An Essay: What I did in My Christmas Holidays, Sauntering and Centauring up in Pelion.

An essay title that could bring on brain-freeze and blank-page panic as the English teacher delivered a task: punishment for the school break you had just returned from! Not that we had been up to anything really exciting in rural Mid-Argyll. In contrast to my niece’s family who travelled from Durham to the USA for a Disney-fest and had a wonderful time. Since then, her young son, Guy, demands that he has his grandma’s home-made pancakes served ‘stacked’!  

Actually, that brings to mind my favourite Christmas story. It’s about Guy, a typical little boy magnetically attracted to all manner of mischief, the word ‘no’ being translated into challenge-of-the-day, an inverted Nike command.  Visiting his gran one day- no doubt on the stacked-pancake scrounge – and on the run-up to Christmas –about ten chocolates down on the advent calendar - Guy asked her if she had an elf in her house. He apparently had an elf called Egbert in his house – undeniable proof being the little red lights (the house security system sensors). In Guy’s scheme of things, as the lights winked off and on as he walked round the house, this meant Egbert was following his every move. (Question: are we now taking CSI-type surveillance as a fact of life? Scary!)  The bottom line was: if you are a good boy, Egbert relays that information back to Father Christmas who will bring you a commensurate gift.

 I commend my niece on her imaginative strategy – she tells me Egbert departed on Christmas Eve, his duties in planning for next Christmas demanding his attention.

 Our Christmas Eve provided this romantic scene: we travelled south to the port of Volos (half-way to Athens) and, just off the full moon, we enjoyed a splendid walk by the sea in very mild temperatures, before heading to a nearby tavern.  With an exterior décor clearly inspired by My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it was a cavernous place which sadly had only two tables occupied, including ours! The eager-to-please singer asked for requests – it was like a karaoke night for the lazy!

                   

 

 

          

Christmas Day saw us driving up to the villages high above Volos. On the way we met this centaur, looking for all the world like a traffic cop. For Pelion is the land of the centaurs, the mythological half-human /half-horse being, embodying untamed nature.

          

                           

 The strife between the Titans and the Olympian gods, mentioned my last post, and the battles between the Lapith tribe of Thessaly and the Centaurs, are said to signify the human struggle between civilisation and barbarism.

 I really like one explanation as to how the centaur concept came about: horseback culture was said to come from the southern steppes of Central Asia. Nomadic, proficient horsemen from there who reached the non-riding Minoan/Aegean culture of the time, would have appeared as one forceful entity. 

 By the way, ladies, there is mention of female forms. A 4^th Century BC Macedonian mosaic depicts one; Shakespeare, in King Lear, explains how:

‘Down from the waist they’re centaurs,

Though women all above’;

 while in that amazing animated film, Fantasia  ,Disney displays ‘Centaurettes’.             

             

And back to Pelion. At Portaria we meet up with our niece, Maria, sister of Konstantina, who was holidaying with friends. It was quite cold up there so we stopped off for a welcome hot chocolate– and enjoyed this ironic sign outside the facilities! 

                   

                       

Here are the young folks, now in Makrinitsa, which boasts some beautiful traditional houses. This one is a little askew of necessity: a few steps backwards to align it properly and I was off that mountain edge!

    

 

  Back to sea-level, where we admire those wonderful palm trees on the sea-front. Volos is famed for its meze and ouzo-like drink, tsipouro. Here is Zissis – it’s about time we used his name, right? – enjoying sea-food delicacies in very warm Christmas day sunshine.

                   

                     

In the evening we found the last available table in a local tavern – what is that crisis everyone is talking about?  All the eating places were packed out that night!

                     

 

An enthusiastic young group of musicians had the guests up dancing, providing a really warm atmosphere against the evening chill.

They served very nice wine and food in considerable portionsand we managed to drain the bottle and clean our plates  – oh, I do love holidays!

                

 

                        

And now just to annoy all those English teachers out there:

THE END.

