Having one mind with Zeus

"Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo...come now into this house...having one mind with Zeus the all-wise..." from the "Homeric Hymn To Hestia"...

What does this mean?

Maybe the same thing as this: In Hindu mythology, Agni (fire) was believed to have three manifestations: Sun, Lightning, Fire...Which is why he had three heads...I talked about Agni and why he likes riding on a ram in my post "The ram of Agni"...

Just like Slavic Supreme god Triglav (Three headed)..."Because it is a great secret how Svarog (heavenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder) and Svetovid (Sun)"...I talked about Triglav in my posts "Triglav Trojan Trinity Trimurti Agni" and "Lugus or Triglav"...

Interesting right? Cause before people learned how to make fire, fire descended from the sun through lightning...

By the way, modern science seem to confirm that it is indeed Sun (Surya) which gives power to Indra (lightning) which becomes Agni (fire)...I talked about this in my post "Sun thunder fire"...

Or, Sun (Apollo, Helios) through Lightning (Zeus) gives birth to Fire (Hestia)...Hence "one mind", one essence...

Basically, sun gives birth to fire through lightning...Which is why Surya, the sun god, had a daughter, Tapati, whose name literally means "warming", "the hot one", "burning one"...Who was apparently the same as Scythian Tabiti...And Herodotus claimed that Tabiti was the same as Hestia...

And it is because the hearth fire is the same fire burning inside of the sun, that people make sure the hearth fire burns through the winter solstice (Christmas) night, the longest night, "so the sun's fire doesn't get extinguished"...I talked about this in my posts "Badnjak", "La buche de noel" and "Yule log in English tradition"

This fire which descended from the sky, was imagined as a firebird which came down from the sky to earth to nest. It had to be found, caught and brought home...Hence legends about "the hunt for the firebird whose one feather can light up the whole room"...I talked about this in my post "Firebird"...

How old are these legends? Well they most likely predate the moment when "Prometheus stole the fire from the gods" (thunder god to be more precise)...I talked about this in my post "Prometheus"...

Or, before people accidentally discovered fire making while drilling...I talked about this in my post "Fire-drill"...

And how long ago did people become masters of fire, considering that "fire-drill" was still worshiped as deity in Mesopotamia...I talked about this in my post "Holy fire-drill"...

How long ago did people become masters of fire, considering that fire making or fire stealing or fire catching was still the stuff of legends during classical times?

How long ago did people become masters of fire, considering that hearth was the center of the house cult, the house altar in so many Eurasian cultures until recently? 

And considering that making sure that hearth fire never died was so important to Eurasian people until very very recently? 

And considering that "live fire pulled out of wood" (kindled using fire drill) was believed to have magic properties by may Eurasian people until very very very recently? 

Like among the Serbs...I talked about this in my posts "Fire goddess", "Bride and hearth", "Verige", "Live fire"...

I am not saying that people have not been using fire for a very very long time...But I am pretty sure that the making of fire was a pretty recent invention...Neolithic...Mesolithic at the earliest...Which makes legends about the the time when people had to find or steel fire, before they learned how to make it, very very very old indeed... 

BTW, Hestia, (the etymology unknown, believed to be Pre-Greek) has only one cognate, Slavic word jesteja (yesteya) meaning "hearth, paved area around or in front of a hearth used for cooking food" which comes from "jesti" (yestee) meaning to eat...

Which would make Jesteja (Yesteya) the place where food was cooked...Which is exactly what hestia was...Not any fire...Domestic fire...The fire where food was cooked...

I talked about this in my post "Hestia"...

Thyrsus

Stunning Roman relief showing a Maenad holding a thyrsus a magic wand of Dionysus (Bacchus), 120-140 AD (Prado Museum, Madrid)...Article about thyrsus and why was it made out of fennel...

A thyrsus was a wand or staff made out of a stalk of a giant fennel (Ferula communis) and topped with a pine cone. Sometimes it was covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with a ribbon...

Thyrsus was associated with Dionysus and was a symbol of fertility (kind of obvious cause of its shape) and prosperity (well in agrarian societies fertility, of land, animals, people = prosperity)...Here is The Man himself, Dionysus, on a leopard holding his magic wand...From Pela, capital of Makedon...

I love this: Thyrsus was a symbol of freedom that Dionysus brought as well as weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents...🙂

So why was Thyrsus made from a giant fennel, topped with pine cone and wrapped with grape and ivy vines?

This is giant fennel, a wild flowering plant found in Mediterranean and East African woodlands and shrublands. It can grow up to 2.5 meters tall...

It flowers in June and July (around summer solstice) and produces huge number of large bright yellow globular "sun like" flowers...

Soooo?

Well...In Ancient Greek mythology, when Prometheus stole fire from Zeus, he brought it to people by hiding it in the hollow stalk of the giant fennel...Here he is with fennel torches...

Some people wanted to see if there is any truth in these old legends...So they tried to preserve fire using fennel stalk. And they filmed their experiment.

In short:

Get a piece of dry giant fennel stalk, hard on the outside, full of soft pith on the inside. This pith can be ignited and it then smoulders...

The stalk can also be used as firedrill...If anyone has any pics or films showing the use of the giant fennel stalk as a fire drill, please post the link in the comments...

Well that's interesting...

We have:

1. A giant fennel which is full of sun like golden flowers around summer solstice

2. Summer solstice is sunniest but also the most thundery part of the year in the Balkans, which means a lot of chances for lightning (Zeus) started fires...

3. The previous year giant fennel plants are sitting pretty and bone dry among dry grass...

4. If lit up by a fire caused by lightning in just the right way, the fennel stick will smoulder and will allow you to "steal the fire from Zeus (lightning) and take it to the people"...

