Comfort me with apples
Golden Apples are a familiar element in legends and folk tales. Usually, a hero has to retrieve them to marry the King's daughter, fulfill his destiny, liberate those held in thrall, or to save the world from evil.
These days apples are common, we give an apple to the teacher, or eat one a day to keep the doctor away.
No longer do we believe that apples are gifts from the gods or guarded by dragons, and we know that apples don't magically heal wounds or make us irresistibly beautiful.
Nor, sadly, will one bite from an apple grant us eternal youth.
"Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love." -- Song of Solomon 2:5
Apples of the Garden of the Hesperides
The eleventh Labour of Hercules
Hera, Queen of Olympus, had an orchard in the west called the Garden of the Hesperides, somewhere toward the sunset, at the very edge of the world. It was here that a grove of immortality-giving golden apples grew.The eleventh Labour of Hercules was to steal the apples from this garden.
These apples were guarded by the Hesperides, lovely nymphs who were the daughters of Atlas, the Titan who held the sky and the earth upon his shoulders.
Hera also placed in the garden a never- sleeping, hundred- headed dragon, named Ladon, as an additional safeguard.
Our hero journeyed through Libya, Egypt, Arabia and Asia, having numerous blood -chilling adventures along the way. You don't want to hear about these long and bloody adventures just now, let's stick with those apples! Finally, acting on advice, Hercules asked Atlas to go and fetch the apples.
Poor fatigued Atlas hated holding up the sky and the earth so much that he jumped at the chance of a break. He thankfully passed his burden over to Hercules, but, on returning with the apples, he wanted Hercules to stay there and hold the heavy load for eternity.
Hercules slyly agreed, but asked Atlas to take back the sky again, just for a moment, while the hero put some soft padding on his shoulders to help him bear the weight of the sky and the earth. Atlas put the apples on the ground, and lifted the burden onto his own shoulders.
And so Hercules picked up the apples and quickly ran off!
But these golden apples of immortality belonged to the gods and, after all the trouble Hercules went through to get them, he had to return them to Athena, who took them back to the garden at the edge of the world.
And that is where they are today. If you can find them, you will gain the gift of eternal life.
Atalanta and the Golden Apples
Don't be distracted from your purpose
Atalanta, like Artemis, was an excellent runner, archer and hunter. (It's even said that she was one of the Argonauts but can you see Jason, that boastful teenager, allowing a woman on his ship?) In any case, Atalanta's father was proud of her skills in masculine activities and took her back to his palace.
Now that she was a princess, she was expected to marry, but Atlanta, very sensibly, did not want a husband.
Atalanta has a plan
Atalanta swore that she would race any suitors and the one who beat her would be the lucky man to marry her, but if she won, she would kill the losers.
One youth, Melanion, a little smarter than the others, went to Aphrodite for assistance. The goddess gave him a loan of three golden apples (the very same from the Garden of the Hesperides). During the race, whenever Atalanta would get ahead of Melanion, he would drop one of the golden apples, and Atalanta would stop and pick it up.
Her frequent stops gave Melanion the advantage he needed. He won the race. Alas! Atalanta had to marry him.
The Apple of Discord
Always make sure you invite everyone to a wedding
The most famous mythological apple is the Apple of Discord. You may know of it as the Judgement of Paris. Oh dear! What a tragic tale.
The story starts with one of those foolish mistakes that can happen to anyone, anywhere and anytime. A party is planned. Someone is left off the invitation list. Mayhem follows.
It was the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. All the gods and goddesses of Olympus were invited - except for one - and she was Eris, the Goddess of Discord. (This Eris was troublesome at the best of times - and indeed was the personification of trouble and strife. Some of her children were Ponos, Spirit of hard labour, Lethe, Spirit of forgetfulness and Limos, Spirit of starvation)
Furious at not being invited, Eris turned up anyway and tossed among the guests a golden apple with the inscription, Kallisti, meaning For the Fairest
Should Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, get the apple? Or should Hera, Queen of the Olympians, win it? Or perhaps Athena, the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom, should have the prize. As they were all beautiful goddesses, this was not an easy decision.
The Judgement of Paris
A decision which started a war
Rubens, Judgement of Paris, c. 1636
A squabble broke out. Zeus decided to send them to an independent arbitrator to decide which of them deserved the apple. No god was foolish enough to take this role, so it went to a simple-minded human shepherd named Paris.
Each goddess offered the lad a gift if he would just choose her. What did they offer?
Athena offered Heroic Victories, for now and always
Hera offered all of the knowledge in the whole world
Aphrodite promised the gift of attraction, that no woman could ever resist him
Paris, a mere mortal man, took Aphrodite's offer.
