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Reviews: In the Moon of Asterion
At Booksquawk, April 11, 2013:
In The Moon of Asterion may be the grand finale of The Child of the Erinyes trilogy, but as the author points out in the blurb for the first book, “What seems the end is only the beginning.” See more
From author, Lucinda Elliot, at her website Sophie De Courcy:
Aridela’s awful sufferings at the hands of Harpalycus have changed her, just as her taking on the responsibilities of a ruler must, and she is gradually 
developing a different perspective from that of the careless worshipper of external beauty we met in the first volume. See more
Reviews at Amazon: read them all
Minos
Minos is a well known title, accepted across the world as the name of a dynasty of kings on Crete. But Robert Graves translates the word “minos” as “Moon-Being,” which suggests it is feminine. Here’s what Graves says in The Greek Myths:
“Minos was a royal title of an Hellenic dynasty which rules Crete in the second millennium, each king ritually marrying the Moon-priestess of Cnossus and taking his title of ‘Moon-being’ from her.” ‘Hellenic’ suggests the term ‘Minos’ relating to a ‘king,’ did not come about until the Hellenic era. It also suggests very strongly that the title belonged to a woman.
Here are several more of his quotes:
The Moon Goddess
“The triumph of Minos, son of Zeus, over his brothers refers to the Dorians’ eventual mastery of Crete, but it was Poseidon to whom Minos sacrificed the bull, which again suggests that the earlier holders of the title ‘Minos’ were Aeolians. Crete had for centuries been a very rich country and in the late eighth century BC was shared between the Achaeans, Dorians, Pelasgians, Cydonians (Aeolians) and in the far west of the island ‘true Cretans’.” This line also suggests that the male “Minos” won the title at a later date.
“Pasiphae and Amphitrite are the same Moon-and-Sea-goddess, and Minos, as the ruler of the Mediterranean, became identified with Poseidon.” Again, the suggestion is that Minos is a later invention, perhaps after an overthrow.
“Zagreus: this myth concerns the annual sacrifice of a boy which took place in ancient Crete: a surrogate for Minos the Bull-king. He reigned for a single day, went through a dance illustrative of the five seasons – lion, goat, horse, serpent, and bull-calf – and was then eaten raw.” The holy Day out of Time, which plays an important role in my books.
Graves also says that “Two or three Minos dynasties may have successively reigned in Cnossus.”
In my story, “Minos” is the title of the High Priestess and holy oracle, Themiste. Minos is a secret title, known only to those initiated into the Cretan Mysteries.
Jacquetta Hawkes theorizes about Crete’s ruling house BEFORE the familiar “King Minos” in Dawn of the Gods:
“In the scenes from the seal-stones, not only is the Goddess always the central figure, being served and honoured in a variety of ways; she is sometimes shown seated on a throne. Supposing that a king did rule as consort of the Goddess, one would expect at the very least that at the royal court, which elsewhere, in Egypt and the Orient, was seen as the human reflection of the divine order, there would have been a throne for the queen as the counterpart of the Goddess. Yet in the sacred throne room at Knossos, and apparently also in the state apartment in the residential quarter, the throne stood single and alone.
If it were not for the tradition of King Minos, and the corresponding absence of any recorded memories of Cretan queens, and perhaps also certain strong if unconscious assumptions among Classical scholars, it seems that the archaeological evidence would have been read as favoring a woman on the ritual throne at Knossos.”
She also says: “In addition to these characteristics, there was another which much more strongly implies the self-confidence of women and therefore their secure position in society. This is the fearless and natural emphasis on sexual life that ran through all religious expression and was made obvious in the provocative dress of both sexes and their easy mingling.”
Kaphtor (Crete)
Psiloritis
Kaphtor is merely an ancient name for Crete. It comes to us from Egypt mostly.
In his book Unearthing Atlantis, Charles Pellegrino says on page 88:
“When finally the troops entered Canaan, carrying the Ark before them, war broke out almost immediately between the Hebrews and the people they found there. Among those people were the Philistines, whom the Bible tells us came from Caphtor (Crete.) Can it be that the Philistines (Cretan Minoans?) and the armies of Hebrew slaves, having escaped from (or been chased out of) famine-stricken Egypt, were actually two populations of refugees created, in different ways, by the same volcanic catastrophe? Can it be that the present-day conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis has as its roots Thera and the origin of the Atlantis legend?”
In Minoans, Life in Bronze Age Crete, by Rodney Castleden says on page 21:
“A tablet found far away at Mari in Mesopotamia mentions a weapon adorned with lapis lazuli and gold and describes it as ‘Caphtorite.’ The 
Egyptians called Crete ‘Kefti’, ‘Keftiu’ or ‘the land of the Keftiu’, while in the Near East Crete was known as ‘Caphtor’: it is as Caphtor that ancient Crete appears in the Old Testament, ‘Caphtorite’ clearly means Cretan. The similarity of the words ‘Caphtor’, ‘Caphtorite’ and ‘Keftiu’ strongly implies that the Minoans themselves used something like the word ‘Kaftor’ as a name for their homeland.”
on page 37 he says: “There is a tradition that the Philistines originated as Cretans; the Book of Jeremiah (47:4) says, ‘for the Lord will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor.’ Caphtor was Crete.”
