Reviews: In the Moon of Asterion

Booksquawk, January 1, 2014, in which In the Moon of Asterion was named, “Squawk of the Year.”

Melissa Conway: In the Moon of Asterion is the third in her excellent Child of the Erinyes series. In my original review of it here on Booksquawk, I wrote, “as a reader, I was captivated, caught up in a boiling whirlpool pulling me toward the inevitable conclusion.” It would be well worth your while to add this historical fantasy fiction to your TBR pile.

It’s difficult to write a review for the third book in a series without touching on plot points in the first two that would amount to spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read them. But if you have read them (and you really should), you’ll understand why I’ve excerpted the following from dictionary.com:

Tragedy [traj-i-dee], noun. A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction.

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.”

The mythological Erinyes are more commonly known as Furies; goddesses of the earth, the incarnation of vengeance on those who have sworn false oaths. From the name of the series alone we expect to read of classically tragic, legendary matters – and Lochlann does not disappoint. However, as it turns out, the scope of the legend is grander than a single trilogy can portray. The first trilogy is set in the Bronze Age, but it’s the first in a series, or perhaps the better description would be to call it a saga that continues through time – eventually to the present day.

In the first three books, our main players are known as Aridela, princess of Crete; Chrysaleon, son of the High King of Mycenae; and Menoetius, his bastard brother. The complicated relationship between them is not that of a mere love triangle – no, the nature of the bond between the brothers makes their situation uniquely bleak, with a divine twist of epic proportions.

Themiste, the prophetess whose job it has been to interpret her own visions and those of others, is given hints throughout the narrative from the goddess Athene regarding the importance of this bond:

Aridela told me she looked first at Menoetius then Chrysaleon, and for one strange instant, she said they merged into each other, and wore each other’s faces. Then the voice said more.

“I have split one into two. Mortal men have burned my shrines and pulled down my statues. Their arrogance has upended the holy ways. I decree that men will resurrect me or the earth will die.”

So much in this book rides on each character making the right choices, and yet, always the wants and desires of humanity assert themselves, leaving them seemingly blind to the big picture. And here is where I begin to verge on giving too much away. I don’t want to spoil the ending with this review; just perhaps prepare the reader for the shocking, yet ultimately satisfying finish. All I can say is that as a reader, I was captivated, caught up in a boiling whirlpool pulling me toward the inevitable conclusion. Now that I’ve reached the end, I can’t wait for the next beginning.

From author, Lucinda Elliot, at her website Sophie De Courcy:

‘The Year God’s Daughter’ and ‘The Thinara King’ were page turners but this is where the real fireworks take place!

You won’t be disappointed with this, the third book, which concludes in a series of shocks that even surpasses the giant shock of the earthquake so brilliantly and terrifyingly depicted in ‘The Thinara King’.

Readers of the earlier books will remember how there are two half-brother rivals from the mainland who aspire to lovely Aridela (the older name for the Ariadne, I’ve discovered), now Queen of ancient, matriarchal Crete – Menoetius, the illegitimate son of the aging King, Idomeneus, dark and serious minded, once so handsome, now left scarred as much internally as externally by the mauling by the lioness, and Chrysaleon, his golden-haired, arrogant heir.

Chrysaleon has won the games and slain the now dead Queen’s consort, earning the right to be her heiress Aridela’s King for a Year. As a mainlander he bitterly resents his impending fate, but fought in the games as he found the thought of any other man winning her unendurable; will he honour his obligation?

Chrysaleon has also won Aridela’s heart – but has her old feeling for her childhood hero Menoetius vanished along with his good looks and his joy in life?

In this book we find out both Menoetius’ and Chrysaleon’s ‘truth’ (the term used by Aridela’s mother) and also the integrity of some of the other characters. Chrysaleon and Meneotius are not the only ones to be tested. Both Themeste and Selene will be tried to the limit, and only one of them holds firm.

One thing is certain, and that is that Alexiare, Chrysaleon’s devoted slave, will stop at nothing to further his interests.

