I had asked the question. ‘Learn the cause,’ the flamen said. ‘There is a Dog (they call it the Icarian dog), and when that constellation rises the earth is parched and dry, and the crop ripens too soon. So this dog is put on the altar instead of the starry dog.’ (Ovid, Fasti 4.901 ff)

Julius Pollux asserted (Onomasticon 1.45–49) that the purple dye was first discovered by Herakles, or rather, by his dog, whose mouth was stained purple from chewing on snails along the coast of the Levant.

And from Pliny the Elder (Natural History 9.62) comes this interesting detail:

The most favourable season for taking these fish is after the rising of the Dog-star, or else before spring; for when they have once discharged their waxy secretion, their juices have no consistency.

So you know how there’s that whole thread of connection between Spider, Hermes and Saint Paul?

Funny story. I’ll let Luke tell it:

On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there. One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,’ and she prevailed on us. (Acts 16:13-15)

This is the flag of Sicily, where my people are from.

The triskelion or trinacria was originally used by the Phoencian settlers of Sicily and is thought to have some association with Baʿal Hammon who was the primary deity of the Carthaginians who later ruled a large portion of the island:

Baʿal Hammon (“Ruler of a Crowd or Multitude”) was the chief god of Carthage. He was a deity of sky and vegetation, depicted as a bearded older man with curling ram’s horns. Baʿal Hammon’s female cult partner was Tanit. The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. His supremacy among the Carthaginian gods is believed to date to the 5th century BC, after relations between Carthage and Tyre were broken off at the time of the Punic defeat in Himera. Modern scholars identify him variously with the Northwest Semitic god El or with Dagon. In Carthage and North Africa Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baʿal Qarnaim (“Lord of Two Horns”) in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein (“the two-horned hill”) across the bay from Carthage. He was probably never identified with Baʿal Melqart, although one finds this equation in older scholarship. Ancient Greek writers identified him with the Titan Cronus. In ancient Rome, he was identified with Saturn, and the cultural exchange between Rome and Carthage as a result of the Second Punic War may have influenced the development of the Roman religious festival Saturnalia. Attributes of his Romanized form as an African Saturn indicate that Hammon was a fertility god. Ba’al-Hamon was a place mentioned in Song of Solomon 8:11. It was the location of a productive vineyard owned by Solomon, who let out the vineyard to tenants. Some have suggested that it is not to be taken as a literal place, but a figurative indication to the wealthy realm over which Solomon ruled.

Sheds some interesting light on that purple thread I’ve been following lately, huh?

(Here and here and here and here for those who would like to keep up.)

Ready for shit to get really weird?

Here is an account of Carthaginian religion given by the Sicilian Diodoros:

Therefore the Carthaginians, believing that the misfortune had come to them from the gods, betook themselves to every manner of supplication of the divine powers; and, because they believed that Herakles, who was worshipped in their mother city, was exceedingly angry with them, they sent a large sum of money and many of the most expensive offerings to Tyre. Since they had come as colonists from that city, it had been their custom in the earlier period to send to the god a tenth of all that was paid into the public revenue; but later, when they had acquired great wealth and were receiving more considerable revenues, they sent very little indeed, holding the divinity of little account. But turning to repentance because of this misfortune, they bethought them of all the gods of Tyre. They even sent from their temples in supplication the golden shrines with their images, believing that they would better appease the wrath of the god if the offerings were sent for the sake of winning forgiveness. They also alleged that Kronos had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been supposititious. When they had given thought to these things and saw their enemy encamped before their walls, they were filled with superstitious dread, for they believed that they had neglected the honours of the gods that had been established by their fathers. In their zeal to make amends for their omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There was in their city a bronze image of Kronos, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire. (Library of History 20.14)

Remember that prowl I went on a while back? Where Spider showed me some things about the similarity between Dionysos and Kronos? And that alternate Roman version of the story of Erigone as told by Plutarch:

“Saturnus, when once he was entertained by a farmer who had a fair daughter named Entoria, seduced her and begat Janus, Hymnus, Faustus, and Felix. He then taught Icarius the use of wine and viniculture, and told him that he should share his knowledge with his neighbours also. When the neighbours did so and drank more than is customary, they fell into an unusually deep sleep. Imagining that they had been poisoned, they pelted Icarius with stones and killed him; and his grandchildren in despair ended their lives by hanging themselves. When a plague had gained a wide hold among the Romans, Apollo gave an oracle that it would cease if they should appease the wrath of Saturnus and the spirits of those who had perished unlawfully. Lutatius Catulus, one of the nobles, built for the god the precinct which lies near the Tarpeian Rock. He made the upper altar with four faces, either because of Icarius’s grandchildren or because the year has four parts; and he designated a month January. Saturnus placed them all among the stars. The others are called harbingers of the vintage, but Janus rises before them. His star is to be seen just in front of the feet of Virgo. So Critolaus in the fourth book of his Phaenomena.” (Greek and Roman Parallel Stories 9)

Baal Hammon became one of the most important demons of Christendom and is even ranked among the seven princes of hell. He has an interesting appearance, according to Wikipedia:

While his Semitic predecessor was depicted as a man or a bull, the demon Baal was in grimoire tradition said to appear in the forms of a man, cat, toad, or combinations thereof. An illustration in Collin de Plancy’s 1818 book Dictionnaire Infernal rather curiously placed the heads of the three creatures onto a set of spider legs.

Yeah. That’s right. Spider legs.

… it all makes perfect sense now.

Not really.

But clearly I’m on to something with this – or suffering from a really bad case of apophenia.

Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 597a-599b
I omitted also to mention the female flute-player Nanno, the mistress of Mimnermos, and Leontion, the mistress of Hermesianax of Colophon. For he inscribed with her name, as she was his mistress, three books of elegiac poetry, in the third of which he gives a catalogue of love affairs; speaking in the following manner:-

Such was she whom the dear son of Oeagros, armed only with the lyre, brought back from Haides, even the Thracian Agriope. Aye, he sailed to that evil and inexorable place where Charon drags into the common barque the souls of the departed; and over the lake he shouts afar, as it pours its flood from out the tall reeds. Yet Orpheus, though girded for the journey all alone, dared to sound his lyre beside the wave, and he won over gods of every shape; even the lawless Kokytos he saw, raging beneath his banks; and he flinched not before the gaze of the hound most dread, his voice baying forth angry fire, with fire his cruel eye gleaming, an eye that on triple heads bore terror. Whence, by his song, Orpheus persuaded the mighty lords that Agriope should recover the gentle breath of life.

Nor did the son of the Moon, Mousaios, master of the Graces, cause Antiope to go without her due of honour. And she, beside Eleusis’ strand, expounded to the initiates the loud, sacred voice of mystic oracles, as she duly escorted the priest through the Rarian plain to honour Demeter. And she is known even in Hades.

I say, too, that Boeotian Hesiod, master of all lore, left his hall and went to the Heliconian village of the Ascraeans, because he was in love; whence, in wooing Eoeē, maid of Ascra, he suffered many pangs; and as he sang, he wrote all the scrolls of his Catalogues, ever proceeding from a girl’s name first [Ἢ οἵη, "Or such as her"].

