The Gates of Horn and Ivory - Chapter 5.3 Thesmophoria III

Stories

To say that everybody woke up the next day nursing a headache would be an understatement. The wine and the herbs left a parting gift - a vicious nausea, amplified to epic levels by the main part of the ceremony.

The Antleriai, the wailers, descended into the Megara pits, specially outfitted with snakes for the occasion, to retrieve decomposed pieces of the pig sacrifices, which were then placed on the altars to be blessed by the goddess, and then taken home, as they were believed to offer bounty and protection to the crops when buried in the fields.

The only silver lining of the previous day’s overindulgence was one couldn’t be sure anymore whether the smell of rotten meat was real or the result of a massive hangover.

Through the headaches and bleary-eyed confusion of the morning after, the celebrations continued, however, libations, dances, obscene language and all, and actually helped the participants feel better, because it provided them with a cure in the guise of the hair of the dog that bit them.

The third day was all about fertility, and honoring Kalligeneia, the goddess of childbirth, for protecting those in labor, nursing mothers and the well-being of their infants.

They never missed out on enlisting Demeter and Persephone’s help in the matter as well, since childbirth, the most perilous endeavor any woman would ever go through, and which cost so many their lives, needed all the help it could get.