But 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.

It is in this volume that the full meaning of the ancient prophecies is revealed – and the terrible implications of Harpalycus’ vaunted immortality.

There are murderous fights, bitter intrigue, and of course, a strong theme of romance running throughout. All the ingredients for an epic story.

If, like me, you are so drawn in that you keep on reading until the small hours, do save the enthralling last section of the book for when you can do justice to the enthralling denouement.

I look forward to reading about the main characters again, in another age.

Reviews at Amazon: read them all

A Few Reviews: The Year-god’s Daughter

Judith Starkston, author of Hand of Fire and Priestess of Ishana:

Lochlann takes her reader into the mythic, mystical world of Minoan Crete with vibrancy and power. On the island of Crete, known as Kaphtor, a long line of women rule. Their male consorts “rule” for only a year as the Year-god and then are sacrificed to bring fertility to the land. On the mainland, the Mycenaean kingdoms fight among themselves and look with envy at Crete’s greater power and civilization. Rival kings yearn to overthrow the Cretan queen and win for themselves Crete’s preeminent position in trade and wealth. They also worship a male god and hold in distain the goddess who has guarded Crete for generations beyond memory. Thus Lochlann sets the central conflict in her opening novel of her Child of the Erinyes series, which in its eight books spans 4000 years from the Bronze Age to modern times as it follows the lives of two men and a woman who are reborn seven times through history.

The Year-god’s daughter of the title is Aridela, the youngest daughter of Crete’s queen. She has been sheltered and pampered, and her rebellious streak has been allowed to flourish. Lochlann gives her coming of age story rich depth as Aridela confronts threats and challenges both from within her royal world and from the princes of the mainland who circle around her and her family as they try to deceive, seduce and attack their way into supremacy. Sometimes they become entangled in their own snares as Aridela seduces in return. Aridela has goddess-sent dreams and speaks prophecies that reveal the fate of herself and her culture, but they are hard to interpret and even harder to obey. Two half-brothers from the mainland will influence the course of her life and force her to make lethal choices. As each choice presents unintended consequences, Aridela must grow and adapt to them. Family members both on Crete and the mainland, love each other, but when fate does not dole out the talents and gifts in equal measure, and siblings must watch the least suited child take the place they covet, then deep and impossible jealousies and conflicts wrench apart these families. This mythic world is an ideal place to watch such dramatic family tensions play out.

Lochlann’s rich language draws her reader into the story from the first sentences, invoking all of the senses: “The bull was so much bigger than she expected. His pitiless eyes sucked her breath away. The musky stench of his body obliterated the stands, the screaming audience, even the crushing hammer of heat.”

Lochlann uses precise details in abundance to bring to life long ago Knossos. She puts us inside the palace in a variety of ways, such as revealing what decorated the walls, “Frescoes of flitting swallows, high marsh grasses, monkeys, ibex, lilies, and of course, grazing bulls, surrounded them on all sides. Here were hazy mountains with plumes of smoke at their summits, bees rising from carcasses, and peasants holding offerings. They passed painted seas and leaping fish. Even the ceiling of this fantastic place was part of the nature scene, the colors as fresh and bright as if created that morning.” We see and hear the women of the royal court, “Disks sewn into the women’s skirts chimed as they walked, a soothing sound mostly lost beneath giggling and gossip. . . . The women fluttering around her were curled, oiled, and gilded. Their tight bodices made their breasts protrude like proud trophies.”

The Year-God’s Daughter succeeds in bringing to life a very distant world and capturing a heady blend of archaeology, legend, myth and fantasy.

 

At Booksquawk:

The Year God’s Daughter is the first in author Rebecca Lochlann’s Child of the Erinyes series. Even without reading the bio on her website, it’s obvious from the first few pages that this is an author who did her research. She spent fifteen years acquainting herself with ancient Greece, and it shows. Authenticity is steeped into each chapter.

If you are not a fan of historical fiction, don’t let that stop you from reading this excellent book. The finely-honed characterization is such that even with a host of unfamiliar names, you will never lose track of who’s who. The narrative never gets boring – the author has produced a fine balance between description and action.