But that bard himself, whom the decree of Zeus for ever ordains to be the sweetest divinity among all poets, godlike Homer, languished to thinness, and set Ithaca in the strains of song for love of wise Penelope; for her sake he went, with many sufferings, to that small isle, far from his own wide country; and he celebrated the kin of Ikarios, the folk of Amyklas, and Sparta too, ever mindful of his own misfortunes.

And Mimnermos, who discovered, after much suffering, the sweet sound and spirit breathed from the languorous pentameter, burned for Nanno; yet oft upon his venerable flute, bound to his lips, he with Hexamyles would hold revel. But he quarrelled with Hermobios, the ever cruel, and Pherekles, too, his foe, whom he loathed for the taunts which he hurled against him.

Antimachos, too, smitten with love for the Lydian girl Lyde, trod the ground where the Paktolos river flows; and when she died, in his helplessness he placed her in the hard earth, weeping the while, and in his woe he left her there and returned to lofty Colophon; then he filled his pious scrolls with plaints, and rested after all his pain.

As for the Lesbian Alkaios, you know in how many revels he engaged, when he smote his lyre with yearning love for Sappho. And the bard who loved that nightingale caused sorrow, by the eloquence of his hymns, to the Teian poet. Yea, for the honey-voiced Anakreon contended for her, whose beauty was supreme among the many women of Lesbos. And at times he would leave Samos, at times again his own city, that nestles against the vine-covered hill, and visit Lesbos, rich in wine; and oft he gazed upon Lektom, the Mysian headland across the Aeolian wave.

How, too, the Attic bee left Colone of the many hillocks, and sang with choruses marshalled in tragedy – sang of Bakchos and of his passion for Theoris and for Erigone, whom Zeus once gave to Sophokles in his old age.

I say, too, that that man who had ever guarded himself against passion, and had won the hatred of all men by his railings concerning all women, was none the less smitten by the treacherous bow, and could not lay aside his pangs by night; nay, in Macedonia he traversed all the by-ways in his woe, and became dependant on the steward of Archelaos; until at last Fate found destruction for Euripides, when he met the cruel hounds from Arribios.

And that poet from Kythera, whom the nurses of Bakchos reared, and the Muses taught to be the most faithful steward of the flute, Philoxenos, – you know how he was racked with pain, and passed through our city to Ortygia; for you have heard of his mighty yearning, which Galateia esteemed less than the very firstlings of the flock.

You know also of that bard in whose honour the townsmen of Eurypylos, the men of Kos, raised a bronze statue beneath the plane-tree; he, Philitas, sang his love for the nimble Bittis, versed as he was in all the terms of love and in all its speech.

Yea, not even all the mortals who ordained for themselves a life austere, seeking to find the dark things of wisdom, those men whom their very craft caused to choke in the shrewd contests of debate, and their dread skill, which bestowed its care upon eloquence, – not even they could turn aside the awful, maddened turmoil of Eros, but they fell beneath the power of that dread charioteer.

Such was the madness for Theano that bound with its spell the Samian Pythagoras; yet he had discovered the refinements of geometric spirals, and had modelled in a small globe the mighty circuit of the enveloping aether.

And with what fiery power did Kypris, in her wrath, heat Socrates, whom Apollon had declared to be supreme among all men in wisdom! Yea, though his soul was deep, yet he laboured with lighter pains when he visited the house of Aspasia; nor could he find any remedy, though he had discovered the many cross-paths of logic.

Even the man of Kyrene, keen Aristippos, was drawn by overpowering love beyond the Isthmos, when he fell in love with Lais of Apidane; in his flight he renounced all discourse, and expounded a life of worthlessness.

Last night Dver and I celebrated Skeneia which is a banquet in honor of Persephone and Chthonic Dionysos. It doesn’t normally fall on November 1st but because of some last minute calendrical juggling it ended up doing so this year. Doing so totally changed the feel of the festival but I think that for this year, at least, it worked.

We packed up our fare (consisting of wine, root vegetables and assorted other foods that were black or red) and processed down to one of the parks where we’ve observed Anthesteria in years past. (One year we discovered that the interesting tree we’d hung the dolls from just so happened to be one of the trees said to grow in the underworld.) We found a secluded area with a cool wall we used as an eschara and laid out the feast, which I must say Dver arranged gorgeously. After the ritual was over we hailed Dionysos and his dead and began a wandering procession down a magical alley …

… and many magical things happened.

It would strain your credulity were I to list all of them, but one marvel I will indeed share!

After leading the troop of Bacchic spirits in a rough circle round the heart of downtown, Dver and I stopped to discuss which of two ways to go when the matter was decided for us. A horde of dancing zombies came out of nowhere, encircled us and proceeded to boogie down to Michael Jackson’s Thriller which was blaring from a boombox one of them was carrying. “Time to put on your mask,” Dver said and I slid Harlequin‘s leather face down over mine and we lead a furious host, visible and invisible, to Kesey Square.

I also bought a bottle of Sambuca and I’ll be offering some to Melinoë later tonight, then doing so each month on the 28th. Not sure why, but I’m really feeling like I should take up her cultus. Had a really powerful encounter with her while doing some synched ritual with Galina on Halloween, and it’s continued since. Earlier tonight, for instance, in the middle of dinner I was hit with this strong compulsion to get a pale liqueur for her and the dead and bonus points if it was Italian.

So, yeah. Crazy couple of weeks, let me tell you.

Enter, if you dare.

So I was reading Pseudo-Melito of Sardis’ Apology from the Spicilegium Syriacum when I came across this interesting passage:

But touching Nebo, which is in Mabug, why should I write to you; for, lo! all the priests which are in Mabug know that it is the image of Orpheus, a Thracian Magus. And Hadran is the image of Zaradusht, a Persian Magus, because both of these Magi practised Magism to a well which is in a wood in Mabug, in which was an unclean spirit, and it committed violence and attacked the passage of every one who was passing by in all that place in which now the fortress of Mabug is located; and these same Magi charged Simi, the daughter of Hadad, that she should draw water from the sea, and cast it into the well, in order that the spirit should not come up and commit injury, according to that which was a mystery in their Magism. And in like manner, also, the rest of mankind made images of their kings, and worshipped them, of which I will not write further.

Interesting indeed.

Why yes, dear reader, the girl with the creepy dead thing in the well does call to mind Erigone, but that isn’t what I meant.

I don’t know whether Pseudo-Melito meant Nabu the Middle Eastern deity or Nabu the comic book character either, dear reader, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they could probably tell the difference back then. (Side thought: Hmm. Orpheus did come up a lot while I was tracing the purple thread.)

What’s really interesting about this is the location.

Anyone remember waaaaaaay back when I first started getting (re)interested in oddities of the Christian periphery?

