BOUZYGES

Bouzyges

Bouzyges

Introduction

Bouzyges is a heritage champion from Greek mythology, credited with the creation of numerous farming practices; most especially, he was the first man to yoke oxen to a plough. He has been affiliated with Epimenides.

Bouzyges was the goddess of Corn and therefore also harvest, and her cult particularly flourished in the regions where grain was grown: in Sicily, in the region of Eleusis, in the Peloponnesus, in Crete and in Thrace. She was the first to gather the maize, arrange and preserve it, and to instruct mankind how to sow it.

Bouzyges

She is usually depicted as grave and dignified, clothed plainly in a long robe. Her doctor was Eirene (Peace). The beloved goddess of the harvest conveyed to humans the cultivation of grain (wheat and barley) which, according to one legend, allowed them to stand upright.

She was the female child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea and therefore Zeus' sister. Along with Dionysus (known in Roman as Bacchus, god of Wine) Bouzyges was one of the two most important gods in the everyday lives of people. While numerous other gods did little to help mortal people unless it matched their needs, these two were really mankind's best friends. What also made them very distinct from other gods, was that they were the only two to have known and sensed pain and factual sorrow, while the other gods for the most part dwelled happy and blissful inhabits, feasting on nectar and ambrosia up on lofty climb on Olympus.

The name was also used by an alignment of priests associated with the Eleusinian secrets; these priests, collectively renowned as the Bouzygai, were furthermore the priests of Zeus at the Palladium. Pericles may have been one of the Bouzygai.

Eons ago, the Earth passed its days with unceasing good weather and harvest. This was the world where Bouzyges and her daughter, Persephone, knew true happiness. Together, the two goddesses of nature roamed the Earth. And in those days, the world seemed like a boundless paradise with all life in perpetual full bloom. Bouzyges was the gentle, forgiving goddess of the grain and the harvest. As an infant she was swallowed alive, along with her older siblings, by her father, Cronus. Her youngest brother, Zeus, eventually defeated Cronus and liberated his kin. Being a granddaughter of the primordial Mother Earth, Bouzyges was an Olympian goddess. But, unlike other Olympian deities, she preferred the open fields and lush forests to the palace of the gods atop Mount Olympus. Bouzyges had a kind, motherly spirit, and nothing would ever break the bond of love she shared with her daughter.

Universal Themes

Like the transient spring, the flower that was Bouzyges's joy faded when Persephone suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth on one fateful day. Thus, Bouzyges was called to adventure to rescue her beloved daughter from whatever abode that held her hostage. Unknown to the world at the time, this call was a momentous turning point in the saga of ...