The story opens with the child Aridela, beloved princess on the island of Crete, recklessly attempting to fulfill her dream of becoming a bull dancer – she believes the goddess Athene has made it her destiny to accomplish the daring and difficult feat. Menoetius is a young foreigner, bastard son of the High King of Mycenae, tasked with finding any weakness in Crete’s defenses. They meet under dire circumstances, and thus begins “Glory, passion, treachery and conspiracy on the grandest scale.”

Divine destiny is a deep-seated theme throughout. Constant regional earthquakes are interpreted by the ruling priestesses as omens, and most everything is imbued with celestial meaning. The reader is immersed in a vivid culture of devoted spirituality. Athene must be appeased with violent sacrifice and every year that sacrifice is the queen’s latest consort – a man who bested all other competitors for the honor of living large for a year and then allowing his blood to consecrate Crete’s soil. Crete is a matrilineal society, but male-dominated kingdoms surround them, and contempt for Athene is spreading on the mainland. If the encroaching changes reach as far as Aridela’s peaceful, prosperous island, a long-prophesied catastrophe will befall them all. From the start, we know this story is headed for a spectacular, world-changing ending. I can’t wait for the rest of the series to see how it all plays out…

Rebecca Lochlann has produced a book of uncommon quality. Highly recommended.

 

At Historical Novel Review:

Set amongst the mystery of the Minoan Labyrinth and the heart-pounding thrill of the bull-dancing ring, The Year-God’s Daughter is the first volume of The Child of the Erinyes, a sweeping epic of a series spanning time from the Bronze Age to the near future.

In Rebecca Lochlann’s first novel, we are introduced to Aridela, a young priestess and princess – and to the mysteries of Athene, the inscrutable goddess whose hand guides Aridela’s fate. Aridela is the youngest daughter of the queen of Kaphtor (Crete). She was born under portentous circumstances and has grown up revered and pampered in her mother’s palace. She is headstrong and strangely wise for her age, seemingly born to rule – yet her meek elder sister Iphiboë is the heir to Kaphtor, and Aridela is pledged to a life of celibacy and service to the goddess Athene.

This novel, being the first in a long series, is largely set-up for events to come; yet The Year-God’s Daughter is packed with plenty of action.  As the groundwork is being laid for the rest of the series, the reader follows Aridela through her coming-of-age – and follows, too, the lives of the people she touches, whose fates are altered by contact with this young woman chosen by Athene: Iphiboë, Themiste the high priestess, Selene the foreign warrior-woman, Lycus the bull-dancer, and more fascinating characters are subtly moved like pawns on a game board by Aridela’s unknowing influence.

Most notable on the list of characters entwined with Aridela are Menoetius and Chrysaleon, half-brothers and sons of the king of Mycenae.  They are sent on a mission by their power-hungry father to discern Kaphtor’s weaknesses so that Mycenae might take control of the rich island nation.  But both brothers soon find themselves in love with Aridela…and at one another’s throats.

The depth of historical information in this novel will delight fans of the genre.  A surprising amount of history and archaeology has been slipped unobtrusively into the narrative.  Lochlann has clearly done an astounding amount of research into her historical setting and culture, yet she never overwhelms the reader with specifics, nor does she lecture.  The conveyance of historical facts and archaeological tidbits feels very natural, woven deftly into the dialogs and thoughts of her intriguing cast of characters.

The primary strength of this book is the writing itself, which I can only describe as sumptuous.  Lochlann has a great flair for sensory detail and fills her novel with such a wealth of sights, sounds, smells, and flavors that the reader feels absolutely immersed in the world of ancient Crete from the first page.  Reading The Year-God’s Daughter is a delicious experience – seldom have I read a historical novel with such a well-drawn setting, and the fact that this book is independently published makes the feat all the more remarkable.  The rare grammatical gaffe occasionally pulled me out of the tale, but never for more than a moment – and while I often found myself wishing I understood some characters’ motives better, I have to assume that, since this is the first in a series with extreme scope, more will be made clear as the series progresses.  In any case, the luscious sensory prose was more than enough to keep me reading,  and has left me eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Cover copy: 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.