It was trying to figure out which Saint Philoxenos is the one invoked in a number of lot-oracles from Byzantine Egypt. Best as I could ever tell it was probably this guy, Aksenāyâ Mabûḡāyâ. Kind of stopped caring about tracing that thread back to the source once I discovered Philoxenos of Kythera:

Philoxenus of Cythera (435 BC – 380 BC) was a Greek dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the “new music.” On the conquest of the island by the Athenians he was taken as a slave to Athens, where he came into the possession of the dithyrambic poet Melanippides, who educated him and set him free. Philoxenus afterwards resided in Sicily, at the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, whose bad verses he declined to praise, and was in consequence sent to work in the quarries. After leaving Sicily he travelled in Greece, Italy and Asia, reciting his poems, and died at Ephesus. According to the Suda, Philoxenus composed twenty-four dithyrambs and a lyric poem on the descendants of Aeacus. In his hands the dithyramb seems to have been a sort of comic opera, and the music, composed by himself, of a debased character. His masterpiece was the Cyclops, a pastoral burlesque on the love of the Cyclops for the fair Galatea, written to avenge himself upon Dionysius, who was wholly or partially blind of one eye. It was parodied by Aristophanes in the Plutus (388 BC). Another work of Philoxenus (sometimes attributed to Philoxenus of Leucas, a notorious glutton) is the Deipnon (“Dinner”), of which considerable fragments have been preserved by Athenaeus. This is an elaborate bill of fare in verse, probably intended as a satire on the luxury of the Sicilian court. The great popularity of Philoxenus is attested by a complimentary resolution passed by the Athenian Senate in 393 BC. A character in a comedy by Antiphanes spoke of him as “a god among men”; Alexander the Great had his poems sent to him in Asia; the Alexandrian grammarians received him into the canon; and down to the time of Polybius his works were regularly learned and annually performed by the young men of Arcadia.

Badass, huh?

Want to know what’s even more badass?

Arthur Woollgar Verrall was a scholar of Philoxenos who became very enthusiastic about his subject matter. So much so that an acquaintance of his wife channeled poems by Philoxenos from beyond the grave, which were later published as the book The Ear of Dionysius: Further Scripts Affording Evidence of Personal Survival.

I hadn’t thought about him for a while, but the mention of Mabbug jiggered the old memory.

I’ve been doing some research on Olbia, the Greek settlement on the Black Sea in the region now known as the Ukraine. Not only was this a melting-pot of Greek, Skythian, Persian and Asiatic cultures but it was home to Skyles the Bacchic martyr, was later conquered by Skilurus who is a personal hero of mine since he’s the father of fascism, plus some bone tablets with evocative Orphic and Bacchic inscriptions were discovered there. I’ve mentioned Olbia numerous times before and even wrote a poem about the place – The many-faced one – but I learned a lot of new stuff today.

For instance, a number of other texts were discovered along with the bone tablets which aren’t as well known. Seriously – even with all the research I’ve done I’d never heard about them until now. I’m not sure why, because these texts seem to have been written by actual Orpheotelestai which we mostly have to rely on hostile external sources for our knowledge of. On top of that the article contains a ton of stuff that’s spookily relevant to my personal cosmology. Like, to a degree that has me feeling apophenic and paranoid. I doubt any of you want to sit through me spinning this complicated web out so instead I’ll stick to the stuff you’ll likely find amusing.

Andrei Lebedev believes that these other texts are remnants of a magical duel between a pair of Orpheotelestai:

I propose the following explanation of the interrelation between the two graffiti. Pharnabazos and Aristoteles were two wandering priests, diviners and magicians working at the agora region of Olbia. They practiced divination, black magic and, presumably, purifications and initiations into mysteries for a fee, like agurtai kai manteis in Plato, Rep. 364b. For some reason, most probably because of professional rivalry Pharnabazos cursed Aristoteles to death (graffito 2). Aristoteles found this out and retaliated with an anti-curse (graffito 1). By philolalos Aristoteles dismisses Pharnabazos’ curse as empty talk. He pretends to be a more powerful magician. His ars magica is superior to that of the theopropos Ermou. Thus we have in graffiti 1 and 2 a duel of two rival magicians, a trivialized form of the “magical contest” and possibly also a theoretical conflict between two methods of magical art and/or a conflict of generations. It would be interesting to know whose theopropos was Aristoteles. Pharnabazos’s style is more archaic, mythical and Oriental. Aristoteles has a modern touch: he kills elegantly with the power of his proedenai. He may be better educated. His language is less formulaic and is sparkled with black humour; even his drawing and writing are more refined. The arai of Pharnabazos and Aristoteles have the following common features that distinguish them from ordinary tabellae defixionum: (1) they are inscribed on ostraka, not on lead tablets; (2) they express an unconditioned wish of opponent’s death in  the most explicit and cynical form; (3) they have the form of a letter addressed to the cursed in the second person. In addition, graffito (1) contains a mockery philolalos which is hard to imagine in such serious texts as defixiones. Therefore, a possibility cannot be excluded that the two ostraka are indeed curse letters exchanged between Aristoteles and Pharnabazos. In this case the portraits, apart from their magical purpose, may have been intended also as threats (and offensive caricatures?) with a hyponoia: “look what I can do to you!” The question is important for the localization of the mantic shops of Aristoteles and Pharnabazos, at least at the moment of their “duel”. If the two ostraka are real letters, it is natural to suppose that they were delivered to the addressee and that the place of discovery corresponds to the working place of each addressee. This means that Pharnabazos worked near the sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite (a suitable place for a theopropos Ermou. and a magician selling lovespells), and Aristoteles at the eastern part of the sector AG:. If, however, the ostraka had been buried by the cursors, the position of two magicians may be reversed or there may be no connection between the place of discovery and the localization of the mantic shops, especially in the case of graffito (1): Aristoteles may have placed his curse against Pharnabazos at the sanctuary of chthonic deities following the common magical practice.

That’s right, bitches. We Orphic priests use cleverness, sarcasm, dick jokes, funny doodles and terrible spirits from below to destroy our enemies.

Keep that in mind during the next flame-war.

Lebedev also makes this suggestion, with fascinating implications:

There are reasons to believe that Pharnabazos is identical with the owner of the kleromantic (so called “Orphic”) bone plates. The fact that the kleromantic plates were found near the temple of Zeus at the Eastern temenos proves nothing: Pharnabazos may have lost them while wandering around the agora region in search of clients.

