A mythopoetic journey tracing the Olympian gods back through the Bronze Age, the Minoan world, Neolithic Eurasia, and the deep animistic cosmologies that shaped early humanity. Each week unwinds a familiar figure until only their oldest root systems remain.

HOMERIC HYMN 3: TO APOLLO (excerpt from trans. by Hugh G. Evelyn-White)

But when he had come to Pytho, beneath snowy Parnassus,
he came to a ridge, and beneath it ran a stream;
and there he resolved to make his temple,
and all men should bring hecatombs to him there.

And near by was a sweet flowing spring,
and there the lord, the son of Zeus, with his strong bow
shot the great dragon, a fierce and monstrous creature,
which used to do great mischief to men upon earth,
to men themselves and to their long-shanked sheep;
for she was a very bloody plague.

And the son of Zeus spoke boastfully over her:
“Now rot here upon the fruitful earth;
you shall not live nor plague mortal men any longer,
who shall bring perfect hecatombs to this place.
Neither shall Typhon nor foul Chimera save you from death,
but here shall the black earth and the shining sun consume you.

When I think of you, I see a serpent.

Who would have thought darkness could outshine light? I see you coiled, peacefully sleeping, your dreams the sprouting shoots of laurel. I think of the deep moan of a swarm as they follow the Dog Star home, while the grasses whither and the river beds crack with thirst.

The stories my people tell of you amour you in vengeance and glory. The honey dew of your flesh glistens now with the kleos of heroes. Your laurel masticated to strategise warfare and build empires. Now you are the serpent-slayer. The blazing light that ravages the darkness of your own sleep.

There are stories, too, of fathers eating their sons to prevent being overthrown; of brothers competing to the death for the favour of a throne; of nymphs of the deep forest and pure waters retreating back into the otherworld, leaving a wasteland in their wake.

Your old country lies buried. Your songs and dances, which once brought forth the seasons and accompanied women in procession up your mountain—their baskets brimming with your mysteries—now carry the idols of kings.

But I remember you sleeping, peaceful, as your brother Dionysus brought the rites of winter to their height. Your sleep honoured with honey wine and barley cakes kneaded with sesame and thyme.

I remember when your name was called out on the darkest night full of longing, bursting like bees from a hive in spring.

This Apollo—the sleeping serpent, the presence beneath the earth—is difficult to reconcile with the figure more familiar from classical Greek religion: the radiant archer, god of reason, measure, and light.