~ May 24
Those who are in prison,
those who are bound in pain,
those who turn, anguished, through the night;
those who wander in unfriendly lands,
those who sail the winter seas,
those who are near to death—
All of them are saved by invoking her.
—Greek poet Isodorus, Hymn 1
On this day in the Thracian lands north of ancient Greece, a festival was celebrated to a goddess of whom little is known but her name. Bendis, she was called; she appears to have been a goddess of the warrior nomads of Thrace, whose fabulous golden images attest to the power of their vision of the goddess.
In Greece, Bendis was depicted as a woman carrying a twig, which was said to have the power to grant passage to the underworld. Great orgiastic rituals were once part of her worship, but in Greece this was tamed to torchlit footraces and processions. The celebration of her festival in springtime suggests that she was a goddess of the sprouting vegetation. Yet what of her connection with death? In ancient times, this time of year was one of great hardship as well as joy, for food was scarce while the new crops burgeoned. Thus Bendis may be an image of the connection between birth and death of which our forebears were so keenly aware.
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