in his own way, and the audience did not feel committed to accepting what he said, however fascinating,
as necessarily true.
Some myths are closely related to a ritual: for instance, the myth of Kore. When she disappeared, her
mother wandered barefoot seeking her over the world, fasting; at Eleusis she was persuaded to smile, and
to partake of a special barley drink, by the obscene jesting of a woman called Iambe (evidently a name
related to the iambic metre often used for coarse personal attacks); she regained her daughter, and she
gave blessings to men. All this was acted out by those who flocked to be initiated into the great Eleusinian
mysteries. Fasting and abstaining from drink, they made their way in long procession from Athens to
Eleusis. At a certain point on the pilgrimage obscenities were shouted. Initiates drank the kykeon, the
special barley drink, to break their fast. And the change of the goddess from gloom to gladness was
echoed by the sudden blaze of light from darkness in the hall of the mysteries, followed by rejoicing. It is
evident here that the worshipper is acting out the sufferings of the goddess-a comparison with the Stations
of the Cross is not unnatural-and that myth and ritual are, on different levels, the same.
But the myth does more than that. The anger of Demeter plunged the world into an abnormal and horrible
state, in which the earth's fertility failed, and it seemed that mankind would die out and the gods would
cease to receive their cult and their honours. The idea that normal life might fail serves to add value to its
continued existence; and the anxiety which naturally arises in the mind when the seed is sown in the earth-
suppose it fails to grow?-is given form, removed to the past, and provided with a satisfying conclusion.
There is another level, too. The seed dying and being reborn suggests the idea of rebirth and immortality:
'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit' (John 12:24). The seed is sown, it disappears in the darkness, and yet it lives and will rise again;
Kore was snatched away to the Underworld, and yet she comes back; and the initiates at Eleusis were
promised a happier and more glorious life after death.
Some myths, like that of Kore, relate not only to ritual, but also to ideas of the reversal of ordinary
civilized life. On the island of Lemnos once a year all fires were extinguished for nine days; family life
ceased, and an atmosphere of grimness prevailed, as the women separated themselves from the men, who
lay low. Then new fire was fetched from Delos, and new purified fires were kindled; there was a great
festival of rejoicing, with laughter and sexual intercourse. The mythical counterpart of all this is the story
that the women of Lemnos were once afflicted by Aphrodite with an evil smell, so that their husbands
rejected their embraces; they then murdered all the men, and there were only women on the island until
suddenly the Argonauts arrived. The women welcomed them, games and festivities were held, and the
island was repopulated, Jason begetting twins on the queen Hypsipyle (the twins then had an eventful
mythical career.. .). No doubt the women of Lemnos, in reality, ate garlic in the period of separation, as
we know that the women of Athens did at the festivals of the Scira and the Thesmophoria, to mark their
withdrawal from sexual activity. The nine days are a time of reversal: women are in the ascendant,
unattractive and unapproachable; there is no cooking and no sacrificial ritual. Then normality is restored
with exultation. Again we see the reinforcement of the value of ordinary civilization; and again we see a
release of anxiety, this time the tension natural between the sexes. At regular intervals the women were
violently released from their normal domestic round; and the men had their most horrid secret fears about
the evil potentialities of their wives and womenfolk brought out into the open and, perhaps, disarmed.