"Eiresione bring figs, and Eiresione bring loaves;

Bring us honey in pints, and oil to rub on our bodies,

And a strong flagon of wine, for all to go mellow to bed on." [10]

In remembrance of the pyamos stew made by victorious Thisefs and his men, it is traditional to make a bean stew for Pyanæpsia.  There are various recipes circulating around; here follows that used by the author.  

This recipe includes chick-peas.  They have a texture something like cooked peanuts.  If you do not care for that, substitute a softer bean or simply eliminate them.  Garum is a tricky ingredient; if you have not created successful dishes with the garum you use, I suggest trying something different.  I make garum from a high quality oriental fish sauce and add lots of dried oregano and rosemary, then let it sit for a month or two (if you age it for over a year, the sauce becomes much more mellow).  Or eliminate it altogether and just adjust the salt.  This recipe makes enough for about four people, with the addition of some other dishes.

Fill a 2-cup measure with 1/3 each lentils, white chick-peas, and fava beans (or similar).  Cover with water overnight and rinse thoroughly.  Put all this in a large pot and add water to about an inch above the beans.  Bring to a boil and then lower the flame to a simmer.

In the meanwhile, sauté two onions until caramelized somewhat.  Add these to the beans.

Add a few carrots cut into pieces.

Add two fresh cloves of minced garlic.

Add about a half-cup chopped parsley.

Add some oregano and rosemary, salt, and black pepper.

Add 1 teaspoon garum, no more.  (optional)

Add a teaspoon each of dried shallot and dried parsnips.  (optional)

Add about a ½ cup of good olive oil.

Add about three bay leaves.

Simmer an hour or two; adjust salt level and other spices.

The Pyanæpsia Ritual

As with any ritual, it is most important that you put aside all hateful feelings, as best you can, and make your heart completely well-meaning…as an offering to the God and for our own good as well.  It is not permitted to publish the details of Orphic ritual in a public place.  If you have a sincere desire to learn more about this, please state your interest in a letter to: Inquire.hellenicgods@gmail.com.

Festivals of Apollo:  

KARNEIA - ΚΆΡΝΕΙΑ 

PYANEPSIA - ΠΥΑΝΈΨΙΑ

THARGILIA -ΘΑΡΓΉΛΙΑ

NOTES:

[1] "Androgeus having been treacherously murdered in the confines of Attica, not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the Gods also laid waste their country; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up.  Being told by the oracle that, if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of the Gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries they laboured under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication were at least reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical story adds, that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the labyringth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably ended their lives there; and that this Minotaur was (as Euripides hath it)--

A mingled form where two strange shapes combined, 

And different natures, bull and man, were joined."

(Ploutarkhos [Plutarch] Lives; Theseus XV; trans. John Dryden, 1683; found here in the 1992 Modern Library Edition, Random House, New York NY USA, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Plutarch Vol. I, p. 8)

"The land of the Cretans and especially that by the river Tethris was ravaged by a bull.  It would seem that in the days of old the beasts were much more formidable to men, for example the Nemean lion, the lion of Parnassus, the serpents in many parts of Greece, and the boars of Calydon, Erymanthus and Crommyon in the land of Corinth, so that it was said that some were sent up by the earth, that others were sacred to the Gods, while others had been let loose to punish mankind.  And so the Cretans say that this bull was sent by Poseidon to their land because, although Minos was lord of the Greek Sea, he did not worship Poseidon more than any other God.  They say that this bull crossed from Crete to the Peloponnesus, and came to be one of what are called the Twelve Labours of Heracles.  When he was let loose on the Argive plain he fled through the Isthmus of Corinth, into the land of Attica as far as the Attic parish of Marathon, killing all he met, including Androgeos, son of Minos.  Minos sailed against Athens with a fleet, not believing that the Athenians were innocent of the death of Androgeos, and sorely harassed them until it was agreed that he should take seven maidens and seven boys for the Minotaur that was said to dwell in the Labyrinth at Cnossus.  But the bull at Marathon Theseus is said to have driven afterwards to the Acropolis and to have sacrificed to the Goddess; the offering commemorating this deed was dedicated by the parish of Marathon."  (Pafsanias [Pausanias] Description of Greece, I Attica: XXVII:9; trans. W.H.S. Jones, 1918; found in the 1959 William Heinemann [London England] - Harvard Univ. Press [Cambridge MA USA], Vol. I, pp. 143-145)

[2] "Now, when the time of the third tribute was come, and the fathers who had any young men for their sons were to proceed by lot to the choice of those that were to be sent, there arose fresh discontents and accusations against Ægeus among the people, who were full of grief and indignation that he who was the cause of all their miseries was the only person exempt from the punishment; adopting and settling his kingdom upon a bastard and foreign son (ed. Theseus), he took no thought, they said, of their destitution and loss, not of bastards, but lawful children.  These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow-citizens, offered himself for one without and lot." (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XVII, p. 9)

[3] "When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as well as poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, and being instructed by her how to use it so as to conduct him through the windings of the labyrinth, he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back,..." (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XIX.1, p. 10)

[4] "When they were come near the coast of Attica, so great was the joy for the happy success of their voyage, that neither Theseus himself nor the pilot remembered to hang out the sail which should have been the token of their safety to Ægeus, who, in despair at the sight, threw himself headlong from a rock, and perished in the sea." (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XXII p. 13)