Reviews At Amazon: read them all

 

Velchanos, the son-lover

Velchanos was apparently well-known on Crete but didn’t make a big splash on the mainland (another god who was absorbed by Zeus) and has been largely forgotten in the annals of time.  I extrapolated from what I could find in the existing myths, and merged in some African myths, which is where I believe Athene originated. I wanted Crete to have an African flavor to its religion. Remember: Athene is universally accepted as being “Un-Greek,” (and pre-Greek pantheon) and is thought to have come from “Libya,” which is the name given by the ancients to the whole of (the then explored) Africa. Since nobody really knows what the Cretans believed or how they operated, I felt I had some freedom.

image: Anna Ismagilova Shutterstock

Here’s what Rodney Castleden says in Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete:

“Since the goddess herself was not permitted to die, the annual death and rebirth were acted out by a young male Year-spirit, a small and inferior deity who took the roles of son and consort, and represented the important principle of discontinuity in nature. In the Minoan period he remained important; his original Minoan name, Velchanos, seems to have endured into the classical period as one of the titles attributed to Zeus on Crete. Zeus Velchanos was also known on Crete as ‘Kouros’, ‘The Boy’. Velchanos was always subject to the goddess and always shown in attitudes of adoration. The two ivory ‘Divine Boy’ figurines described by Evans as probably having come from the Labyrinth, may well be representations of Velchanos before and after puberty.”

“Often Minoan worshippers tore branches or boughs from a sacred tree and venerated them on altars or planted them in the sockets between sacral horns. Sometimes, they built shrines round sacred trees, apparently providing access to them by means of double doors and safeguarding them by means of wooden fences or stone walls. In some ceremonies, an attendant, often male, tore a bough from the shrine-tree to the accompaniment of gestures of lamentation from the priestess and others present; this overwrought scene, shown on several rings, seems to have symbolized the death of the young god and may conceivably have been followed by the sacrifice of the male attendant who represented him.”

Rodney Castleden gives more attention to Velchanos in his book, The Knossos Labyrinth: A New View of the ‘Palace of Minos’ at Knossos.

He talks about a few of the goddesses worshiped on Crete in Chapter 9 “The Lady of the Labyrinth,” and goes on to say: “Another was a Goddess of Renewal and she was connected with the central rites of the vegetation cycle. Often the annual death and rebirth were acted out by a young male deity, a Year-spirit who took the roles of both son and consort. This small but heroic figure who died and was born again every year, just like Adonis, seems to have been the prototype for Zeus, although in the Minoan period he was subordinate to the goddess whom he served. The cult surrounding this proto-Zeus continued after the Minoan civilization came to an end and it seems that his original Minoan name survived in one of the titles attached to Zeus on Crete–Velchanos.

The Greek Myths, (Robert Graves) contains probably the most well-known description of Velchanos. He translates the meaning of Velchanos as “the king who drags his foot.”

“Hephaestus is sometimes described as Hera’s son by Talos (see 12.c), and Talos as Daedalus’s young nephew; but Daedalus was a junior member of the House of Erechtheus, which was founded long after the birth of Hephaestus. Such chronological discrepancies are the rule in mythology. Daedalus (“bright” or “cunningly wrought”), Talos (“sufferer”), and Hephaestus (“he who shines by day”), are shown by the similarity of their attributes to be merely different titles of the same mythical character; Icarus (from io-carios, ‘dedicated to the Moon-goddess Car’) may be yet another of his titles. For Hephaestus the smith-god married Aphrodite, to whom the partridge was sacred; the sister of Daedalus the smith was called Perdix (‘partridge’); the soul of Talos the smith flew off as a partridge; a partridge appeared at the burial of Daedalus’s son Icarus. Besides, Hephaestus was flung from Olympus; Talos was flung from the Acropolis. Hephaestus hobbled when he walked; one of Talos’s names was Tantalus (‘hobbling, or lurching’); a cock-partridge hobbles in his love-dance, holding one heel ready to strike at rivals. Moreover, the Latin god Vulcan hobbled. His cult had been introduced from Crete, where he was called Velchanos and had a cock for his emblem, because the cock crows at dawn and was therefore appropriate to a Sun-hero. But the cock did not reach Crete until the sixth century B.C., and is likely to have displaced the partridge as Velchanos’s bird.