[Note: these quotes are not arranged alphabetically - I may go back at a later date and amend that.]

s.v. Ἀνθεστηριών “Anthesterion”
It is the eighth month amongst Athenians, sacred to Dionysos. It is so called because most things bloom [anthein] from the earth at that time.

s.v.  ̓Ασκος ἐν “a wineskin in a frost”
David says, “I have become as a wineskin in a frost.” A wineskin when heated becomes porous and when inflated it swells, but in the frost it is hardened and frozen. Thus also the nature of the body becomes complacent with luxury and is swollen, but with ascetic training it is humbled and oppressed. Also attested is the phrase Ktesiphon’s wineskin; Aristophanes writes, “according to our customs, at the trumpet signal drink your pitchers; whoever drains his first will win Ktesiphon’s wineskin.” For in the Feast of Pitchers there was a contest concerning who could drain his pitcher first, and the winner was crowned with a wreath of leaves and got a skin of wine. At a trumpet signal they would drink. Ktesiphon was ridiculed for being fat and paunchy. An inflated wineskin was set forth in the festival of the Pitchers, on which those drinking in the competition would stand. The first one to finish his drink won, and got a wineskin. They drank a certain measure, a choa, of wine. Also attested is the verb to bear a wineskin. In the Dionysiac processions, some things were done by the townspeople, but others had been assigned to the metics to do by the lawgivers. Accordingly the metics would put on chitons which had a crimson color and carry troughs; wherefore they were called tray-bearers [skaphêphoroi]. The townspeople wore whatever clothing they wanted and carried wineskins on their shoulders, wherefore they were called “wineskin-bearers” [askophoroi]. And there is a proverb: to be spooked by a little wineskin [ἀσκωῖ μορμολύττεστηαι], in reference to those who are frightened absurdly and for no good reason. Also attested is the verb ἀσκολιάζον ["they used to dance as at the Askolia"]; the Athenians had a festival, the Askolia, in which they would hop on wineskins to the honor of Dionysos. The creature appears to be a natural enemy of the vine. In any event an epigram appears addressed to a goat that goes like this: “devour me to the root, yet all the same I will bear fruit; enough to pour a libation for you, goat, as you are being sacrificed.” But “dance on a wineskin” means dance on the other leg; strictly askôliazein is what they used to call hopping on wineskins to make people laugh. In the middle of the theatre they placed wineskins which were inflated and oiled and when they hopped onto these they slipped; just as Eubulos says in Damalia, “and in addition to these things, they put wineskins in the middle and hopped and guffawed at those who fell off the track.”

s.v. Βούχετα “Boucheta”
It is a city of Epeiros; the word is neuter and plural. Philochoros says that it got its name because Themis went there, mounted on an ox [ἐπὶ βοὸς ὀχουμένην], during the flood of Deukalion.

s.v. Χοάς “pourings”
Meaning outpourings, offerings over corpses, or libations. An oracle has been issued that it is necessary to bring choai to the deceased of the Aitolians, year on year, and hold a festival of the choai. The word is also used for sacrifices to the dead. Sophokles writes, “first, from an ever-flowing spring bring sacred drink-offerings, borne in ritually pure hands.”

s.v. Χόες “Pitchers”
It was a particular festival amongst Athenians, celebrated on the twelfth day of the month Anthesterion. But Apollodoros says that Anthesteria is the name for the festival as a whole, celebrated in honour of Dionysos, with its component parts Pithoigia ["Jar-Opening"], Choes ["Pitchers"], Chytroi ["Pots"]. And elsewhere: “Orestes arrived in Athens after the murder (it was a festival of Lenaian Dionysos), and since, having murdered his mother, he might not be able to drink with them, something along the following lines was contrived. Having set up pitchers of wine for each of the celebrants he ordered them to drink from it, with no common sharing between them; thus Orestes would not drink from the same bowl but neither would he be vexed by drinking alone. Hence the origin of the Athenian festival of the Pitchers.” Elsewhere we find the origin thus: Orestes, after the killing of his mother, came into Athens to the house of Pandion, his kinsman settled there, who happened to be king of the Athenians. He encountered him in the act of celebrating a festival at public cost. So Pandion, ashamed to send Orestes away, yet thinking it impious to share drink and table with him as he had not been purged of the murder, set out one pitcher for each of the invited guests, so that Orestes would not drink from the same bowl.

s.v. Χοᾶ “chous; pitcher”
χοᾶ means the same as χοῦς, an Attic measure, containing eight kotulai. Aristophanes writes, “come to dinner quickly, bringing your basket and your pitcher.” For those inviting people to dinner used to provide the wreaths and unguents and desserts and other such things, but those who were invited used to bring boiled vegetables and a basket and a pitcher. Concerning the basket Homer says: “his mother put in the basket meat and food to keep up his strength … such as kings reared by Zeus eat.” Those invited to dinner used to bring pitchers, so that they would not share another drinking-vessel because of the blame that befell Orestes. And there is a proverb: ‘it will hold six choas.’ In reference to those who talk nonsense. That is, his brain will hold six choas. At the same time it remained as a metaphor for a jar or wineskin: if one is cleaned out, it holds more than those that are blocked up and thrown away. And elsewhere: “Glyce swore the last of us to arrive would lose three choas of wine and a choenix of chickpeas.” Those drinking in moderation used to gobble down roasted chickpeas.

s.v. Χύτροι “Pots”
A festival at Athens; on a single day both the Pitchers and the Pots used to be held; in it they would boil every kind of seed in a pot and sacrifice it to Dionysos and to Hermes. Theopompos says that those who had been saved from the flood boiled a pot of every kind of seed, whence the festival is thus named, and that they sacrificed in the Pitchers festival to Chthonic Hermes; but that no one eats from the pot. He says those who had been saved did this, propitiating Hermes on behalf of those who died also. The Pots festival used to be celebrated on the thirteenth day of the month Anthesterion, according to Philochoros.

s.v. Νάννακος “Nannakos”
An old man who came before Deukalion. They say that this man was king before Deukalion. Foreseeing the imminent inundation, he brought everyone together into the temple and made supplication while weeping. And thus arose a proverb, “From Nannakos”, in reference to very early times.

s.v. Θύραζε “outside the door”
Meaning outside the door. There is a proverbial phrase “outdoors, Kares, the Anthesteria are over.” Some say the expression arises because of the number of Carian slaves, since during the Anthesteria they were praying and not working. Thus when the festival was finished they sent them off to their work saying “outdoors, Kares, the Anthesteria are over.” Some, however, say the expression this way: “outdoors, Keres, the Anthesteria are not in here.” On the basis that during the Anthesteria the souls [κῆρες] would be wandering throughout the city.

s.v. Θύραθεν “outdoors”
Meaning outside, nearby. “His madness was not from outside; rather it was from inside that he was raving and acting mad, a man wicked by nature though in possession of power.”

s.v. Ὑδροφορία “Hydrophoria”
A festival of mourning at Athens for those who died in the flood, according to Apollonios.

s.v. Κῆρ “Ker”
Meaning soul; also death-bringing fate. Also attested is the plural κῆρες, meaning death-bringing fates. i.e. those who bring on burning [καῆναι]. Also in a river of Hades, Pyriphlegethon and Acheron and Kokytos; the first so called from burning [φλέγειν], the second from pains [ἄχη] flowing [ρεῖν] into it, and the last from lamentations and dirges. And a dirge [κωκυτός] is an imitation of a voice of those mourning. They also say that there is a certain Dead river; it is so called because it is all dried up and does not even have λιβάς, that is moisture. And they also call vinegar “dead”, because it is wine that has expired. The spirit is a Ker, because it consists of fire. For that which is inborn warmth is a spirit. “I am a tomb-haunting Ker, and it was Koroibos who killed me.”

s.v. Κῆρας “Keras”
Beings responsible for death and destruction. “… deeming the followers of Socrates and Zeno deserving to be driven from every land and sea, as being causes of death for the cities and the community; but now crowning them with wreaths and making them an example of noble and self-controlled life-style.”

s.v. Καρικῇ Μούσῃ “with a Carian muse”
Meaning with a mournful song. For the Carians were a kind of dirge-singer and mourned the dead of others for payment. But some understood Plato to mean in a non-Greek and obscure language; because the Carians speak a barbarian language.

s.v. Πιθοιγία “Pithoigia”
The opening of the jar.