And the stick made from a dry giant fennel stalk, basically a firestick, was used during Rural Dionysia, which was celebrated around winter solstice, as a scepter carried by the god of resurrection (of nature) Dionysus and his followers...

Oh, and guess who regularly turns up at the Dionysia party and is seen here being greeted by the satyrs, the fateful followers of Dionysus...Well, Prometheus of course...

Satyrs dance amazed around the fire that Prometheus carries in the stalk of a giant fennel...And each one of the satyrs caries a giant fennel stalk too...Otherwise known as thyrsus...

Why?

What's all this resurrection of nature rubbish everyone is talking about? 

Well depends where you are, you can pick one of these two stories:

Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Middle East...

Nature, which is full of life, fertile and abundant during winter, spring (cool wet half of the year) seems to die during summer and autumn (hot dry half of the year)...Only to be resurrected again in autumn...

The nature dies because the fire of the sun becomes too strong...The "resurrection of nature" depends on "the fire of the sun being almost extinguished" by the arrival of autumn rains...

So if during this time of coolness and wetness, you decide to throw a major party, to celebrate the arrival of the resurrection of nature (which is triggered by the extinguishing of the sun's fire by rain), what better thing to hold in your hand then a stick symbolizing the power of Zeus, thunder god? I mean, fire stolen by Prometheus was the product of Zeus's lightning...

So a lightning fire stick...Wrapped with ivy...And grape vines...With a pine cone stuck to its top...Cause fertility...Which arrives with the first winter rains (Oct/Nov)...When ivy starts bearing fruit...I talked about this in my post "Woman and pitcher"...Just after the end of grape harvest...I talked about this in my post "Crocus fairy"...And just at the beginning of pine cone harvest...I talked about this in my post "Eagle dude from Aleppo"...

I think that all this would make Thyrsus a very good symbol of the arriving winter rain season, which brings resurrection of nature...

Continental Europe:

Nature, which is full of life, fertile and abundant during spring summer autumn, seems to die during winter...Only to be resurrected again in spring...

The nature dies because the fire of the sun (almost) dies out. The "resurrection of nature" depends on "the fire of the sun being rekindled". If this does not happen, the winter will never end and the spring will never come...It happens. From time to time...

This is the meaning of the ritual rekindling of fires over Christmas and making sure that fire doesn't get extinguished through Christmas eve...

People believed that there was only one fire...The fire of the sun and the fire in in human hearths was one and the same...

I talked about this in my post about The end of calendar, post about Yule log and post about Badnjak, Serbian Yule log

Remember, Prometheus hid a bit of heavenly fire he stole from Zeus in wood, so people can summon it out whenever they need it...

The same fire, above and below...Agni basically...So when during the darkest part of the year the fire above, the fire of the sun, gets almost extinguished, it is up to people to make sure it keeps burning in their hearths...

So if during this time of darkness and cold, you decide to throw a major party, to celebrate the belief in resurrection of nature (which is triggered by the rekindling of the sun's fire), what better thing to hold in your hand than a firestick? Wrapped with grape and ivy vines...With a cone stuck to its top...Cause fertility...Hmmmm....

So maybe, just maybe, this all together somehow makes sense...

The question is which one of the two stories makes more sense?

Oh by the way, if you want to see what thirsus made of giant fennel stalk and a pinecone, someone's done it...He used a green stalk instead of dry one, but hey, close enough...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Prometheus

Eurasian mythologies all contain myths about the invention of plough, oxen cart, potter's wheel, weaving loom, metal, writing...

In the myths they were either invented by gods and then given to heroes who gave them to people, invented by gods and then stolen by heroes who gave them to people or invented by heroes who gave them to people...

In reality, based on the archaeological records, these are all things invented during neolithic - chalcolithic - bronze age period...

Why were the inventions of these, from our point of view, "ordinary things", attributed to mythical beings?

Because, from the point of view of the people who made the myths,  each one of these things was so mind blowing, so incredibly impossible to be invented by an ordinary human, that it had to have been invented by some superhuman, a hero or a god...

So why is the invention of fire making among these things? Archaeologist believe that making of fire was invented by primitive humans. If so, it had been known for, eeeee, hundreds of thousands of years, and was a common knowledge by the time the Eurasian myths were made...

So why do we have the myth of Prometheus? Prometheus who "stole fire from the thunder god Zeus" and gave it to people. Remember, originally, before the invention of the fire drill, only thunder gods could make fire. Using lightning.    People had to "find fire" and "steal it"...

By the way, fire drill was invented by Hermes, "the god of thieves"...Fire drill was considered by Greeks to be such an amazing invention, that only god could have invented it...

This makes no sense...Unless fire making was not invented by primitive humans, and wasn't already known by everyone for hundreds of thousands of years by the time Greeks made their myths...

If the invention of the fire drill happened during Neolithic, then this world changing event was, at the time when Greeks made their myths, still in the ancestral memory as something totally awesome...Hence the mythical origin of fire making...

But what about all the evidence of the human use of fire since, like, forever? Well, using fire is one thing. Every man can pick up a burning branch ignited by a lightning and bring it home (cave, hut...). Once there, he can light his own fire...

And then he can keep this fire burning...You know all the "eternal fire" beliefs across Eurasia, and how "house fire should never die"...Why would these beliefs exist if making fire was "nothing" since Palaeolithic...Fire dies, you light the new one. No biggie...

Yet...To the Greeks it seems, making fire was something completely different...It was like magic. Something only gods could invent and heroes had to steal from them...

I remember reading an interview with a documentary film maker, who visited some remote island tribes somewhere in the 1960's. The crew arrived on the island in a helicopter and they thought that the "primitive natives" would be gobsmacked by the "flying machine"...

It turned out they were most impressed by a lighter...