Zagreus

In my series, the title given to the bull-god, the sacred king. He was, as far as I can tell, the precursor to Zeus, although later myths say he was the son of Zeus.

Carl Kerényi has a whole chapter on Zagreus in Dionysos, Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, which of course I won’t repeat in its entirety here. The highlights:

page 113: “The Cretans of the Greek period spoke of a Zeus of their own, stressing the Cretan mythologem of his birth by the use of the epithet “Kretogenes,” “he who was born in Crete.” By this they meant the god born in a Cretan setting that included the cave. If we drop the Greek names “Zeus” and “Dionysos,” there remains the great anonymous snake god who, according to the late testimony of Himerios, held his marriage “in Cretan caves.”

“Less archaic than the seduction by a snake was the universally known myth of the rape of Persephone. “Hades,” “Plouton,” or the “subterranean Zeus” were only cover names for the ravisher. Fundamentally he too was a great anonymous god. To the version in which the scene of the rape was Sicily, Nonnos in his Dionysiaka appended an account of the snake marriage. Demeter leaves Crete with her virgin daughter Persephone and hides her in a cave near the spring of Kyane. Thither comes Zeus, the bridegroom in the form of a snake:

…through marriage with this heavenly dragon

Persephone’s womb became fruitful, prepared

To give birth to Zagreus, the horned infant.

Aischylos bears witness to the contradictory identity of Zagreus, on the one hand with a “subterranean Zeus,” on the other with his subterranean son. “Zagreus,” “he who captures alive,” was also a cover name, a circumlocution for a great god, in fact the greatest god of all time. He visits his hidden daughter in a cave, and she bears him to himself as his own son. The “mystic” feature which we have presupposed in the relationship between Dionysos and Ariadne here appears in an archaic myth in which generation and birth never go beyond the same couple. Taking his mother or daughter to wife, the son or husband begets a mystic child who in turn will court only his mother. To such involvements the snake figure is more appropriate than any other. It is the most naked form of zoë absolutely reduced to itself”

Later in the book, Carl observes: “It is certain that if Pentheus, a transparent and unequivocal name with the somber meaning “man of suffering,” could become a man’s name at Knossos it was only because the names of gods–“Zagreus” as well as “Pentheus”–were also given to persons and because int he fesstive calendar the god’s somber aspect prepared the way for the opposite aspect.”

Robert Graves says on page 110 in The Greek Myths:

“Because the vine cult reached Greece and the Aegean by way of Crete–oinos, ‘wine’, is a Cretan word–Dionysus has been confused with Cretan Zagreus, who was similarly torn to pieces at birth.”

Iakchos, the great star (Sirius)

From Dionysos (Archetypal Image of Indestructible life), by Carl Kerényi:

page 73, 74: “When in Egypt the early rising of Sirius became the beginning of the year, the approach of a better season could be foreseen by the first swelling of the Nile. Yet this was also the time of the most dangerous heat: a highly ambivalent season! The same was true in Crete and Greece (with the exception that there was no Nile). The heat was obviously evil, and so was the star with whose appearance it began. But in a mysterious way the season was also good. In Greek it was called opora, a word that is not easy to translate because it means not only the season but its fruits as well. Homer knew Sirius as “Orion’s dog.” As Alpha canis it belongs to the great hunter whose gigantic figure had already dominated the heavens for months and would continue to do so for several months more until, stung by the celestial scorpion, it sank below the horizon. The full ambivalence of Sirius is expressed by a metaphor in the twenty-second book of the Iliad. As Achilles ran, “the bronze on his breast flashed out like the star that comes to us in autumn, outshining all its fellows in the evening sky–they call it Orion’s Dog, and though it is the brightest of all stars it bodes no good, bringing much fever, as it does, to us poor wretches.”