Ἠριγόνειος τάφος “Erigoneios taphos”
An Erigonian tomb.

s.v. Θέσπις “Thespis”
Of Ikarion, a city of Attica. He was, according to some, the first tragedian. Originally he performed having rubbed his face with white lead, then he covered his face with purslane in his performance, and after that he also introduced the use of masks made solely from linen. He is remembered for his plays The Funeral Games of Pelias, The Phorbas, The Priests, The Youths, and Pentheus.

s.v. Βάκχος “Bakchos”
Thus they used to call not only Dionysos, but also all those who celebrate the orgies; indeed the initiates do not also carry the branches. It is also a kind of wreath. “They wreathed their heads with bacchic flowers.” And the Pisidian writes, “it was possible to see many Bacchants willingly dancing the last dance.”

s.v. Ἀνθοσμίας “Anthosmias”
Flower-smelling, redolent of flowers. A wine with a fine bouquet. Fragrant. From a place called Anthosmion; or as if from a type of vine, or meaning sweet and fragrant and flowery. Anthosmias, a fragrant wine, wrapped in flowers and scent. By derivation Anthosmios gives rise to Anthosmias; they used to call coarse wine headache-inducing. Aristophanes in Frogs writes, “Dionysos, you’re drinking a wine which does not have a fine smell.” Meaning you’re drunk, you’re hung over from drinking strong wine. Anthos is also said to be white hair, hence phalanthos, a bald patch, a bald pate.

s.v. Βρόμιος “Bromios”
Dionysos, the birth-maker of fruits. From βορά ["food"] comes βόριμος, and by metathesis βρόμιος.

s.v. Εὐμενίδες “Eumenides”
Meaning the Erinyes, who are infernal deities. They say that they changed their name because of Orestes. For that is when they were first called Eumenides, because they became well-disposed [eumeneis] to him, who was chosen to prevail in the presence of the Athenians, and who brought as a burnt-offering for them a black sheep. But Philemon the comic poet says that the Holy Goddesses are different from the Eumenides. Sophokles writes, “for the terrible goddesses, maidens of the earth and darkness, hold them.” Aischylos in Eumenides, speaking of the trial of Orestes, says that Athena soothed the Furies so as to end their hostility to Orestes, and named them Eumenides. There were three: Alekto, Megaira, Tisiphone.

s.v. Ἄρχοντες “archons”
There are nine of them: six thesmothetes,as well as the archon eponymous, the king and the polemarch. And before the laws of Solon they were not allowed to sit in judgment together; instead, the king sat by what was called the Herdsman’s House [Boukoleion] which was near to the Prytaneion.

s.v. Ἐπιμελητὴς τῶν μυστηρίων “superintendent of the Mysteries”
Amongst Athenians the so-called king [archon] first supervises the Mysteries, together with the superintendents whom the people used to elect. There were four: two from all Athenians, one from the Eumolpidai and one from the Kerykes.

s.v. Ἡγεμονία δικαστηρίου “presidency of a jurycourt”
It was not permitted to bring all lawsuits before all of the archons. Rather, before the Archon they tried cases involving orphans and matters involving insanity and adjudications about inheritances, and the records of those who had served as archon went to the auditors. Before the King, however, they tried cases of murder and impiety and any dispute concerning a priesthood; previously also any disputes among the priests concerning holy matters; and he would make the proclamations that those at fault were forbidden access to the laws. To the War-Archon they brought any suits against a freedman for having forsaken his patron. Beyond this, all that the Archon attended to among the citizens, the Polemarch attended to among the resident aliens. The Lawgivers (θεσμοθέται) handled cases of sycophancy and bribery and assault and seduction and conspiracy. They bring before the Eleven cases involving robbery and clothes-stealing and slave dealers. They bring before the general cases involving trierarchies and property-exchange. So by arbitrating in this way these various officials are said to hold the presidency of a jurycourt. In fact the King also had charge of the mysteries together with the supervisors; but he alone also wears a crown.

s.v. Ἐγχεῖν “to pour in”
To mix in. Xenophon writes, “he commanded the young men to pour wine in and to pray to the gods.” Meaning to make a libation.

s.v. Κεκραμένη σπονδή “mixed libation”
That which they used to sacrifice to Hermes alone, because, as they say, he rules over both living and dead and receives his honors from both.

s.v. Ἀγηλατεῖν “agelatein”
Meaning to drive out as a curse and accursed people. If the breathing is rough, it means to drive out curses; but if smooth, it means to drive away. “You seem to me to be in sad shape, you and the one who arranged to drive out these things”.

s.v. Κρυμός “krumos”
Meaning coldness. “For such a one as you, queen, even the snowy frost bears fruit.”

s.v. Φαλλοί “phalloi”
A representation of genitals made from fig-wood, but later from red hides; having the appearance of male genitals. And wearing this on their necks and the middle of the thighs they used to dance, giving honor to Dionysos at his festival.

s.v. Θεωρικά “theoric payment”
They were certain monies held in common, collected from the revenues of the city; they were previously kept safe for the needs of war and were called generals-payments, but later they were paid into public projects and distributions to the citizens. The previously-agreed rate was a drachma per spectacle, which gave rise to its name, spectacle-payments. But Philinos maintains that this was the reason they were called theorika: because, when the festival of Dionysos was imminent, Eubulos distributed them for the sacrifice, so that everyone could celebrate the festival and nobody would be excluded through lack of spending-money. But elsewhere what was given for the spectacles and the sacrifices and the festivals was differently defined. It was not permitted for those abroad to draw a theoric-payment. There was also a certain office connected with the theoric-payment, as Aischines shows in the speech Against Ktesiphon.

s.v. Τὰ ἐκ τῶν ἁμαξῶν σκώμματα “the jibes from out of the carts”
A proverbial phrase in reference to those making jibes openly; for at Athens at the festival of the Choes the revellers on the carts used to make jibes and insults at those they encountered. The same used to happen later at the Lenaia. “The women of the Athenians used to ride on the cart, when they travelled to Eleusis for the great mystery-ceremonies, and insult each other on the way; for this was their custom.” “Long ago the Alexandrians used to conduct a purification of souls: for on fixed days men carried on carts assigned to this very task would progress through the whole city, take up stances wherever they liked and position themselves by any house they chose, and truly chant ‘the things out of a wagon’ — not abusing people falsely but reproaching them with the truth. For they took scrupulous care to examine the reproaches against the citizens and bring them forward impartially and with truth, so that through this everyone escaped wickedness.”

s.v Ἀγόνων χοῶν “than unfruitful drink-offerings”
It is used in two ways. Gregory the Theologian says “more pious than the offerings which are poured for the dead and are therefore unfruitful.” Also attested is ἀγονία, barrenness. “That Artemis was angered and that she attacked with sterility of the earth as punishment.”

