The Greek Minyades and a Story About Madness and Stitching
Greek Mythology for the fiber artist
If you know me, you know how much I love the stories of Greek Mythology. But what you probably didn't know is that one of favorites is a story that hasn't really been retold that much. It just never got much traction with the Big Writers of Old for some reason. And while that's unfortunate, it does afford me the opportunity to tell you a story that maybe you haven't heard before. AND I get to tell that story my way. It's a win-win-win. And, in the words of the great mythologist Michael Scott, "With win-win-win, we all win!"
So, this story is about the Minyades, three daughters of some king in a place that doesn't exist anymore. Their names vary a bit depending on which version of the story you read, but generally they're called Alcithoe, Leucippe, and Arsippe.
Described as diligent and focused, they spent their days doing two things: taking care of the home and – very important to our purposes here – stitching. Well, weaving. But this is my version of the story, so we're going to call it stitching.
So, while the Minyades were stitching their days away and taking care of things at home, there's this god of like all carnal pleasures, Dionysus, who's throwing these straight-up ragers (called Bacchanals) literally every single night. Which may sound like a good time to a lot of people – but what our girls the Minyades knew was this: Dionysus was a dick. The kind of dick who got off on ensuring that the people who went to his parties became so enamored with the hedonism, so mesmerized by his magic, that they ended up trapped there forever.
But most people – the gen pop of Greece – they didn't really understand what was going on. They just thought these were awesome parties. And so, everyone kept asking the Minyades if they wanted to party, too. But because they knew what was really up, the Minyades always said no. They just kept right on living their lives at home and stitching.
Eventually Dionysus finds out there's these girls who don't want to party with him, and being the giant asshole that he is, he decides he can't live with that. So, he disguises himself as a young girl, knocks on their door and invites them to the party.
"You've got to come to this party! There's food and orgies and everything! You can't miss out on the mysteries of Dionysus!" That's right. This dickface thought a little girl was the best messenger for his upcoming orgies. ANYWAY.
The Minyades are like, "Nah, we're good. We'd rather stay home and stitch." (And you know what? Me too, girls. Me. Too. It was probably a Wednesday, anyway. Who the hell parties on Wednesday night anymore?)
Now, if there's one thing that doesn't seem to change throughout human history, regardless of culture, it's this: dudes with huge egos just cannot live with rejection. So, you might be able to guess that Dionysus – still standing weird little girl – gets super pissed and decides he's going to pretty much mentally destroy the Minyades.
But he's a god, right? He doesn't need to scheme; he can just use his magic. So, right there in front of them, he morphed from a little girl into a bull. But he's not satisfied that's enough to shatter their paradigm, so he morphs from the bull into a lion. Then (just to make sure he drove the poor girls fully insane) he morphs into a leopard. Then he just poofs away.
It probably goes without saying that the Minyades are freaked out immensely. I mean, their reality was shattered. In those moments, their whole world fell away, and they were driven into madness.
After living in that terrifying space for a little while, the sisters took inventory of the situation. Who could have done this? Why would anyone do this? Well, it didn't take them long to sort out there's only one group of beings with that much power coupled with that much spite: gods.
The Minyades knew what all Greeks of the time knew: pissed off gods demand sacrifice. So, they decided to draw lots (or maybe rock, paper, scissors?) to determine who was going to come up with a suitable offering. The burden fell to Leukippe.
It's worth remembering here that these ladies are not in their right mind. You can't unsee pissed-off-god magic. And while that doesn't really forgive what happens next, it's worth putting out there.
See, Leukippe decides the best way to appease an angry god is to offer her own son, Hippasos, as sacrifice. How does she sacrifice him, you ask? Well, she and her sisters tear this poor boy limb from limb (hopefully not using their stitching scissors).
Pretty awful, right? Well, apparently not awful enough for Dionysus. He doesn't care about their sacrifice. He just wants these women to suffer, and so he musters the downright audacity to encourage vines and leaves to grow all over the Minyades looms and scroll frames. Which is pretty much the equivalent of your kid spilling Kool-Aid all over your nearly finished project.
As you might imagine, the sisters did not fare well after that. Driven mad and in the wild throes of unknowable grief, they flee into the nearby mountains. "Divinely inspired madness," the Big Writers of Old call it. A lovely way to express a truly horrifying thing.
Anyhow, as it happened the Herald of the Gods, Hermes, was out in the wilderness (just doing Hermes things, I guess), when he found the Minyades suffering this terrible madness. He pitied them and decided the best way to help was to transform them into something non-human. The Big Writers of Old say they were transformed into creatures that avoided the light of day -- so I'm gonna say they were all turned into bats. Because, as you may know, I'm obsessed with bats.
So, what's the moral of the story here? Don't defy gods, maybe? Even if you don't know they're gods to begin with? Or maybe it's just life would be better as a bat? Let's say that's it. Being human can hurt a lot – be a bat instead.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Shoutout to my husband who helped me polish this article!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minyades
I've always loved Greek mythology, I really enjoyed this!!!
The true moral of the story, which the Greeks seem to understand very well, is that the gods are dicks, and sometimes the messed up stuff they do happens even when you try not to be involved. But I hope the girls did end up as bats, and that it was a million times better than being human.