He sent Theos Manenai, (God Madness)
And spread about everywhere
The phantom shapes of serpents –
Euripedes, Bacchae
Just before he entered the wine god’s sacred grove, Sava donned the ram mask. He wasted no time picking up the beat, blending his voice with the romping stomping chant:
La a lah, A la Lah!
La a lah, A la LAH!
Whoop for Victory –
Eeee YAH!
La a lah, A la lah!
La a la, A la LAH!
Evoi Yah! Evoi Yah!
The Bacchae were dancing and stamping in rhythm through a labyrinth of pine trees to the music of pipes, cymbals and drums. Hundreds of people exuded an air of fervid excitement. The procession slowed at the entrance to a wide clearing manned by armed guards.
“When the time comes for an oracle – ask if we can win the war with Persia. Will you do that for me Dodona?” Sava whispered. ”I cannot speak out, lest they hear my accent and become suspicious.”
The slave girl nodded wordlessly, then drifted away. Sava let her get well ahead before he filtered past the guards and entered the sacred space. Immediately he was caught up, swallowed in the fervent celebration.
On the left side of the ritual arena yawed the massive black mouth of a cave set into the hill. Within the dusty arena towered a statue of the wine god. The god was nude and arrogantly at ease, his pudenda obscenely large and erect.
A wreath of grape leaves crowned Dionysos’ head. His right hand gripped his staff of power, the thrysus. Sava flinched, staring in shock.
The God is ALIVE!?
At first glance in the shadowy torchlight the statue appeared to be moving. Then Sava realized the statue’s movement was from writhing serpents. Tied at the head and tail, the snakes were looped around the god’s outstretched arm.
Maenads were passing out the wreathed serpents for the Bacchae to put on their heads. The snake’s squirming head was placed in front, centered over the eyes.
Other priestesses handed out small wooden cups of wine. Already the devotees were showing the effects of the powerful drugged wine.
Drums took up a driving, blood pumping beat. The Korybantes leapt into the ritual arena, whirling, slashing and clashing swords on shields emblazoned with the kako mati, evil eye. The maenads joined in, clashing cymbals, castanets and trilling ululations.
Sava glanced over to see a bare-breasted maenad approaching. Eying him intently, she held out a wine cup.
“Drink. Drink to bring The God unto you.”
Sensing her suspicion, Sava lifted the wine to his lips and took a sip, then another as she watched. Without taking her eyes off his, the maenad reached under his loin skin and grasped his phallus, still swollen from the Hot Love Oil Dodona had so liberally administered.
The priestess caressed his genitals with sensuous fingers that could turn into talons in an instant.
“A fine piece. You should do something with this thick staff. Something that will make you feel...good. Hmmh?”
The potent drugged wine was rapidly affecting Sava's mind. As he stared, the maenad’s face and body seemed to ripple. To change. She was a voluptuous temptress. Infinitely desirable. Her scent, her lush breasts with large brown peaked nipples begged to be sucked. His cock throbbed, aching for release.
“Ah. Uh.” He could only groan at her sensual touch. Dodona’s warning not to speak ringing in his ears.
“Why don’t you speak? Are you afraid...of something?”
Cupping his balls she squeezed, hard. Testing him. He flinched but tried to disguise the pain.
The maenad turned to gaze at the wine god’s statue. Her profile shimmered before his eyes, rippling, changing again. Now he was staring at the profile of a rapacious drakon with cold, cunning golden eyes. He repressed a shocked gasp of revulsion.
When the maenad turned back to him, the mask was back in place. He saw a desirable woman again. At the same time he had no doubt that she wanted him to know the power of what he faced. She was possessed. Possessed by The God.
The drugs made his mind suggestible. Weak. Something in him quivered and quailed at the voracious glint in the maenad’s eyes. His libido tempered by fear and loathing.
Is this what Herakles saw before or after he was seduced by Mata Drakaina?
“Go on - Drink. Drink it all.” The voluptuous maenad glared, sensing his confusion, his weakness.
