Bee Stories for Gobnait’s Day - part 3

Bees n' Apples Make Mead

Here are some intriguing myth origins to the creation of Mead.

Clues come from an ancient culture called the Dogon tribe from the West African region of Mali, well featured in Robert Temple's questioned and controversial book, "The Sirius Mystery".

The Dogon belief system seems to have been around from well into the Age Of Taurus, 4000 BC, maybe before, and lasted well until maybe up to around 200 AD.

The Dogons referred to a 12 sign zodiac, just like western astrologers, do, but the symbol of Libra was not scales, but of a Bee!

 The Libra symbol has also been an Apple Tree of Life symbol with the Chaldeans and other Babylonian races. It was the Greeks that gave Libra its current balance scales symbol.

The Dogon tribe seem to believe that the Bee symbolized establishing balance and harmony in the zodiac that was communicated through all life. To them the origin of life arriving on earth was not the arrival of the Apple Tree of Life, or the Yggdrasil or the Norse, but of big bees with wings. Another origin of the Bee Goddess or Goddesses maybe?

Someone, some peoples, probably the Egyptians, seem to have merged the Sacred Bees and Apple Tree of Life imagery, and added their brewing and distilling wisdoms to create what we now call Mead. And for Egyptians and beyon tdhis was the most sacred of all drinks. It was the original of "Uisce Beatha", as quoted in Ireland and Scotland today, well before the alternative and more mass produceable liquor we call ‘Uisce, whisky’, became what we more commonly call "water of life" today.

Mead origins seem to be indicated in ancient Egyptian scribings where honey is frequently mentioned as a vital ingredient in beer. I do have a series or articles following the tradition of the ‘Ale House Wives’ first scribed in story in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. I travel that story westwards into Norse cultures, over to what is now UK and Ireland, and how that transformed into the cruel Witches propaganda.

When this Ale culture arrived in Egypt, it seemed to become taken over by the men, and perhaps this is why we may regard brewing as a ‘Male industry’  

Beer, with honey, as made by the Egyptians then, appears to have become a very lucrative trading currency for them then and Ale issued as a form of wages.

Egyptian beer was even put aside and saved to form part of a woman's Dowry to pass to a mate at marriage. This also seems to have been a two way ritual as in ancient Egyptian marriage contracts the husband also had to vow to the wife a guaranteed supply of honey through their marriage. So though Egyptian men had recognition for being brewers, it seems as if their wives wer the actual brewers. Another form of ‘ale house wives’, but in a very controlled form. In other cultures the ‘ale house wives’ were the most revered people of communities.

The transition of honey to cider rather than hops and other plants, to make mead seems to have origins with the Dogon tribe of Mali. 

Indeed we do know that the honey and apple cider mead making eventually became strong tradition here in Erin and from here, taken around Europe by druids and priests, for trading, and creating the ‘craic’.

Old Harps Tell Us What The Bees know

While the mythology of Bees comes to us abundantly from the Sumerians, Minoans, Egyptians and Romans, ancient Erin had an equally close relationship with bees and the life of bees.

An old gaelic word for bee is "bech",

a swarm of bees is "saithe"

and their hive was often called "corcog".

The courts of chieftains, kings and queens were regarded as sacred centers of beekeeping. Honey, along with apples, was a staple of the diet of the ancient Irish, long, long ago before potatoes.

Honey preserved meat and fish for the winter. It was added to hot milk to protect and preserve health often heated from the stirring of an iron poker to add iron and charcoal carbon from the ash to line and protect the stomach

All fresh food was dipped into bowls of honey on meal tables.

Mead was made from apples and honey as a ceremonial beverage,.

The High King's seat at Tara Hill had a special residence called 'The House of Mead Circling" and i think we have to imagine what happened there..

Old Brehon Laws, protected bees with "Bee-Judgement", a long set of specific regulations regarding the care and ownership of bees, swarms and hives.

There is an ancient tune called "Sith co Nemh", pronounced "sheeth coe nyev" described as a "bee charm" that "asks the bees what the druids know"

The story I heard was that a new beekeeper would go into the land and make a location as enticing as possible for the bees to be attracted to when they swarm in the spring. The charm is to encourage the bees to a built hive, or without a human made hive, to a branch on a tree to form a natural hive. It was believed that bees love the sound of music from the vibrations of bronze. So having an instrument with bronze strings around bees was essential.

One of the ancient Gaelic harps is known as a Clarsach. I have heard a tale of a Clarsach harp having it’s bronze strings tuned to the drone of bees so they would translate to the harp playing bard "what the bees know". From their response he or she could share the bee’s knowledge and wisdom with us.

Nymphs and Faeries Buzz Away

Referring back to Minoan life, its imagery and its tales there are tales of male bee gods too, as well as ‘bee maidens’.

The Bee Gods of the Minoans are said to have been transformed out of Bull heads, each one being a "Melissaios", a Bee Man or Bee God.

Many women are said to have been transformed into growing wings and become maidens of the Bee Goddess, each one being called "Melissa", simply another word that loosely translates as Dancing Bee.

Sometimes these Melissa Maidens are described as being nymphs. Later ancient Greeks transferred the name of "Melissa" to describe an unborn soul and the nymphs became winged maidens who looked after the sacred places where souls leaving this earth travel through.

The Melissaios, the Bee Gods cause me to wonder if their traditions transformed into the Horned Gods of the Gaels and Celts? Could there be images of transformation from Horned God Bulls to into Bees. Going from big horns to big antennae. I have seen images of Crom Dubh from the First Harvest legends looking like a a bee shaped worm with bull like horns, weaving through the underworld. The bull image said to once be of the Crom Dubh stone in Grange Circle in Co. Limerick is interesting for this too. 

The Melissa, the Bee Maidens, the nymphs who guide and protect souls, seem very similar to the Fairies and Faeries of Irish, Scottish and other British myths?

Much more to follow in ‘part 4’ …

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