Kallimachos, Aitia 1.1
Nor did the morn of the Broaching of the Jars pass unheeded, nor that whereon the Pitchers of Orestes bring a white day for slaves. And when he kept the yearly festival of Ikarios’ child, thy day, Erigone, lady most sorrowful of Attic women, he invited to a banquet his familiars, and among them a stranger who was newly visiting Egypt, whither he had come on some private business.

Hesiod, Works and Days ll. 770-779
But the twelfth is much better than the eleventh, for on it the airy-swinging spider spins its web in full day.

P. Oxy. VI 853
Anthesteria is for three days, the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth – but the twelfth day is most special.

Apollodoros, Bibliotheca 2.192
It was during the reign of Pandion that Demeter and Dionysos came to Attika. Keleus welcomed Demeter to Eleusis, and Ikarios received Dionysos, who gave him a vine-cutting and taught him the art of making wine. Ikarios was eager to share the god’s kindness with mankind, so he went to some shepherds, who, when they had tasted the drink and then delightedly and recklessly gulped it down undiluted, thought they had been poisoned and slew Ikarios. But in the daylight they regained their senses and buried him. As his daughter was looking for him, a dog named Maira, who had been Ikarios’ faithful companion, unearthed the corpse; and Erigone, in the act of mourning her father, hanged herself.

Statius, Thebaid 11.644
Sorrowful Erigone weeping in the Marathonian wood beside the body of her slain father, her plaints exhausted, began to untie the sad knot of her girdle and chose sturdy branches intent on death.

Suidas s.v. Ἠριγόνειος τάφος “Erigoneios taphos”
An Erigonian tomb.

Etymologicum genuinum, s.v. auroschas
The vine: used by Parthenius in his Herakles: The vinecluster of the daughter of Ikarios.

Hermesianax of Colophon, as quoted in Athenaios’ Deipnosophistai 597a
How, too, Sophokles the Attic bee left Colone of the many hillocks, and sang with choruses marshalled in tragedy – sang of Bakchos and of his passion for Theoris and for Erigone.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.127-130
And there was Bacchus, when he was disguised as a large cluster of fictitious grapes; deluding by that wile the beautiful Erigone;–and Saturnus, as a steed, begetter of the dual-natured Chiron. And then Arachne, to complete her work, wove all around the web a patterned edge of interlacing flowers and ivy leaves. Pallas could not find a fleck or flaw–even Envy can not censure perfect art–enraged because Arachne had such skill she ripped the web, and ruined all the scenes that showed those wicked actions of the gods.

Ovid, Fasti 4.901ff
On his right hand hung a napkin with a loose nap, and he had a bowl of wine and a casket of incense. The incense, and wine, and sheep’s guts, and the foul entrails of a filthy dog, he put upon the hearth–we saw him do it. Then to me he said, ‘Thou askest why an unwonted victim is assigned to these rites?’ Indeed, I had asked the question. ‘Learn the cause,’ the flamen said. ‘There is a Dog (they call it the Icarian dog), and when that constellation rises the earth is parched and dry, and the crop ripens too soon. So this dog is put on the altar instead of the starry dog.’

Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories 9
The story of Ikarios who entertained Dionysos is told by Eratosthenes in his Erigone. The Romans, however, say that Saturnus when once he was entertained by a farmer who had a fair daughter named Entoria, seduced her and begat Janus, Hymnus, Faustus, and Felix. He then taught Icarius the use of wine and viniculture, and told him that he should share his knowledge with his neighbours also. When the neighbours did so and drank more than is customary, they fell into an unusually deep sleep. Imagining that they had been poisoned, they pelted Icarius with stones and killed him; and his grandchildren in despair ended their lives by hanging themselves. When a plague had gained a wide hold among the Romans, Apollo gave an oracle that it would cease if they should appease the wrath of Saturnus and the spirits of those who had perished unlawfully. Lutatius Catulus, one of the nobles, built for the god the precinct which lies near the Tarpeian Rock. He made the upper altar with four faces, either because of Icarius’s grandchildren or because the year has four parts; and he designated a month January. Saturnus placed them all among the stars. The others are called harbingers of the vintage, but Janus rises before them. His star is to be seen just in front of the feet of Virgo. So Critolaus in the fourth book of his Phaenomena.

Etymologicum Magnum 42.4
Aiora: A festival for the Athenians, which they call a feast offered to departed souls. For they say that Erigone, daughter of Aigisthos and Klytmenestra came with her grandfather Tyndareus to Athens to prosecute Orestes. When he was acquitted, she hung herself and became a cause of pollution for the Athenians. In accordance with an oracle, the festival is performed for her.

Etymologicum Magnum 62.9
Aletis: Some say that she is Erigone, the daughter of Ikarios, since she wandered everywhere seeking her father. Others say she is the daughter of Aigisthos and Klytemnestra. Still others say she is the daughter of Maleotos the Tyrrhenian; others that she is Medea, since, having wandered after the murder of her children, she escaped to Aigeus. Others say that she is Persephone, wherefore those grinding the wheat offer some cakes to her.

Parian Chronicle
From the trial on the Areopagus of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, and Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus, on behalf of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; which case Orestes won, since the votes were equal; 944 years, when Demophon was king of Athens.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.2.5
Pegasos of Eleutherai introduced the god Dionysos to the Athenians. Herein he was helped by the oracle at Delphoi, which called to mind that the god once dwelt in Athens in the days of Ikarios.

Servius, On Vergil’s Georgics 2.389
But after a certain time, a sickness afflicted the Athenians to such an extent that their maidens were driven by some kind of frenzy.

Plato, Phaedrus 244de
Next, madness can provide relief from the greatest plagues of trouble that beset certain families because of their guilt for ancient crimes: it turns up among those who need a way out; it gives prophecies and takes refuge in prayers to the gods and in worship, discovering mystic rites and purifications that bring the man it touches through to safety for this and all time to come. So it is that the right sort of madness finds relief from present hardships for a man it has possessed.

Aelian, On Animals 7.28
When Ikarios was slain by the relatives of those who, after drinking wine for the first time fell asleep (for as yet they did not know that what had happened was not death but a drunken stupor) the people of Attika suffered from disease, Dionysos thereby (as I think) avenging the first and the most elderly man who cultivated his plants. At any rate the Pythian oracle declared that if they wanted to be restored to health they must offer sacrifice to Ikarios and to Erigone his daughter and to her hound which was celebrated for having in its excessive love for its mistress declined to outlive her.