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sirius.jpg, by Mellostorm: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

page 77: “At Knossos we find the name i-wa-ko, whose Greek reading can be “Iakos,” “Iachos,” or “Iakchos”; at Knossos and Pylos it often takes the form of i-wa-ka. “Iakar,” a name for Sirius that seems utterly alien to the Greek language, may not really have been so foreign. An Egyptian story can be cited in connection with the Minoan names “Iakar” and “Iakchos.” “Iachen” or “Iachim” was the name of a wise and pious man in Egypt who allegedly lived under King Senyes. This man may also have been a divine figure. He was said to have softened the fiery power of Sirius at its early rising and thus to have wiped out the epidemics that raged at that time. After his death he was buried in a temple tomb, and when the appropriate sacrificial rites had been completed the priests took fire from his altar and carried it about, apparently in a magic ritual directed against the destructive fire of the star.

Through Dionysos this fire was transformed into the “pure light of high summer.”

From The Myth of the Goddess (Evolution of an Image), by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford:

page 119: “The Cretan New Year began at the summer solstice, when the heat was at its greatest, and 20 July was the day when the great star Sirius rose in conjunction with the sun, as it did also in Sumeria and Egypt. In these two other countries Sirius was explicitly the star of the goddess (Inanna in Sumeria, and Isis in Egypt), and Minoan temple-palaces in Crete were orientated to this star. The rising of Sirius ended a forty-day ritual during which honey was gathered from the hives of the bees in the darkness of the caves and the woods. The honey was then fermented into mead and drunk as an intoxicating liquor, accompanying the ecstatic rites that may have celebrated the return of the daughter of the goddess as the beginning of the new year–as, perhaps, in the seal of the double axe. All these rites are present in the Classical Greek myths of Dionysos, himself originating in Crete and called the Bull God. A bull was sacrificed with the rising of the star Sirius, and the bees were seen as the resurrected form of the dead bull and also as the souls of the dead.”

The year-king: his year and the later “Great Year”

From The Greek Myths, by Robert Graves:

14:  Once the relevance of coition to child-bearing had been officially admitted,  man’s religious status gradually improved, and winds or rivers were no longer given credit for impregnating women. The tribal Nymph, it seems, chose an annual lover from her entourage of young men, a king to be sacrificed when the year ended; making him a symbol of fertility, rather than the object of her erotic pleasure. His sprinkled blood served to fructify trees, crops and flocks, and his flesh was torn and eaten raw by the Queen’s fellow-nymphs – priestesses wearing the masks of bitches, mares, or sows. Next, in amendment to this practice, the king died as soon as the power of the sun, with which he was identified, began to decline in the summer; and another young man, his twin, or supposed twin – a convenient ancient Irish term is ‘tanist’ – then became the Queen’s lover, to be duly sacrificed at midwinter and, as a reward, reincarnated in an oracular serpent.

Prince of Lilies from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Aegean_frescos See Below

15: The number seven acquired peculiar sanctity, because the king died at the seventh full moon after the shortest day.

