In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Medea brews a magic potion to restore aged Aeson, father of Jason, to youth. Where drops from the cauldron fall on earth, flowers spring up.
Later botanical lore identifies them as poisonous meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale)...
Apparently, the claim that the flower that grew out of the drops of Medea's magic potion was Colchicum (meadow saffron/autumn crocus), actually predates Ovid.
In the Alexipharmaca (probably 2nd century BC), Nicander describes a poisonous plant as:
"the hateful fire of Colchian Medea, the famous meadow-saffron"
The Greek passage identifies the plant as ἐφήμερον (ephemeron), and explicitly associates it with Medea of Colchis. Modern scholarship identifies this ephemeron with a Colchicum species.
This is significant because it means that Medea's poisonous Colchian plant = Colchicum was already an established association before Ovid.
What is very interesting is that Medea's "saffron crocus" is not a saffron crocus at all. It is actually not a crocus at all...
Even thought it looks almost identical to the "saffron crocus", and it flowers in the autumn, just like "saffron crocus"...
The two plants are sufficiently similar that they have repeatedly been confused historically. The "Colchicum autumnale" acquired the names "autumn crocus" and "meadow saffron" precisely because of its resemblance to Crocus and its saffron-like appearance...
This is very important, because we don't really know what Greek ephemeron meant, and whether the ancient Medea plant could have been "saffron crocus that flowers in the autumn" or "something that looks like saffron crocus that flowers in the autumn"...
Why is this important? Cause:
"Medea brewed a magic potion to restore aged Aeson, father of Jason, to youth. Where drops from the cauldron fell on earth, flowers sprang up"...
Remember, saffron crocus is a plant calendar marker for a start of the rain season on Crete.
Why?
Cause right after the first rains (Oct/Nov), the wild saffron crocuses appear all over the island...
It is the Autumn Rain that rejuvenates nature in Crete and makes Saffron Crocuses grow...
You can read more about the symbolism of saffron crocuses in my posts Saffron and Origin of saffron...
This is why crocus plant was linked to "The Goddess" of fertility in Minoan culture...Here she is depicted on her throne being given Saffron as sacrifice...By a blue (water) monkey...I will talk about this more soon...
I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Minoan flying goddess with griffin" where I talk about the link between the Minoan "Goddess" (Winter/Spring - Cool/Wet/Fertile Earth) and Griffins, as part of the analysis of this Minoan gold signature ring depicting a flying griffon and goddess, from cemetery at Archanes, Phourni, in Crete, 1700-1450 BC....
Saffron Crocus was linked to another calendar marker for Oct/Nov: Ibex goat. Ibex mating season starts in Oct/Nov, right when "The Goddess" drips her "rejuvenation potion" (rain) on the almost dead, parched earth, which causes Saffron Crocuses to sprout (and the earth to get rejuvenated)...
I talk about this in several of my posts. Like this one, "Male female Minoan bowl" about this 16th century BC Minoan vessel found on Thera, Akrotiri, depicting (according to the museum curators) on one side wild goats and saffron crocuses and on the other side dolphins and sea grass...
Ibex goat was of course also linked to "The Goddess"...
I talk about this link between Saffron Crocuses, Ibex Goats and "The Goddess" (Cool/Wet/Fertile Earth) in several of my posts: Goat riding thunder god, Sanctuary rhyton, Minoan bull sacrifice...
Crocus was also linked to swallows, another animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season on Crete. On Crete rain starts when swallows leave for Africa...
I talk about this in my post "Mesa Mouliana vessel" about this strainer found in room 3 of the Xeste 3 house in Akrotiri. It is decorated with swallows flying over flowering saffron crocuses...
Where am I going with all of this. Medea was a witch...
An illustration titled "A witch of about the middle of the fifteenth century" from Sir Walter Scott's 1830 book, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. Riding ahead of a storm...
According to folk belief, #witches, unlike fairies, are unable to shed tears. Tears were an offence to the devil who would do whatever was possible to prevent witches from crying. Recorded in Medieval witch hunter guide MALLEUS MALEFICARIUM 1486
Very interesting...I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that weather (rain/storm) magic was the main female (witches) magic?
Witches tears = rain?
