We spent last month in Bulgaria. I spent most of that time working on book covers and getting organized – it seems like a long time ago but it was only last month I finally finished my PhD and we flew pretty much straight here.
Plovdiv is a charming, comfortable little town, then we spent a week exploring the mountains and history. My novel Orpheum is set in Bulgaria, so we wanted to see the ancient Thracian ruins, the Devil’s cave (where Orpheus is set to have gone into Hell to save his love), and some other sites where Orpheus and Dionysus were worshiped. Now we’re in Sofia, finishing up our trip.
Dionysus and orpheus
Orpheus and Dionysus are different figures, both connected with Thracian religious traditions. Orpheus is the legendary musician who descends to the underworld to recover Eurydice. Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstatic worship, known to the Romans as Bacchus.
That distinction matters when following their stories through Bulgaria. The cave tradition concerns Orpheus and his lost love; the wine god in the amethyst story is Dionysus under his Roman name. Shared places of worship do not make them the same character.
How Orpheus and Dionysus are connected
They are not the same figure, but they are tied together in the myths. In one tradition, Orpheus was a follower of Dionysus, and some versions make him a priest of the god. The two were worshiped at some of the same Thracian sites.
In one telling, the connection has a brutal ending. When Orpheus gave up on women after losing Eurydice, the maenads, the female followers of Dionysus, tore him apart in a frenzy. In that telling the god himself set them on him. His head was thrown into the river Hebrus and kept singing as it floated away. That is the part that links the singer to the wine god.
For the descent itself, and the look back that lost her, read Orpheus and Eurydice’s full story.
The Thracian sites where both were worshiped
Our trip took in ancient Thracian ruins and other sites where Orpheus and Dionysus were worshiped. The Devil’s Cave is the one tied to Orpheus going down for Eurydice.
If you want the wider map of gods and legends, the mythology guides by culture collect them.
At Perperikon, I learned a great story about the creation of amethyst (so I bought one):
The name Amethyst derives from the Greek word ametusthos, meaning “not intoxicated,” and comes from an ancient legend. The wine god Bacchus, angry over an insult and determined to avenge himself decreed the first person he should meet would be devoured by his tigers. The unfortunate mortal happened to be a beautiful maiden named Amethyst on her way to worship at the shrine of Diana. As the ferocious beasts sprang, she sought the protection of the goddess and was saved by being turned into a clear, white crystal. Bacchus, regretting his cruelty, poured the juice of his grapes over the stone as an offering, giving the gem its lovely purple hue.We also spent a week in this amazing writing retreat – an apartment we rented in the Southern Rhodope mountains. Not easy to get to, but worth it. I hope to finish part 2 of Orpheum this year!
WORK IN PROGRESS...