18:  When the shortness of the king’s reign proved irksome, it was agreed to prolong the thirteen month year to a Great Year of one hundred lunations, in the last of which occurs a near-coincidence of solar and lunar time. But since the fields and crops still needed to be fructified, the king agreed to suffer an annual mock death and yield his sovereignty for one day – the intercalated one, lying outside the sacred sidereal year – to the surrogate boy-king, or interrex, who died at its close, and whose blood was used for the sprinkling ceremony. Now the sacred king either reigned for the entire period of a Great Year, with a tanist as his lieutenant; or the two reigned for alternate years; or the Queen let them divide the queendom into halves and reign concurrently. The king deputized for the Queen at many sacred functions, dressed in her robes, wore false breasts, borrowed her lunar axe as a symbol of power, and even took over from her the magical art of rain making.  His ritual death varied greatly in circumstance; he might be torn to pieces by wild women, transfixed with a sting-ray spear, felled with an axe, pricked in the heel with a poisoned arrow, flung over a cliff, burned to death on a pyre, drowned in a pool, or killed in a pre-arranged chariot crash. But die he must. A new stage was reached when animals came to be substituted for boys at the sacrificial altar, and the king refused death after his lengthened reign ended.  Dividing the realm into three parts, and awarding one part to each of his successors, he would reign for another term; his excuse being that a closer approximation of solar and lunar time had now been found, namely nineteen years, or 325 lunations. The Great Year had become a Greater Year.

23:  The queen-mother of the state, as Ngame’s representative, performs an annual sacred marriage with Odomankoma’s representative: namely her chosen lover whom, at the close of the year, the priests murder, skin, and flay. The same practice seems to have obtained among the Greeks.

38: 6.3: during the king’s sacrifice, designed to fructify the cornfields and orchards, the goddess’s priestesses wore menacing Gorgon masks to frighten away profane visitors. His genitals were thrown into the sea to encourage fish to breed.

52: A hero, as the word indicates, was a sacred king who had been sacrificed to Hera, whose body was safely under the earth, and whose soul had gone to enjoy her paradise at the back of the North Wind. His golden apples were passports to this paradise.

57: Dionysus began as a sacred king whom the goddess ritually killed with a thunderbolt in the 7th month from the winter solstice, and whom her priestesses devoured.

93:  the title Hecate (one hundred) apparently refers to the hundred lunar months of the king’s reign, and to the hundredfold harvest. The king’s death by a thunderbolt, or by the teeth of horses, or at the hands of his tanist, was his common fate in primitive Greece.

108: Dryas (oak) was the oak-king, annually killed. The trimming of his extremities served to keep his ghost at bay, and the wanton felling of a sacred oak carried the death penalty.

Double axe Public Domain from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Small_golden_double_head_minoan_axe_archmus_Heraklion.jpg

114: As sacred king, he was struck by a thunderbolt – that is, killed with a double-axe – in an oak grove at the summer solstice, and then dismembered by the Maenads of the bull-cult, like Zagreus; or of the stag-cult, like Actaeon.

115: A sacred king necessarily suffered dismemberment.

126: In pre-Hellenic myth, the goddess chases the sacred king and, although he goes through his seasonal transformations, counters each of them in turn with her own, and devours him at the summer solstice.

138:  the twins’ mutual murder recalls the eternal rivalry for the love of the White Goddess between the sacred king and his tanist, who alternately meet death at each other’s hands.

138:  the twins’ mutual murder recalls the eternal rivalry for the love of the White Goddess between the sacred king and his tanist, who alternately meet death at each other’s hands. The column, on which the Death-in-Life Goddess perches, marks the height of summer when the sacred king’s reign ends and the tanist’s begins. (At the heliacal rising of two-headed Sirius.)

176: The oak-king met his death in Athene’s honor, and all oak-kings fell beneath the double axe. Their bodies were usually roasted in a bonfire.

204:  it was a widespread custom to bury the sacred king’s head at the approaches to a city, and thus protect it against invasion.

205:  The Thesmophoria were agricultural orgies celebrated at Athens, in the course of which the severed genitals of the sacred king or his surrogate were carried in a basket; these were replaced in more civilized times by phallus-shaped loaves and live serpents.

209:  As an oak-king with mistletoe genitals, representing the thunder-god, he ritually married the rain-making Moon-goddess; and was then scourged, so that his blood and sperm would fructify the earth, beheaded with an axe, emasculated, spread-eagled to a tree, and roasted; after which his kinsmen ate him sacramentally.

211:  myth showing how an Aeolian chief invaded Elis, and accepted the consequences of marrying the Pelasgian Moon-goddess Hera’s representative. When his reign ended he was duly sacrificed and awarded a hero shrine at Olympia.

