Dionysos Bakcheios came to Skythia
with graceful Pasithea, his green-haired daughter.
They were dressed in the native, barbaric fashion
– wolfskin cloaks hung with bells and baubles
of bone and amber beads, and gold rings through their nostrils –
and they rode speedy mounts, one horse black and one white.
They came to the camp of the King of the Borysthenes
while the man was mourning the death of his eight brave sons
in battle with the Daughters of the Moon
who harried the southern borders of their hunting lands.
In gratitude for the meal of roast pig and mare’s milk
the vagabond pair were offered, they taught the Borysthenes
viticulture and Pasithea clipped off nine sections of her hair.
The first eight she tucked into the mouths of the brave young lads
who’d perished in defense of their land. Then she bid the father
give their bodies to the flame and inhale the fragrant fumes
that rose from the pyre; then the man would be able to
converse with his boys no matter how far the seeming divide
between them. The ninth she planted in their soil,
a memorial.
While Pasithea remained with the Borysthenes
teaching the tribesmen how to care
for both her and her father’s sacred foliage,
Bakcheios went off to visit a woman who lived
on the edge of the forest, sharing her abode
with five dwarfs who worked the mines
in the mountain belonging to the Great Mother of the region.
They were slaves of the rose-red girl,
and she worked them hard,
whipping them often.
All the people nearby feared her,
and wished her dead.
So Dionysos put on the miter and veil
and Median silks of a Mother’s mendicant beggar
and knocked at fair Rhodope’s door.
“Here,” he said in a falsely lilting voice,
extending to her a juicy gold apple.
“The first one’s free.”
And then he giggled, turned on his high heels,
and skipped off, beating an odd tune on his hand-drum.
“How queer,” the girl said to herself, biting into the apple
– she did not get to finish her thought, but instead fell into a deep slumber.
When the five smith brothers returned
they rejoiced to find their cruel mistress slain,
or close enough to it. They smashed their chains
with hammer and sickle, then Dactyl brothers ran off
to find their distant home where milk and wine flowed freely,
it is always spring on the flower-strewn plain,
Nymphs bathe in the waterfalls,
and veins of gold run thick within the mountain
of Nysa, their much-loved home.
They made it as far as Chersonēsos before they were captured
when someone set out a bowl of milk and honey for them.
Through sinister magics they were forced to forge
Hervör’s baleful blade Tyrfing,
some ring Alberich later took credit for,
and the Spear of Destiny too.
Afterwards they were turned into Kobolds
by a Langobard wizard, never to return to Nysa.
When Dionysos descended through the pitch black shafts
to bring back his veterans, they did not recognize him,
but ran and hid instead.
He did not wish to cause them further fear and confusion,
so with a heavy heart he let them be
and followed the seagull and crow to Kiev.