Hyginus, Fabulae 130
When Father Liber went out to visit men in order to demonstrate the sweetness and pleasantness of his fruit, he came to the generous hospitality of Icarius and Erigone. To them he gave a skin full of wine as a gift and bade them spread the use of it in all the other lands. Loading a wagon, Icarius with his daughter Erigone and a dog Maera came to shepherds in the land of Attica, and showed them the kind of sweetness wine had. The shepherds, made drunk by drinking immoderately, collapsed, and thinking that Icarius had given them some bad medicine, killed him with clubs. The dog Maera, howling over the body of the slain Icarius, showed Erigone where her father lay unburied. When she came there, she killed herself by hanging in a tree over the body of her father. Because of this, Father Liber afflicted the daughters of the Athenians with alike punishment. They asked an oracular response from Apollo concerning this, and he told them they had neglected he deaths of Icarius and Erigone. At this reply they exacted punishment from the shepherds, and in honour of Erigone instituted a festival day of swinging because of the affliction, decreeing that through the grape-harvest they should pour libations to Icarius and Erigone. By the will of the gods they were put among the stars. Erigone is the sign Virgo whom we call Justice; Icarius is called Arcturus among the stars, and the dog Maera is Canicula.

Hyginus, Astronomica 2.2
The constellation Bootes. The Bear Watcher. Some have said that he is Icarus, father of Erigone, to whom, on account of his justice and piety, Father Liber gave wine, the vine, and the grape, so that he could show men how to plant the vine, what would grow from it, and how to use what was produced. When he had planted the vine, and by careful tending with a pruning-knife had made it flourish, a goat is said to have broken into the vineyard, and nibbled the tenderest leaves he saw there. Icarus, angered by this, took him and killed him and from his skin made a sack, and blowing it up, bound it tight, and cast it among his friends, directing them to dance around it. And so Eratosthenes says : `Around the goat of Icarus they first danced.’

Others say that Icarus, when he had received the wine from Father Liber, straightway put full wineskins on a wagon. For this he was called Boötes. When he showed it to the shepherds on going round through the Attic country, some of them, greedy and attracted by the new kind of drink, became stupefied, and sprawling here and there, as if half-dead, kept uttering unseemly things. The others, thinking poison had been given the shepherds by Icarus, so that he could drive their flocks into his own territory, killed him, and threw him into a well, or, as others say, buried him near a certain tree. However, when those who had fallen asleep, woke up, saying that hey had never rested better, and kept asking for Icarus in order to reward him, his murderers, stirred by conscience, at once took to flight and came to the island of the Ceans. Received there as guests, they established homes for themselves.

But when Erigone, the daughter of Icarus, moved by longing for her father, saw he did not return and was on the point of going out to hunt for him, the dog of Icarus, Maera by name, returned to her, howling as if lamenting the death of its master. It gave her no slight suspicion of murder, for the timid girl would naturally suspect her father had been killed since he had been gone so many months and days. But the dog, taking hold of her dress with its teeth, led her to the body. As soon as the girl saw it, abandoning hope, and overcome with loneliness and poverty, with many tearful lamentations she brought death on herself by hanging from the very tree beneath which her father was buried. And the dog made atonement for her death by its own life. Some say that it cast itself into the well, Anigrus by name. For this reason they repeat the story that no one afterward drank from that well. Jupiter, pitying their misfortune, represented their forms among the stars. And so many have called Icarus, Boötes, and Erigone, the Virgin, about whom we shall speak later. The dog, however, from its own name and likeness, they have called Canicula. It is called Procyon by the Greeks, because it rises before the greater Dog. Others say these were pictured among the stars by Father Liber.

In the meantime in the district of the Athenians many girls without cause committed suicide by hanging, because Erigone, in dying, had prayed that Athenian girls should meet the same kind of death she was to suffer if the Athenians did not investigate the death of Icarus and avenge it. And so when these things happened as described, Apollo gave oracular response to them when they consulted him, saying that they should appease Erigone if they wanted to be free from the affliction. So since she hanged herself, they instituted a practice of swinging themselves on ropes with bars of wood attached, so that the one hanging could be moved by the wind. They instituted this as a solemn ceremony, and they perform it both privately and publicly, and call it alétis, aptly terming her mendicant who, unknown and lonely, sought for her father with the god. The Greeks call such people alétides.

The First Vatican Mythographer 19
Icarius’ dog returned to his daughter, Erigone; she followed his tracks and, when she found her father’s corpse, she ended her life with a noose. Through the mercy of the gods she was restored to life again among the constellations; men call her Virgo. That dog was also placed among the stars. But after some time such a sickness was sent upon the Athenians that their maidens were driven by a certain madness to hang themselves. The oracle responded that this pestilence could be stopped if the corpses of Erigone and Icarius were sought again. These were found nowhere after being sought for a long time. Then, to show their devotedness, and to appear to seek them in another element, the Athenians hung rope from trees. Holding on to this rope, the men were tossed here and there so that they seemed to seek the corpses in the air. But since most were falling from the trees, they decided to make shapes in the likeness of their own faces and hang these in place of themselves. Hence, little masks are called oscilla because in them faces oscillate, that is, move.

The Third Vatican Mythographer
When Icarius, a priest of Bacchus and King of Athens, and the best of hunters too, gave wine to the peasants to drink, they became inebriated. Thinking that they had taken poison, they killed him and, to conceal the crime, they threw him into a well. But a little dog that was with him returned home to Erigone, his daughter, and by its sorrow and whatever signs it could, the little dog led her to the well. When Erigone wept at the well for a long time, at last she was carried up into the sky with the little dog and became the sign called Virgo. The little dog became the principal constellation that is next to Virgo. When the sun is in this, the days called “dog days” are hot and hurtful, like a little dog. The sun is said to be in Virgo because, just as a virgin in barren, so when the sun courses through that sign, the earth is barren and dry, for it produces nothing because of the burning sun.

Statius, Thebaid 4. 684
When Bacchus sought to bring drought to the land of Argos he cried, ‘Ye rustic Nymphae, deities of the streams, no small portion of my train, fulfil the task that I now do set you. Stop fast with earth awhile the Argolic river-springs, I beg, and the pools and running brooks … The stars lend their strong influence to my design, and the heat-bringing hound of my Erigone is foaming. Go then of your goodwill, go into the hidden places of earth.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.451
Black clouds cover the hiding stars and night has lost her fires. The first to hide were stars of Icarus and of Erigone, in hallowed love devoted to her father.

I need to check on this, but I think Sir Orfeo comes the closest of all our sources to giving us a date for the abduction of Eurydike:

It befell, at the beginning of May when the sun’s heat banishes all memory of winter and everybody is good-humoured – and every field is full of flowers and the blossom covers every bough and there is joy everywhere – it happened during this season that Eurydice took two maidens with her one morning and walked into an orchard. The sun was high in the sky and she wanted to listen to the birds and to look at the flowers and to find some shade from the sun. So she sat beneath an apple tree. And it was not long before Eurydice fell asleep. The two maidens dared not wake her but let her lie.