255:  Wild Women maddened with hippomanes, either a herb, or the slimy vaginal tissue of a mare in heat, or the black membrane cut from the forehead of a new-born foal closed in on a sacred king by the seashore at the end of his reign. Their skirts were hoisted as in the erotic worship of Egyptian Apis so that when they dismembered him, his spurting blood would quicken their wombs.

267:  The sacred king’s death at the onset of a boar – whose curved tusks dedicated it to the moon – is ancient myth. There was a widespread custom of sacrificing a royal prince at the foundation of a city.

268:  an icon showing the doomed king, with golden apples in hand, being chased to death by the goddess. A companion icon will have shown Artemis supported by two lions, as on the gate at Mycenae, and on several Mycenaean and Cretan seals.

275:  vase picturing the Moon-goddess presenting the apple of immortality to the sacred king.  Also another showing a new king about to ride through the streets of his capital after having ritually hacked his predecessor in pieces with an axe.  The frequent murders, accidental or intentional, which caused princes to leave home and be purified by foreign kings, whose daughters they then married, are an invention of later mythographers. There is no reason to suppose that Peleus left Aegina, or Ththia, under a cloud; at a time when kingship went by matrilineal succession, candidates for the throne always came from abroad, and the new king was reborn into the royal house after ritually murdering his predecessor. He then changed his name and tribe, which was expected to throw the vengeful ghost of the murdered man off his scent. The old murdered king often became an oracular hero. It was found convenient, in more civilized times, when much the same ritual was used to purify ordinary criminals, to forget that kingship implied murder, and to suggest that Peleus, Telamon, and the rest had been involved in crimes or scandals unconnected with their accession to the throne.

Erich Neumann, in The Origins and History of Consciousness says this:

“The womb of the earth clamors for fertilization, and blood sacrifices and corpses are the food she likes best. This is the terrible aspect, the deadly side of the earth’s character. . . . Everywhere blood plays a leading part in fertility ritual and human sacrifice. The great terrestrial law that there can be no life without death was early understood, and still earlier represented in ritual, to mean that a strengthening of life can only be bought at the cost of sacrificial death” (54)

Attributions:

Double axe from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Small_golden_double_head_minoan_axe_archmus_Heraklion.jpg

Prince of Lilies from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Aegean_frescos: Photo prise par Harrieta171 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en

In the Moon of Asterion is out!

Book Three: The exciting climax to the Bronze Age segment of the series.

There is a beast in the labyrinth… a monster. The people say he is both man and bull; they call him Asterion.

Of all Crete’s citizens, only two dare enter his lair. One bears his child. The other sees the Goddess in his eyes. Terrifying yet compelling, the beast offers Crete’s only hope for redemption.

Click HERE to read a sample at Amazon.

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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 Scotland.

In the Moon of Asterion was published digitally on April 10, 2013. It is available for Kindle, Nook, iTunes, and others. See the Links to Purchase tab.

The paperback is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Book Depository.

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.

The Thinara King

The Thinara King was named a finalist in the the Second Novel category over at Next Generation Indie Book Awards. More recently, it won a Chaucer First Place award, snagging the coveted blue ribbon for best in Ancient History!

CLICK HERE for the full list of first place winners in the Chaucer category.

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Ash, earthquakes and tsunamis devastate Crete.

The will of the survivors fades as the skies remain dark and frost blackens the crops. Aridela must find a way to revive the spirit of her people along with rebuilding her country’s defenses.

More threats loom on the horizon. Greek kingdoms see a weakened Crete as easy prey.

And now Chrysaleon, he who carries the ancient title of Thinara King, feels the shadow of Death over his shoulder. Will he thwart his fate? No other man ever has.

Click HERE to read a sample at Amazon.

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 my thoughts of the week, 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.

Menoetius

Antinous: public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antinous_Pio-Clementino_Inv256_n2.jpg

Pronounced Men-ee-tee-os

He who defies his fate.

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 Brittany. 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.

Photo: Shutterstock

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.