After Sava forced himself to drink all the wine, the maenad took the cup and flung it away. She began to dance with sensuous, serpentine grace. Her dilated, kohl-lined eyes inviting, never leaving his.
The world was whirling faster and faster yet he was an indelible part of it all. He joined in the rhythm, hips swaying, head rolling, back arching, arms waving, coiling and uncoiling. The drugged wine acting to release his natural libido.
At the same time Sava’s conscious mind struggled to overcome the dizziness and nausea from the powerful toxins in the wine. His jaw felt rigid and clenched. Innately his body knew he must keep moving. He felt he must dance or fall to the ground, frozen into a catatonic state.
The maenad watched him like a hawk with prey in sight. In the remnants of his conscious mind, Sava knew he was in grave danger of being discovered. Clearly she intended to couple with him.
If she looked too closely at him in the flickering darkness, if she saw that his tattoos were only painted on...or if she insisted that he speak to her, his deception was over.
The world was rolling under his feet, swirling into a dark unknown vortex...he felt increasingly alone. Trapped in a whirlwind. Then a petite woman wearing a fox mask danced between him and the priestess, gradually separating them.
The maenad shot her a venomous glance. But the fox woman danced away with Sava toward the other side of the ritual arena. Soon they were both lost in the wild crush.
Dodona kept dancing with Sava until after the worst of his dizziness and nausea had passed. Now he felt himself coming into his drugged sensate powers. The surging, pounding drums made his feet light and fast. He was tireless. He could run up mountains. The earth rolled, coming apart before his eyes.
A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes appeared, patterns of brilliant light forming and reforming. His will, his sense of self, his mission for Skythia was slipping away. His consciousness now merging with the hive mind of the Bacchae.
The devotees gyrated to the pounding, pulsating drums, dancing with abandon. An overwhelming urge came upon Sava – To know GOD.
The eyes of the wine god were looking directly into his own. Piercing his soul. The nomad shuddered and fell to his knees in abject worship.
The eyes of The God are upon me. I will dance to celebrate the power of His coming!
At last, I will know GOD!
Chapter 15 – The Roaring God of Joy
That which is beyond us,
Which is greater than human
Is for the Mad
Or for those who listen
To the Mad and believe them.
Prepare yourselves
For the roaring God of Joy! –
Euripides, Bacchae
The Bacchae danced on into the night. Leaping, skipping, hips thrusting in fierce, rhythmic abandon. The very ground under Sava’s feet was coming apart, moving, rolling, turning, changing form.
The Earth is alive!
Before his eyes snakes and lizards emerged from cracks and tree roots. Serpents slithered around his feet - until he froze, fearing he might step on a real viper. Dodona's warning echoed in his ear –
You will not know the Real from the Unreal.
At the same time Sava’s loins throbbed with that sweet hardening ache. Two satyrs with huge stuffed leather phalloi flashed by chasing a maenad. Another was flagellating himself bloody with a whip while jerking off at the same time. White sperm gushed down his blood-streaked legs.
Plump balding Silenos danced erotically, making lewd gestures. Uttering feral howls, he grabbed Dodona
’s arm and tried to throw her down. The slave girl thrust her thyrsus into his groin. Silenos bent over, groaning, holding himself.
“Should I teach this lusty satyr a lesson?!” Dodona asked nearby maenads.
“Aye! Punish him!”
Two of the maenads took hold of the drunken, drugged man’s arms and bent him over. Dodona rubbed her leather phallus saturated with datura and burning oil over Silenos’ genitals and anus.
“Ooooh Ah! Ahhh! It burns!” Silenos whooped and hopped, wriggling his fat behind. The delighted crowd laughed at such entertainment.
“Don’t let him go!” Dodona commanded.
Tearing off a green branch she stripped off the leaves, then stroked Silenos’ flabby white buttocks with the whippy branch.
“Silenos you have been bad. You need to be punished. Do you know what that means?” Her voice husky, provocative.
“Aye.” Came his tremulous answer.
“What should I do about your bad acts?”
“Punish me.” The older man whimpered, a salacious smile stealing across his face.