Minos Themiste
Priestess of Delphi, by John Collier
Her titles are many: The Moon Incarnate. Moon Being. Most Holy, High Priestess, Seer and Oracle.
And her most secret title: Minos of Kaphtor, which is used only by the fully initiated.
She has magnificent red hair, setting her apart from her countrymen, and she is so beautiful it’s almost scary.
But oracles on Kaphtor (Crete) burn out early, from the smoke, the bull’s blood, the serpent venom and other concoctions they use to see the future.
Lilith, by John Collier
She has not yet chosen her successor. She knows she should. But she puts it off. Her eye keeps turning to Aridela, who is the subject of so many frightening prophecies, and who has caused her many sleepless nights.
Perhaps if she makes Aridela her heir, that will somehow protect the child.
It’s worth a try.
Iphiboë, Aridela’s sister
Iphiboë is the queen of Crete’s oldest daughter, and heir to that magnificent throne.
Too bad she’s so timid. A shame she’s so afraid of men, of sex.
The vast majority of Crete’s populace believes poor Iphiboë will fail as queen. They believe she’ll be the downfall of their rich, prosperous civilization. If only Aridela were the oldest, is a thought that runs through a thousand minds a day.
Her name means Strength of Oxen. Her father was Valos, who accepted his three golden apples and walked accepting to his own death.
No one knows Iphiboë like Aridela. But not even Aridela knows the full truth of her sister. The nightmares that have plagued her. The premonitions she’s seen. The future she’s endured, night after night in her dreams.
Anne Hathaway, representing Iphiboë
Aridela, lunar goddess, mistress of the labyrinth
At the outset of The Year-god’s Daughter, our Aridela is only ten years old. Yet, fired by divine insight, she enters the bullring, determined to win glory for herself. Because of this act, her life becomes inexorably linked to the lives of two men from Mycenae.
There are two, perhaps three meanings to her name: Utterly Clear, and One Visible from Afar. Robert Graves translates it as The Very Manifest One.
Four words I might use to describe her: “uncomfortable in her skin.”
I will add more about Aridela as books in the series become available.
From Dionysos (Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life), by Carl Kerényi:
“…we may assume that in one aspect of her being Ariadne was a dark goddess. Among the Greeks the epithet “utterly pure” was attached preeminently to Persephone, the queen of the underworld, although other goddesses also were termed hagne. What seems significant here is the intensive contained in the first part of the name. A similarly accented attribute completed Ariadne’s character and provided another aspect. The Cretans also called her “Aridela,” “the utterly clear.” just as they also called Koronis “Aigle.” She could appear “utterly clear” in the heavens. The lunar character of Ariadne can no more be doubted than that of the crow-virgin, mother of Asklepios, who was able to shine like light.”
“Ariadne is described as a girl “with beautiful braids of hair,” an ornamental epithet that Homer confers more often on goddesses than on common girls. According to the Odyssey, (XI 321-22), Ariadne was a daughter of the “evil-plotting Minos,”–an epithet that presupposes the labyrinth as a place of death. Ariadne, the king’s daughter, was mortal, since she was killed by Artemis. She committed the sin of following Theseus, the foreign prince. Homer knew the story of how the hero and his band of seven youths and seven maidens were rescued by means of the famous thread, which is held in the hand in executing the difficult dance figure. The thread was a gift of Ariadne, and it was she who saved Theseus from the labyrinth. Even in this story, which has become so human, Ariadne discloses a close relationship, such as only the Minoan “mistress of the labyrinth” could have had, to both aspects of the labyrinth: the home of the Minotaur and the scene of the winding and unwinding dance. In the legend the Great Goddess has become a king’s daughter, but there can be no doubt as to her identity. In the Greek period of the island she bore a name–although, as we shall soon see, she also had others–that is not a name at all but only an epithet and an indication of her nature. “Ariadne” is a Cretan-Greek form for “Arihagne,” the “utterly pure,” from the adjective adnon for hagnon.”
Carl Kerenyi also says: “Ariadne-Aridela, who had a cult period corresponding to each of her two names, was no doubt the Great Moon Goddess of the Aegean world, but her association with Dionysos shows how much more she was than the moon. The dimensions of the celestial phenomena cannot encompass such a goddess. Just as Dionysos is the archetypal reality of zoë, so Ariadne is the archetypal reality of the bestowal of soul, of what makes a living creature an individual.”