"On the right of the gateway (ed. to the Akropolis of Athens) is a temple of Wingless Victory.  From this point the sea is visible, and here it was that, according to legend, Aegeus threw himself down to his death.  For the ship that carried the young people to Crete began her voyage with black sails; but Theseus, who was sailing on an adventure against the bull of Minos, as it is called, had told his father beforehand that he would use white sails if he should sail back victorious over the bull.  But the loss of Ariadne made him forget the signal.  Then Aegeus, when from this eminence he saw the vessel borne by black sails, thinking that his son was dead, threw himself down to destruction.  There is at Athens a sanctuary dedicated to him, called the hero-shrine of Aegeus." (Ibid. Jones, Pausanias I Attica: XXII:4-5; p. 111)

[5] "Theseus, after the funeral of this father, paid his vows to Apollo the seventh day of Pyanepsion; for on that day the youth that returned with him safe from Crete made their entry into the city."  (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XXII.4, p. 13)

[6] "They say, also, that the custom of boiling pulse at this feast is derived from hence; because the young men that escaped put all that was left of their provision together, and, boiling it in one common pot, feasted themselves with it, and ate it all up together." (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XXII.4, p. 13)

[7] "Hence, also, they carry in procession an olive branch bound about with wool (such as they then made use of in their supplications), which they call Eiresione, crowned with all sorts of fruits, to signify that scarcity and barrenness was ceased..." (Ibid. Dryden, Plutarch Theseus XXII.5, p. 13)  

Lewis Richard Farnell's opinion: 

"And the Εἰρεσιώνη, which has been mentioned in connexion with the Thargelia, figures again and more prominently in the Pyanopsia: its magical use is set forth in the song of the boys which has been handed down by Pausanias and Plutarch: 'the eiriesione brings figs and rich loaves, a measure of honey and oil to mix, a cup of pure wine, that it may go mellow to bed.'  The wine is poured over the bough as a charm, and this method of sympathetic magic needs no comment.  An interesting gloss in Hesychius preserves for us the fact that the Εἰρεσιώνη was called κορυθαλία (ed. korythalia), a word meaning 'the nurse of children,' whence it appears that this ritual, like the Thesmophoria, aimed at securing the growth of the family as well as the fertility of the fields, an extension of purpose which followed, perhaps, when the Εἰρεσιώνη was engrafted on the Apolline worship.  For these agrarian rites with their vegetation-magic and cereal sacraments were certainly older in Attica than the coming of Apollo..."  (Lewis Richard Farnell's The Cults of the Greek States Vol.IV, 1907; Clarendon Press, p. 287)

[8] "Although some hold opinion that this ceremony is retained in memory of the Heraclidæ, who were thus entertained (ed. with the Eiresione) and brought up by the Athenians.  But most are of the opinion which we have given above. (ed. that the Athenians used the Eiresione in honor of Theseus' destroying the Minotaur)"  (Plutarch XXII.5, p.13)  When Herakles died, his children fled from the tyrant Eurystheus, approaching Athens as suppliants bearing boughs of trees.  Lewis Richard Farnell states that the Pyanepsia was "a thanksgiving service and a consecration of the later fruits and cereals to the harvest-god." (Ibid. Farnell Vol. IV, p. 286)

[9] Pasipha-i (Pasiphaë; Gr. Πασιφάη, ΠΑΣΙΦΆΗ), the daughter of Ælios (Gr. Ἥλιος, ἭΛΙΟΣ), whose name means “wide-shining,” is the mother of the Minohtafros (Minotaur), who is also called Astæriohn (Asterion; Gr. Ἀστερίων, ἈΣΤΕΡΊΩΝ), “full of stars.” 

"In the market-place of Troezen is a temple of Artemis Saviour (ed. Artemis Sotira) with images of the Goddess.  It was said that the temple was founded and the name Saviour given by Theseus when he returned from Crete after overcoming Asterion the son of Minos." (Ibid. Jones, Paus. II Corinth XXXI.1, p. 415)

The father was a bull sent by either Poseithohn (Poseidon) or Zefs (Zeus) (Lactantius Placidus, on Statius, Theb. V. 43). The bull represents the influence of Zefs. The Minohtafros is represented in iconography as having a human body with the head of a bull. The Minohtafros lives in the Labyrinth of Daidalos.

In the Iliad, Homer tells us that the God Iphaistos (Hephaestus) fashions a dancing floor on the Armor of Akhillefs (Achilles; Gr. Ἀχιλλεύς): 

“On it furthermore the famed God of the two lame legs cunningly inlaid a dancing floor like the one which in wide Cnosus Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne.”  (Omiros [Homer; Gr. Ὅμηρος] Iliad, Book 18, beginning at 590; trans. A.T. Murray, 1925; found here in the 1999 Loeb edition [LCL 171] Harvard Univ. Press [Cambridge MA USA and London England] of Homer’s Iliad Vol. II, on p. 331)

“Asterius dying childless, Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the Gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another. Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands. But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth. Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber ‘that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way.’ “ (Apollodorus The Library III. I. 3-4; trans. J.G. Frazer, 1921; found in the 1990 Loeb edition of Apollodorus The Library Vol. I, pp. 303-307) 

[10] Plutarch XXII.5, p. 13.