“So be it!”
Dodona began whipping Silenos’ shaky buttocks. He howled and moaned.
“Ow! Ah! Ah!”
The devotees’ manic excitement neared fever pitch at the sight.
“Here Silenos, ease your pain. Do this.” Dodona placed one of his hands around his swollen phallus, then went back to whipping his ass.
Silenos screeched and groaned while pumping his reddened, tumescent cock. This sight increased the devotee’s spiral into atavistic hysteria. In their drugged, drunken state anything could set them off into a blind, chaotic orgy of sex or violence.
“Suck on this! Suck hard!” One of the satyrs thrust his stuffed leather phallus into the fat man’s mouth.
Dodona whipped then caressed Silenos’ plump buttocks until they were streaked with pink and red stripes. She dropped the whip and placed the head of her stuffed phallus on his anus.
“Should I punish Silenos some more?”
“Do it!” The maenads cried out, eyes gleaming. “Punish him! He deserves it!”
Using short thrusts of her hips, Dodona pushed her leather phallus part way into the man’s anus. Almost immediately the datura oil began taking effect, dissolving into his bloodstream.
The older man swayed dizzily and fell forward, crouching on his knees, moaning and humping, pumping his own cock with frenzied sensuality. When his sperm erupted, a maenad rushed to catch the thick white cum in a vessel.
People cried out: “Sperm is beloved of Kybele, Great Mother of the Mountain! Blood is the food of Dionysos, the God Below!”
With this, the maenad took a knife and made a superficial slice on Silenus' penis.
Ah! He yelped. Droplets of red blood flowed, mixing with the white sperm in the vessel.
“Seed to fertilize the Great Mother! Blood for the God Below!” The crowd chanted.
As Silenos shuddered in his last ecstatic moments of orgasm, the devotees called out:
“The God has come unto him. Give us a prophecy Silenos! An oracle!”
Silenos groaned. From deep in his throat an ominous grating Voice intoned:
“For what is coming it would be better if you had never been born. But since you have been born it would be wise to DIE as soon as possible.”
Silenos’ prophecy struck Sava with dread. Some Bacchae laughed, another called out –
“Hah! Silenos is but another false prophet who claims the sky is falling! Do not fear Silenos - The God cometh! Soon We will be in Him and He will be in US.”
The priestess with the vessel of Silenos’ sperm and blood dipped her fingertip into the thick liquid. She pressed a drop between the eyes of the Bacchae who knelt before her.
The driving, pulsating drumming and chanting was taking over Sava’s mind. He danced with mindless fervor, carried on by the surging beat.
A boukolos strode out of the cave, his head wreathed by a squirming, writhing serpent. The priest’s eyes, his very being, radiated a dark, seething energy. Raising his thrysos on high he called out fervently –
Io Evoi Yah!
The GOD cometh!
“The GOD Comes!” The devotees screamed in fevered exhilaration, dancing with tossing heads and snapping necks, whirling and stomping in fierce abandon.
The atmosphere was charged with heady expectation. More devotees took the wreathed serpents off the wine god statue. They wore the snakes like proud crowns with the alert, darting head over their eyes.
The live serpent heads waved in the air, rising and falling, striking and writhing over the foreheads and glassy, fevered eyes of the frenetic Bacchae. As if the serpents were now in control of their minds.
Sensing the rising tension, the young animals tied to stakes in the middle of the ritual clearing were crying out. Endlessly pacing. Pulling on the ropes. Frantic to escape.
A circle of madly dancing Bacchae formed around the sacrificial victims. A larger circle formed around that one and another until they were dancing around in circles within circles. The driving drum beat, cymbals and tambourines energized the spinning devotees.
Throwing back their heads the Bacchae inhaled deep and chanted – Evoi!
Snapping their necks forward they exhaled a sharp puff of air – `YAH!’
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAH!
Caught up in this induced trance state, Sava’s focus blurred. His eyes rolled up in his head, showing the whites. The energy of the group was so intense he could dance all night.
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAH!
