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Dec. 1st, 2006 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperThis one's for the Greek mythology geeks out there. Here's the deal--ambrosia and nectar. Food and drink of the gods, right? Ambrosia in particular being the stuff that shows up repeatedly as both sustaining the immortals and conferring immortality as well, for example in that neat little myth about Demeter trying to confer immortality on a baby by anointing him in ambrosia and sticking him in a hearth.
My question is this--if ambrosia's such nifty stuff, it would stand to reason that somebody makes it. It surely can't just be lying around. So is there some deity, greater or lesser, who hangs out making ambrosia and nectar while all the major Olympians are snogging mortals or each other, causing earthquakes and tidal waves, and starting wars?
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solarbird, whose Google fu is vastly superior to my own, has pointed me at a few intriguing leads involving Hebe and Ganymede as cupbearers of the gods, serving this stuff on Olympus. But that only tells me that it was their job to bring the stuff, not necessarily that they made it. But Dara did also find another reference to Hebe having a magical chalice that apparently just generated ambrosia, as well as several references seeming to indicate that the Greeks were basing the tales of ambrosia off of actual honey. And she found yet another reference that suggests that no actual description of the making of ambrosia ever showed up in classical Greek myths.
How about it, folks? Anybody got some solid references? Less solid references? Amusing guesses vaguely in the ballpark? Sing out!
(Disclaimer: Of course, none of this is directly pertinent to the story I'm writing except in the sense that my version of Hephaestus has a stock of ambrosia laid up at his place, which led me to think that he has to get it from somewhere. I don't think I actually need to specify this as an on-camera detail, but hell, I might! Plus, I'm just curious!)
My question is this--if ambrosia's such nifty stuff, it would stand to reason that somebody makes it. It surely can't just be lying around. So is there some deity, greater or lesser, who hangs out making ambrosia and nectar while all the major Olympians are snogging mortals or each other, causing earthquakes and tidal waves, and starting wars?
solarbird, whose Google fu is vastly superior to my own, has pointed me at a few intriguing leads involving Hebe and Ganymede as cupbearers of the gods, serving this stuff on Olympus. But that only tells me that it was their job to bring the stuff, not necessarily that they made it. But Dara did also find another reference to Hebe having a magical chalice that apparently just generated ambrosia, as well as several references seeming to indicate that the Greeks were basing the tales of ambrosia off of actual honey. And she found yet another reference that suggests that no actual description of the making of ambrosia ever showed up in classical Greek myths.How about it, folks? Anybody got some solid references? Less solid references? Amusing guesses vaguely in the ballpark? Sing out!
(Disclaimer: Of course, none of this is directly pertinent to the story I'm writing except in the sense that my version of Hephaestus has a stock of ambrosia laid up at his place, which led me to think that he has to get it from somewhere. I don't think I actually need to specify this as an on-camera detail, but hell, I might! Plus, I'm just curious!)
