The intarwebs have brought me an interestingly obscure mythy fact for you!

Amethyst is a purple stone that can be either opaque or translucent. Its name stems from a Greek myth about Bacchus pouring his purple wine over a woman who had been turned into a white gemstone.

The article is by MelanieM and up at Bukisa.com.

In verifying the mythy bit, I found a much more extensive article at Designer Celtic Jewelry:

The lore of amethyst is intimately rooted in Bacchus, the ecstatic god of fertility and wine, and the patron of tragedy. In a myth recounted by a sixteenth century French poet dedicated to King Henry the third, Bacchus was walking about with his tiger in one of those bad moods that a god can find himself in from time to time….

The Reflective Images, Inc. article has sources: Curious Lore of Precious Stones by George Frederick Kunz; and Gems in Myth, Legend and Lore, by Bruce Knuth.

I found an interesting blog called, amusingly, ARCHAEOLOGY. It’s a new blog started this year, and the author, who is profile-less, has detailed and what looks like excellent information on Ancient Thrace. There are no sources, however, so go with your gut if you need an authority.

Oki, this blog is very close to my heart: CreativeMythology: Creating Personal Mythology. Make sure to check out this entry about Oceanus. Hop on over and show some love: I plan to!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under the story of myth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.