The main "Evil Magic" witches were accused of was weather magic used to cause cold, wet, stormy weather.
Two witches conjuring a hailstorm. Did you know that the sudden climate change which resulted in the medieval mini ice age was blamed on the weather controlling witches and was the excuse for the subsequent witch-hunt?
I talked about this in my post De lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus...
I also talked about this in these two articles, Weather stones and The last megalithic ritual in Europe about the use of "weather stones" among Slavs. Like in Belarus, where women (Yin, dark, wet, cold) raise Dabog's stone during drought to get cool and wet weather...The last megalithic ritual in Europe? And could it be that (at least some) standing stones were raised as weather stones during past sudden climate changes?
May Day Eve is across Northern and Central Europe known as Walpurgis Night, the night when everyone is trying to "ward off, scare, witches". Why?
Maybe this has something to do with the old calendar which divided year into winter and summer...And the fact that "The Witch" here is "The Winter Earth"...
Which is why we "burn" (effigies of) "The Witch" (fire of the late spring/summer sun destroys the cold of winter/early spring earth)...
I talk abou this in my post Walpurgis night...
Slavs have preserved the true nature of this ritual, because they don't burn "The Witch". They burn "Marzana" (Frost Goddess, Winter Earth) or "Morana" (Goddess of Death)...
Slavs equated The Goddess of Death, Morana (mor=death) with The Winter Earth, Marzana (marz=frost). She is ceremonially burned (warmed) or drowned (thawed) or both (to be sure to be sure 🙂) during Slavic spring festivals...
This painging called "Maslenitsa" by Simon Kozhin depicts exactly that, people celebrating the burning (ending) of Winter Witch (by the spring sun)...
Here are some articles in which I talk about this ritual and related customs and beliefs in Slavic, Germanic, Celtic Europe: Gryla, Party, Bannock, To kill a witch, Baba's day, Living stone, Baba - cold, winter...
Slovenians preserved the actual origin of "The Witch"...
Originally people believed that it was Mother Earth that controlled the Yin half of the climate (Dark/Cold/Wet) half...
This bedrock outcrop near the village of Rodik in Slovenia is known locally as "Baba" (Grandmother)... Locals believed that "Baba" controls the (bad) weather: Baba’s urine turns to rain, her fart to wind, and when she raises her skirt, the weather gets nice...🙂
Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) because it is believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth which gives birth to all life...
I talk about it in my post Living stone...
This pic is a great illustration of this fact...
Mother Earth has been symbolically linked with women for who knows how long...
They both give birth to living things.
They both produce life giving liquid (water/milk).
Which is why (dark/wet/cold weather and fertility) magic became female magic...
The knowledge how to perform this magic was passed from mother to daughter...
Originally it was all the old women that preserved and performed the weather magic...
In Serbian we have these words: nevesta (ne vešta) = not skilful (knowledgable, wise) = maiden, vešta (the skilful one, married woman, the one who "knows") and veštica (the witch, the old woman, the one who knows everything, the preserver of sacred knowledge)...
And this is how "The Witches" were born...
I talked about this in my post The skillful one and Wrach...
So, as I said, my question is how old is the Medea myth? And where did it originate...And what does it actually mean?
Particularly when you read this bit:
"She stirred it all [the cauldron] with a long-dry branch of a fruitful olive, mixing the depths with the surface. Look! The ancient staff turned in the hot cauldron, first grew green again, then in a short time sprouted leaves, and was, suddenly, heavily loaded with olives."
Remember this blog post Shaking the olive tree in which I talked about Olive tree as being The Tree of Life of the Minoans?
And how it was associated with The Goddess, Winter (in case of Crete Rain, Rejuvenation Season) Mother Earth, The Witch, because olives are ripe and start falling off trees in Oct/Nov, when the rain starts falling...
And how it was associated with The Goat of Rain (Ibex goats start mating in Oct/Nov, start of the rain season)...
And how it was associated with Saffron Crocuses (they start flowering in Oct/Nov, start of the rain season)...
The fact that the witches staff, made of dead olive, turns green and full of ripe olives when put into her rejuvenation potion, I think, just confirms my interpretation, which I presented in this article, that the Medea's myth is actually very old and probably doesn't originate in Colchis but most likely originates on Crete...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...
