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.Theunfortunate ram was then sacrificed, and its wonderful fleece offered to the king of that country,Aeetes, who hung it on a tree and set a dragon to guard it night and day.Meanwhile at loichus in Thessaly, one Jason, attempting to win back part of his rightful heritage of the kingdom from his wicked uncle Pelias, was set the task of finding and bringing back theGolden Fleece.With the help of Hera and Athene he built a fifty-oared ship called the Argo, inwhich he had set a bough of the prophetic oak of Zeus at Dodona.Among his heroic crew werethe Dioscouroi, setting the mushroom seal firmly upon the myth.After many adventures theArgonauts managed to lull the dragon and seize the Fleece and make good their escape, with thehelp of the king s daughter Medea, who went with them.She married Jason and they livedhappily for ten years before the hero fell in love with another and abandoned Medea.She avengedherself by sending the new bride a costly robe which, immediately it was put on, consumed herwith inextinguishable fire.2The ram was a prime symbol of fecundity in the ancient world but this story illustrates another ofits virtues: its hair was of great importance for weaving outer garments and tent-cloths.InSumerian the same word DARA is used of the animal and for hair dyed red.When the lattersignificance was required a determinative SIG, hair , could be put before the word.From thereversed combination DARA-SIG, the Greeks obtained their word for hair generally, thrix,through*tra_igs.s Properly it meant red hair and it is probably with this sense that a similarly derivedword Thraikos is used of the people of Thrace, the Thracians , the red headed people .4Dionysus was a Thracian god,5 and his frantic Maenads were called Threiciae.But the referencehere is probably not primarily to the homeland of the cult but to the red-cloaked Amanitamuscaria that sent them berserk.This may have been what Josephus had in mind in a particularreference to the Jewish priest king Alexander Jannaeus.Following an abortive revolt by hisJewish subjects against him, the king is said to have crucified eight hundred of his subjects inJerusalem, about the year 83 BC.So, says Josephus, the people called him a Thracian .6 Thismay have been an allusion to a suspicion that he was an eater of the sacred mushroom himself, orto the popular imagery that linked the mushroom with the cross of crucifixion.It would seemI 19THE SACRED MUSHROM AND THE CROSSfrom one of the names given by Dioscorides to the Mandrake that i,/ was also called by the name Thracian .68 It would be interesting to know if the people of Thrace, apart from their religiousinterest in the red haired Amanita muscaria, were themselves redheaded as their nameimplies.Certainly they were famed for their viciousness on the field of battle, and it is interestingthat the idea that associates red headed people with quick tempers persists even to this day.7In the Old Testament, the story of how the crafty, smooth-skinned Jacob managed to trick his red,rough-skinned brother Esau out of his birthright is another presentation of the red-cloaked mushroom theme in mythology.But Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, Behold my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am asmooth8 man.Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring acurse upon myself and not a blessing. His mother said to him, Upon me be your curse, my son;only obey my word, and go, fetch them (the kids) to me. So he went and took them and broughtthem to his mother; and his mother prepared savoury food, such as his father loved.ThenRebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and putthem on Jacob her younger son; and the skins of the kids she put on his hands and upon thesmooth part of his neck; and she gave the savoury food and the bread, which she had prepared,into the hand of her son Jacob.So he went in to his father, and said, My father ; and he said, Here I am; who are you, myson? Jacob said to his father, I am Esau your first-born. Then Isaac said, Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or nt. So Jacob went near toIsaac his father, who felt him and said, The voice is Jacob s voice, but the hands are the hands ofEsau. And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau s handy.(Gen 27:11 23).Esau s name, as we may now recognizes from the Sumerian*E-ShU-A, raised canopy ,9 a fitting epithet for one who represented in mythical form the capof the Amanita muscaria, as his brother Jacob (Sumerian *IA.A_GTJB, pillar ) was themushroom stem.10 The redness of his skin is remarked upon in the story of the twinsbirth:And Isaac prayed to Yahweh for his wife, because she was barren; andYahweh granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.The children120COLOUR AND CONSISTENCYstruggled within her and she said, if it be thus why do I live? So she went to enquire ofYahweh, and Yahweh said to her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples born of youshall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger. Whenher days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins in her womb.The first came forthall red, all his body like a hairy mantle;11 so they called his name Esau (Gen 25:21 25).So striking was the colour of the cap of the Amanita muscaria that it gave its name to red orpurple dyes in the ancient world.Of such was the Greek phoinix, the Phoenix , name of thepalm tree, the bird, and the Levantine coast, as well as a famous purple dye.As we shall see, theGreek word was derived from a Sumerian phrase mighty man holding up the sky , a fancifuldescriptive epithet of the mushroom.12 The Latin tablion, also, denoting the purple fringe ofauthority, derives also from the Sumerian *TAB_BA_LI, literally double-cone , or cup beingthe two halves of the split mushroom volva.13 Of particular interest for our study is the Sumerianword GAN-NU, used of the red dye cochineal.14 This, also, derives very probably from the redtop of the Amanita muscaria, since GAN also means a cone or hemispherical shape, such as thelid of a bowl,1 or a woman s breast.It is from this latter use in the fuller Sumerian phrase AGAN, breast , that Greek obtained its name for the mushroom, Amanita, properly the breast shapedobject , referring to the cap.16From the Sumerian GAN-NU, denoting the red dye, came the Hebrew word khJnün for the redcap or daub put as a protection on the head of ewes in pasture.17 Such a red cap well describedthe pileus of the Arnanita muscaria, and it provided a most useful epithet for the sacredmushroom to the New Testament myth-makers.For khjnan looks exactly like another Semiticword meaning be gracious , source of many personal names in the Old Testament, like Khãnãn,Hanan; KhJnün, Hanun; Khannah, Hannah; Yo-khJnJn ( Yahweh has been gracious ), John(Greek Iöannës) , and so on.18 Thus, seeking Semitic personal names for their characters in theGospel stories, the writers had in these gracious Old Testament names a rich store from whichto choose.We have thus an Anna , and Annas and several Johns .The colour reference ofthe latter name is particularly clear in the case of John, the brother of James, the Boanerges
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