” In the union of two archetypal images, the divine pair Dionysos and Ariadne represent the eternal passage of zoë into and through the genesis of living creatures. This occurs over and over again and is always, uninterruptedly, present. Not only in the Greek religion, but also in the earlier Minoan religion and mythology, zoë takes the masculine form, while the genesis of souls takes the feminine form.”
Edward Robert Hughes: Star of Heaven
From The Knossos Labyrinth, by Rodney Castleden:
“The princess Ariadne, at once Minos’s daughter and Theseus’s lover, is the mystic, mysterious, feminine heart of Minoan civilization. She is the dark and volatile beauty at the centre of the Labyrinth: princess, priestess, goddess, mistress. She flees from Knossos with Theseus, sailing away at night to meet an ambiguous fate. In some versions of the legend she is abandoned on another island in the Aegean. In some she marries the god Dionysos, in others she commits suicide. Whatever her later fate, she is that heart of Minoan civilization that was borrowed by the growing civilization of the Greek mainland and subsumed by it.”
And finally, Robert Graves says in The Greek Myths:
“‘Ariadne’, which the Greeks understood as ‘Ariagne” (‘very holy’), will have been a title of the Moon-goddess honoured in the dance, and in the bull ring: ‘the high, fruitful Barley-mother’, also called Aridela, ‘the very manifest one’.
In the Moon of Asterion is out!
This is the exciting climax to the Bronze Age segment of the series.
In the Moon of Asterion was published digitally on April 10, 2013. It’s available for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. We’re having a bit of trouble with iTunes.
I’d like to invite you to sign up for my email newsletter, which I use ONLY to announce new releases and to offer subscribers special offers. I will never spam, or clutter up your inbox with chatter, nor will I ever share your email address. It’s easy: just enter your email address, approve it, and, to be safe, add it to your approved addresses so it doesn’t disappear into a junk folder. Here’s the link.
It has been difficult to get to this point, I admit. It’s an important book in the series, as it wraps up the Bronze Age segment, and kicks off the next group of books, set in Victorian Scotland.
Here’s a sneak peek at the print cover (available in May, 2013):
Menoetius
Pronounced Men-o-shus.
His name means He who defies his fate.
I will add more information about Menoetius as books in the series become available.
Menoetius is the king of Mycenae’s bastard son, elevated above his natural station by his father, who still carries a torch for Menoetius’s mother, though she disappeared after her son’s birth and has never been seen since.
Rumors have named her an accomplished priestess from Ys, a mysterious island far in the west off the coast of a land known as Albion (England.) The slave Alexiare claims he saw her once create lightning in the night sky. Consequently, secrets, mystery, and a hint of fear surround this youth.
Menoetius is seventeen at the beginning of The Year-god’s Daughter. He sails to Crete at his father’s command, charged with ferreting out weaknesses in this rich, powerful society.
His fate, or Athene, has other plans for him.
Four words to describe him: grave, sad, devout, intense. His hair is “dark like oak-wood,” his eyes a singular blue, like the heavens at the summit of Mount Ida. (what modern people would call “cobalt.”) The first time Aridela sees this man who will play such an important part in her life, she is very near death, bleeding from a gore wound. His eyes make her believe he is no mortal but the Goddess herself, come to fetch her daughter home.
Menoetius’s purpose as one point of Athene’s sacred triad is to protect Aridela. He has other obligations, however, which will be revealed as the series progresses.
Once I saw my first image of the “Divine Antinous,” I was struck by how much he resembled my interior idea of Menoetius. I’ve used Antinous’s image as the cover of In the Moon of Asterion, to portray this important character in the series.
The Year-god’s Daughter
Book One, The Child of the Erinyes Series. Here begins the tale….
of Aridela, Goddess beloved, destined to become a cornerstone to the future and a quest to the past….
of Chrysaleon, king and slayer of lions, who shifts from heretic to trickster….
of Menoetius, fierce wounded renegade, who ascends from scapegoat to champion….
The Year-god’s Daughter is available: You can purchase the eBook and/or paperback on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazon venues. The eBook and/or paperback versions are also available at Barnes and Noble, and the digital version can be purchased at Kobo and iTunes.
“Smart young princess. Macho hunky warriors. Exotic island paradise. Politics, natural disasters, and forbidden love. A big, satisfying epic story. What more is there?”
Crete
A place of magic, of mystery, where violence and sacrifice meet courage and hope.
Aridela
Wrapped in legend, beloved of the people. An extraordinary woman who dances with bulls.
The north wind brings a swift ship and two brothers who plot Crete’s overthrow. Desire for this woman will propel their long rivalry into hatred so murderous it hurtles all three into an unimaginable future and sparks the immortal rage of the Erinyes.
A woman of keen instinct and unshakeable loyalty. A proud warrior prince and his wounded half-brother. Glory, passion, treachery and conspiracy on the grandest scale.
“What seems the end is only the beginning.”
Would you like to read an excerpt? Follow this link.
Awesome Indies Approved
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