Gods & Goddesses Galore

Welcome! Welcome to my humble abode, the realm of stories & tales, questions & explanations, religions & pseudoscience. Call me Aritaeus, son of the poet-god Apollo and the huntress-nymph Cyrene. Below, you shalt find many, many stories.

Tale of Aristeus, the Bee-Keeper

According to Bullfinch

A minor deity of various rustic pursuits. Like Dionysus and Heracles, Aristaeus was origionally a mortal, though of divine parentage. His father, Apollo, one day saw the huntress-nymph Cyrene wresting a lion on the slopes of Mount Pelion. Calling the wise Centaur Cheiron from his cave nearby, the god asked him about the girl's parentage. The centaur, divining Apollo's interest was more than genealogical, did not bother to tell him that she was a daughter of the Lapith king Hypseus, but predicted that the god would carry her off to Libya nd make her queen of a city named for her. Apollo wasted no time in making the prophecy come true. In due course Cyrene bore a son, Aristaeus. The father, or Hermes as his agent, immediately took the child from his mother and gave him to Cheiron, to Ge and the Season, or to certain nymphs to rear. Apollo compensated Cyrene by granting her a long life.
From various nymphs and tutors or from Muses, Aristaeus learned the arts of healing, prophecy and hunting, and especially the agricultural practices of Beekeeping, olive-growing, and cheese-making. The Muses found a bride for hima nd he lived happily for a time as shepard of their flocks in the Thessalian valley of Tempe, beside the Penius River -- the god of which was Aristaeus's great-grandfather. One day the young man caught sight of a beautiful dryad and chased her. In her eagerness to escape, she stepped on a snake and almost died at once of its poison.
Some time later, Aristaeus' bees began to sicken and die and all of his knowledge could not save them. Going to the spring at the source of the Peneius, he called on his mother, who was living there under the water. Cyrene advised her son to capture the old seal-shepard Proteus and ask his advice. She showed him Proteus' lair in Thessaly, and Aristaeus caught and bound him. After changing his shape several times without escaping, the wily and prophetic sea-god told the youth what he wanted to know. The dtyad whose death he had caused had been Eurydice. Her lover, Orpheus, had died to, as a result of the tragedy. The other dryads had caused Aristaeus' bees to die in revenge for their sister's death. Aristaeus, carefully following Proteus' further advice, sacrificed bulls in a grove to teh dryads and to Orpheus. Returning to the scene in 9 days, he was astonished to see bees swarming in the rottting carcasses of the bulls.
Aristaeusapparently abandoned his Thessalian bride, for he married Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes. She bore him a son, Actaeon, who became a great hunter, like his father and grandmother. When Actaeon died, Ariteaus was so grief-stricken that he left the mainland of Greece forever. A delegation fromt eh Minoan Islands, knowing of his agricultural accomplishments, asked him to do something about the parching heat in their lands, which had begun at the rising of Sirius, the dog star. On Apollo's orders, Aristaeus emigrated with som Parrhasian colonists to the island of Ceus, where he was at once made king. He sacrificed to Sirius and especially to Zeus, praying that he would grant relief fromt eh scorching heat. Zeus sent the cooling etesian winds, which ever afterward blew each year for 40 days to alleviate the heat that regularly accompanies the dog star's rising. Later Aristaeus went to Sardinia, perhaps by way of Liya, and cultivated the island. Some add that he performed the same service for Sicily.
Wherever Aristaeus went he taught the inhabitants the agricultural arts. In some parts he was called by the epitets Agreus and Nominus -- respectively, "Hunter" and "Shepard". His benefits to many regions of the Mediterranean world were, like those of Dionysus, so great that he was worshipped like a god. Some say he went to join Dionysus in Thrace and, after living for a time near Mount Haemus, disappeared from teh sight of men. His daughter, macris, was Dionysus' nurse.

I have always loved mythology, even though some of the role-playing games I've played have perverted it more or less. Of all the forms, I am most familiar with Greek mythology, though I have thought recently about buying some books on Japanese, African, and probably Indian mythologies.

Greek

Notes:
Gods/Deities are italicized
Mortals are bold
Mortals who become gods get both
Introduction by Thomas Bullfinch

Family Trees by JM Hunt
The Olympian Gods by JM Hunt

Apollo by Windsor Schools, Vermont
Calypso Princeton
Centaur JM Hunt's
Dolon of Troy
the spy		 Rhesus play -- stored at MIT
Hector Athena of Troy
Son of Priam the king		 Rhesus play -- stored at MIT
Heracles or Hercules Baylor summary of 4 labors & final days
JM Hunt's
Odysseus of Ithaca
The voyager		 Summaries of Adventures:
at Clarke
at Princeton
Perseus JM Hunt's
Theseus JM Hunt's

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