The fact that she’s out with her maiden companions when she’s abducted is an interesting variation from the account in Ovid where Eurydike is bitten by a snake and dies alone while attempting to flee her would-be rapist the rustic god Aristaeus. It brings it more into line with the myth of Kore-Persephone which was marked in Sicily and Southern Italy by the Anthesphoria festival:

ANTHESPHO′RIA (ἀνθεσφόρια), a flower-festival, principally celebrated in Sicily. It consisted of gathering flowers and twining garlands, because Persephone had been carried off by Pluto while engaged in this occupation (Pollux, I.37). Strabo (VI p256) relates that at Hipponium the women celebrated a similar festival in honour of Demeter, which was probably called anthesphoria, since it was derived from Sicily. The women themselves gathered the flowers for the garlands which they wore on the occasion, and it would have been a disgrace to buy the flowers for that purpose. Anthesphoria were also solemnized in honour of other deities, especially in honour of Hera, surnamed Ἀνθεία, at Argos (Paus. II.22 § 1), where maidens, carrying baskets filled with flowers, went in procession, whilst a tune called ἱεράκιον was played on the flute (comp. Etym. Gud. p57). Aphrodite, too, was worshipped at Cnossus, under the name Ἀνθεία (Hesych. s.v.), and has therefore been compared with Flora, the Roman deity, as the anthesphoria have been with the Roman festival of the Florifertum, or Floralia. (William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875)

I’ve always assumed that this festival took place in the month Anthesterion because of the name and this interesting passage by Pope Innocent XII concerning the origins of the Christian feast of Candlemas:

We carry candles at this feast because the Gentiles dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the beginning of the month, walked about the city with lighted candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about candles in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in the honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

But then I got thinking – what if I did something in May along the lines of the Anthesphoria solemnizing Orpheus’ loss of Eurydike? Then that could lead into a period of forty days commemorating his suffering and wandering in the wilderness, culminating in the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist since there’s some intense Johannine and Orphic syncretisms, to say the least.

This would be an interesting parallel to the alétides I normally honor:

Aletis, wanderer: Some say that she is Erigone, the daughter of Ikarios, since she wandered everywhere seeking her father. Others say she is the daughter of Aigisthos and Klytemnestra. Still others say she is the daughter of Maleotos the Tyrrhenian; others that she is Medea, since, having wandered after the murder of her children, she escaped to Aigeus. Others say that she is Persephone, wherefore those grinding the wheat offer some cakes to her. (Etymologicum Magnum 62.9)

At first I thought about doing it on May 1st or Beltaine since marriage to death is one of the central mysteries of Magna Graecian Bacchic Orphism but the timing wasn’t right, nor was counting back 40 days from June 24th which got me May 16th. However I remembered that passage from Ovid which discusses Aristaeus seeking oracular guidance in order to atone for his crimes and it connected it to the rising of Sirius, which is linked to the constellation Procyon that is named after Erigone’s faithful companion Maera.

On his right hand hung a napkin with a loose nap, and he had a bowl of wine and a casket of incense. The incense, and wine, and sheep’s guts, and the foul entrails of a filthy dog, he put upon the hearth–we saw him do it. Then to me he said, ‘Thou askest why an unwonted victim is assigned to these rites?’ Indeed, I had asked the question. ‘Learn the cause,’ the flamen said. ‘There is a Dog (they call it the Icarian dog), and when that constellation rises the earth is parched and dry, and the crop ripens too soon. So this dog is put on the altar instead of the starry dog.’ (Ovid, Fasti 4.901ff)

On a lark I decided to count back 40 days from the Summer Solstice which got me May 13th – the final day of the Roman Lemuria:

Lemuria was a feast in the religion of ancient Rome during which the Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome spectres of the restless dead, the lemures or larvae were propitiated with offerings of beans. On those days, the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa, a salted flour cake, from the first ears of wheat of the season. Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and repeating the incantation, “I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine (haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis)” nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, “Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!” nine times. Because of this annual exorcism of the noxious spirits of the dead, the whole month of May was rendered unlucky for marriages, whence the proverb Mense Maio malae nubent (“They wed ill who wed in May”).

That has some really interesting implications, especially when you consider some of the taboos shared by Orphic and Pythagorean communities in Southern Italy.

But it goes much deeper than a prohibition on beans, as Walter Burkert explains:

There were codes for worship: to enter the sanctuary barefoot; not to dip one’s hands in the water vessel at the entrance of the temple; to pour out libations at the handle of the vessel where human lips have not been placed; to straighten the bed when rising from it and to eliminate all traces of one’s presence; not to poke the fire with a knife; not to step over a broom or a yoke; not to sit down on a measure of corn; not to look into a mirror by light; not to speak without light; not to break bread; not to pick up what has fallen from the table ‘because it belongs to the heroes.’ Outstanding among the purely moral prescriptions is that in contrast to normal practice the husband is forbidden extramarital sexual intercourse. (Greek Religion, pg 302)

So it looks like I’ve got a minor Orphic festival cycle brewing.

* May 13th – abduction of the Maiden by the King Below in the Field of Flowers.
* Which begins 40 days of fasting, austerity and strict adherence to purity codes in remembrance of Orpheus’ wandering in the wilderness for his lost love.
* Brought to a close on the Summer Solstice with rites of atonement and purification by fire.
* Which will lead into the Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24th and the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul on the 28th and 29th, my big Tarantism festival where I swing for Spider as I swing for Erigone during Anthesteria:

With regard to the astonishing and complex agitation of the entire body, not long ago I personally saw a woman stricken with the poison who, although prey to the delirium of a violent fever, and her mind possessed with horrible phantasms – or rather, she was assaulted by a host of insolent demons – at the sound of the musical instruments she nonethless abandoned herself to a dance that was so excited, to such a frenetic agitation of her limbs and whirling her head, that my own head and eyes, enthralled by the same agitation, suffered from dizziness. This woman had suspended a rope from the ceiling of her humble dwelling, the end of which, just touching the floor in the middle of the room, she tenaciously squeezed between her hands; throwing herself upon it, she abandoned herself with the weight of her whole body, her feet planted on the floor, turning her head to and fro, her face glowing, with a surly look. I was deeply astonished, not being able to explain why the dizziness provoked by that rapid and violent head shaking did not make her reel and fall to the ground. Due to this agitation and the incredible exertion borne, the woman’s whole body and above all her face were covered with abundant perspiration; reddened by such strenuous agitation, she ran gasping to a great tub full of water prepared at her request, and she completely submerged her head in it, whence the cold water gave her some relief from the heat with which she blazed. (Ludovico Valletta, De Phalangio Apulo 76)

Funny. The Italian word taranta refers to any poisonous creature, including scorpions and snakes as well as the more common spider.

Snakes, like the one that bit Eurydike.

The description of Heurodis in Sir Orfeo sure sounds like a tarante or maenad:

She slept until the sun had passed its height. And when she woke – God! She screamed and started doing some terrible things! She beat with her hands and her feet and scratched her face with her fingernails so badly that the blood ran down her cheeks. She tore at her frock, ripping the costly material into shreds, and behaving for all the world as though she had gone stark staring mad. Her two maidens were frightened out of their wits! They ran to the palace and urged everyone to go and restrain her. Knights made their way as quickly as they could to the orchard, and ladies and damsels also, more than sixty I think. They arrived at the orchard, took the Queen up in their arms and brought her into the palace and to her bed, where they kept a tight hold on her to prevent her from injuring herself further.

Circles and circles and circles, oh my!