Brandishing long sharp knives, twelve naked priests dance-marched into the inner circle.
“The GOD is here Now! The GOD is in ME!”
With these words the boukolos made deep cuts in their arms. Blood rippled down their forearms to the frenzied screams of the berserk Bacchae.
“Blood is the food of the God Below!”
Chapter 16 – The God is Here Now
O Dionysos we feel you near
Stirring like molten lava
Under the ravaged earth
Flowing from the wounds
Of your trees in tears of sap
Screaming with the rage
Of your hunted beasts –
Euripedes, Bacchae
The God has come unto me!
Into my flesh.
Into my blood.
Come thou sacred ones –
Drink of me!
Drink of my essence.
Drink of my divine power!
Come and drink my blood!
Blood is the food of the God Below!
The God is here Now!
Drink my blood.
And The God will come unto You!
With these words the boukolos called out to the berserk, raving Bacchae. Thick gobbets of blood streaming down the priests’ arms were caught in vessels.
The atmosphere was saturated with a cacophony of drug and alcohol-induced screeching, frenzied calls and howling grunts.
Eeevoi - YAH!
Eeevoi - YAH!
Huh! Huh! HUH!
Acolytes passed around the wine and blood-filled vessels and everyone took a sip, including Sava. A fanfare of horns sounded. From out of the sacred cave strode the godman – Prince Carnos. Stunned, abject silence fell over the devotees.
Naked but for the leopard skin cape over his shoulders, the godman Dionysos paced with slow, deliberate intensity, drawing power from the earth itself. From The God Below.
Prince Carnos radiated an unearthly glow. From his blue hair, crowned with living, writhing serpents to the sensuously entwined blue tattoos on his broad shoulders, breast and muscled arms. His body pulsed with erotic power. Power from The God Below.
The godman sat on a raised chair near the statue of Dionysos. A driving salvo of drums started up, accompanied by exhilarated whoops and grunts. The rhythm so compelling, it energized the very air, vibrating the ground below. Raw primal energy billowing
up from the Under World.
Two bare-breasted maenads leapt into the ritual arena and performed a seductive, hair-tossing dance. Then on hands and knees they crawled to the godman and groveled, reverently kissing his feet.
The maenads’ glazed eyes beamed up at the blue-skinned godman in abject adoration, the crown of sacred serpents writhing, haloing his face.
Archiboukolos Komkizo raised a ram’s horn to his lips. He blew three resonant, echoing blasts and called out -
“Bring forth the Bride! Bring forth Ariadne, Bride of Dionysos!”
“Bring forth the Bride!” The devotees crowed. “Ariadne come forth!”
Spears thundering on shields, the bare-chested Korybantes dance-marched into the ritual space. They carried a bier on which a voluptuous maenad reclined. The sight elicited trilling ululations from the Bacchae.
The maenad `Ariadne’ wore a gold crown of interlaced grape leaves. Her waist length golden-red hair rippled in snaky tubes down her back and shoulders. Black kohl outlined large glittering dark blue eyes. Her red lips appeared swollen, hot.
Ariadne’s long ruffled skirt of many colors swirled around her ankles. She wore a black felt vest embroidered with golden stags. The vest was fitted under her naked breasts to push them up and together, the large succulent nipples tipped with red.
The Korybantes laid down the bier in reverent offering to the godman Dionysos. One of the Korybantes knelt beside her and began to fondled her breasts, avidly sucking and laving her nipples. The watching devotees sucked in a communal erotic breath.
Another Korybante slowly raised her ruffled skirt up her bare thighs until her sex was exposed. He began to fondle and kiss her yoni. With a long low moan the priestess responded, her body writhing with pleasure.
As the Korybantes stimulated Ariadne’s lust, the maenads kneeling by the godman stroked and kissed his tumescent phallus. It swelled, becoming turgid, rigid.
The Bacchae chanted -
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAY!
The Lord of the Under World cometh!
Comes to the Mother Goddess!
Comes to fertilize the field!
Wine God's Sorcery: The Horse Lords Page 8