Hera and Athena, the rejected goddesses, were furious and caused great devastation to Paris and his family. And we know what that meant - the Trojan War!
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The story of Troy has been told over and over in a thousand ways. I grew up with the walls of Troy more real than my own backyard fence. Indeed the backyard fence was the wall of Troy and I was always Kassandra, wailing piteously, when all I ever wan...
Isle of Avalon
In Britain, apples are most identified with the Island of Avalon, whose name is derived from the Welsh word for apple: afal (pronounced aval).Avalon was the Otherworld home of one of the Celtic Underworld Gods, Afallach. Both names relate to the Apples that grew in this mystical land of the dead and show Avalon's relationship to other legendary realms such as the Garden of the Hesperides.
Obviously, this is where a Celtic King, such as Arthur, would go when near to death.
Avalon, it is said, is where the mortally wounded Arthur is taken to be healed, a place where there is ever sunlight and warm breezes, the land is lush with vegetation, and the inhabitants never age nor know pain or injury
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Arthur and Britain : Lensography of Legends
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Who was King Arthur? Well, to begin with, there was not one Arthur, but many. There was an historical Arthur, or, if you prefer, a folkloric or mythological Arthur who came to be mistaken for a living person. Christopher Snyder : The World of King A...
In Praise of Apples
A Harvest of History, Horticulture and Recipes
In Praise of Apples: A Harvest of History, Horticulture & Recipes
Amazon Price: $19.95 (as of 12/22/2009)
A practical book! Learn how to select, plant and care for apple trees in a backyard orchard and prepare fine apple dishes, juice and tangy vinegar.
Sixty recipes including cider barbecued prawns, roasted capon with apple butter and apple fritters with calvados cream.
Iduna's Apples
More apples of eternal youth
In Norse mythology, Iduna, wife of Bragi the Poet, was the goddess of eternal youth and the guardian of the precious golden apples.
If any of the gods felt the approach of old age, they only had to taste of one of these apples to remain young. She was abducted by a giant and the other gods aged rapidly. Loki was sent to rescue her so that she might restore youth again.
And restore youth she did, and will continue to do so until Ragnarok, when the world ends.
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Nordic Mythology : Best Books of Skandinavian Stories
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The Norse myths are peopled with all sorts of fantastic beings - gods and giants, elves, dwarves and dragons! Like all mythology, if we pay close attention to what the stories are saying, we learn a great deal about what our ancestors thought was im...
The Volsunga Saga
Sigurd of the Volsungs and the Volsunga apples
The apple as a symbol of riches, fertility and long life, appears in the Volsunga Saga, a 13th century Icelandic epic of the origin and decline of the Volsung clan.
In the beginning of the Saga, an apple was dropped by a goddess into the lap of a king who prayed for a son. The son who was then born had a great apple tree in the centre of his hall symbolising the continuance of the family.
(It didn't turn out quite the way the Volsungs imagined, but that's a story for another day)
Have you ever read one of the sagas? Thrilling tales. We are mostly familiar with the stories of the ancient Greeks but the chronicles of the North have an allure all of their own.
You can read The Story of the Volsungs - online translated by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (Walter Scott Press, London, 1888). Originally written in Icelandic (Old Norse) in the thirteenth century by an unknown hand, most of the material is based substantially on previous works, some centuries older.
Apples Galore!
Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness. -- Jane Austen
An apple a day ...
Why not upset the apple cart? If you don't the apples will rot anyway
Apples come in many colours, shapes, sizes, degrees of crispness, sourness and sweetness. The beauty of the apple is that its taste will change from year to year depending on the growing conditions, and the flavour will even be a little different from apple tree to apple tree.
Go out and get an apple. They're good for you. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
And remember what Horace, the ancient Roman philosopher, advised : Whatever variety of apple you choose, the best of apples are those picked by the light of the waning moon.
Leave your comment for Apples in Mythology
Finish your apple first, never speak with your mouth full
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Reply
- ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen Oct 18, 2009 @ 6:22 am
- Great reading. I read a lot but I never read the Vosunga Sage before. Now that you've got me thinking about apples...I haven't made apple crisp in a while....
Thanks for sharing.
Lizzy
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Reply
- Mortira Mortira Apr 13, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
- My favorite apple story is "The Golden Bird", or "De gouden vogel", a dutch fairy tale about loyalty and commen sense. This is a wonderful collection of apple legends! I've rolled this over to my lens on Twilight. * * * * *
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Reply
- a_willow a_willow Mar 18, 2009 @ 7:42 am
- You made an extraordinary lens about ordinary fruit! :)
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