Tourism, Necromancy and ...Heading for Hades?

Today I am taking you on a trip to the south-west of Greece, to the area near Prevesa in Epirus, to the very old city of Ephyra. Below you see a map outlining several archaeological sites of significance in the locale. The old city was said to be at the confluence of the River Acheron and its tributaries, the Pyriphlegethon  and the Cocytus. 

The modern names of the two latter rivers, the Vouvos – what sounds to me onomatopoeic, echoing  the sound of the running water, but, in fact, could be translated as ‘the silent one’, so quite mysterious  – and the Black River,  are much less dramatic than their original names. The three ancient river names mean: Joyless, Burning Coals and Lament, respectively.  Sounds like an extract from a Scottish Presbyterian minister’s sermon describing what lay ahead of the poor sinners in his congregation.

And that is not too far off the mark, for the nearby Nekromanteio  is related to Necromancy,  described by my trusty Chambers Dictionary as ‘the art of revealing future events by calling up and questioning the spirits of the dead.’ Next is an aerial photograph of the site excavated by Professor Sotirios Dakaris of the University of Ioannina in the 1960s and 70s. Reference to the works of Herodotus and Thucydides     (I just love that name!) and to the descriptions in Homer’s Odyssey led to the site being identified as the Acheron Nekromanteio.

               

 

                         

Here is H, the tourist, reading up about and me inspecting the walls of the ancient temple devoted to Hades and Persephone on the banks of the Acheron.

                                                                                                       

 

 

 Let me put these two characters in the context of Greek mythology.

The Titans were the divine descendants of Uranus, god of the sky, and Gaia, goddess of the earth. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus, leader of the Titans. Hades and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father’s generation of gods and assumed power over the cosmos, becoming rulers of the Underworld, the air and the sea, respectively. Persephone was the beautiful daughter of Demeter, goddess of grain, agriculture and fertility, who was abducted by Hades. In her fury Demeter swore to make the earth barren and destroy mankind if her daughter were not returned.  An added complication was that Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds and whoever tasted the food of Hades was obliged to stay there. However, following the intervention of Rhea, mother of Zeus, Hades and Demeter – I know!! – a deal was struck whereby Persephone was allowed to spend some months in the Underworld,  when autumn and winter reigned above, and, on her return to earth for the rest of the year, man could enjoy the seasons of spring and summer. What an imaginative explanation for our meteorological cycle!!

   The River Acheron, with its chasms, canyons and caves, was believed to be the entrance to the Underworld and the path the dead followed to reach Hades. Believers visited the place to consult the souls of the dead who, on leaving their bodies, were believed to have acquired knowledge of the future. Excavation on the site has enabled archaeologists to surmise what went on here around the 7^th to 5^th centuries B.C.

                 

        

 

              

Visitors entered the north entrance and lived for some time in the accommodation there, being prepared mentally and physically for the next stage, following a specified diet.  Evidence from the pots and vessels below shows that the guests ate meals of grains, beans and pork there.                                                           

                                          

 

After purification, ceremonies of sacrifice, libation and cereal-offering were carried out.

Only then could believers, led by a priest, enter the dark hall with stone-hewn archways : the Palace of Hades and Persephone, to commune with the souls of the dead.      

 Here we are in the hall, hopefully not heading for Hades – just visiting!          

                                      

                                                                           

                                                                                           

It was interesting to see, just beyond the wall of the site, this dignified Cypress tree, a tree which symbolises mourning.  Both in Europe and in the Muslim world, this tree is often found in cemeteries. Associated as it is with death and the underworld, it was a very appropriate place for it to be growing.             

                                                                                                                                                        

Greeks claim to love nature but are not renowned for respecting it. Not fifty yards from the famed archaeological site, this sight confronted, or rather affronted, us. 

Given that the prefix necro- means death – as in necrosis and necromancy – though it’s too decomposed to identify whether it was a Ford or not, I believe that what we found just nearby Nekromanteion, could be described as a ….necro-Mondeo!