"All Those Who Make Their Living By Words" -- Susan Price
Here, I introduce you to your patron God.
Herald and Messenger
As the Gods’ Messenger, Hermes had to give the hard word to characters even worse than the average human king: to giants, witches, monsters and other Gods (who could be so difficult). Hermes was a diplomat, a fast, smooth talker, a charmer, a deft bender of the truth. As no doubt human heralds were.
Each herald carried a version of the God’s snake-wrapped staff, as a sign of the God's protection and a reminder that you really did not want to mess with the Olympian Gods. (You could end up as a shrubbery, or an interesting menagerie.) So, hands off the messenger, even if you hated the message.
The American Army and Naval Medical Corps adopted Hermes' staff as its symbol but they adopted the wrong staff. (I’m saying nothing.) Medicine was one of the few things Hermes-Mercury didn’t have much interest in (some, but not much). The Medical Corps should have taken the staff wound with a single snake: the symbol of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and son of Apollo.
Not that Hermes’ staff, with the extra snake, was entirely without its medical uses. A touch from it could send someone to sleep— or wake a sleeper.
Market and Home
Hermes was never short of things to keep Him busy. The words ‘mercantile’ and ‘merchant’ have their roots in His Roman name, Mercury, because He was the god of the market-place and trade. (Another area where charm and a little lee-way with the truth is helpful.) Images, like the one at the top of this blog, often show Him holding a purse of money.
(Left: an archaic Greek image of Hermes, showing Him as an adult, bearded man -- and minus the snakes and winged hat.)
He was the God of the home. Almost all Greek homes, and many Roman ones, had a ‘Herm’ at their door: an image of the God, signifying that the household was under His protection. Probably not to modern taste, a Herm was a square pillar with the God’s face at the top and, half-way down, an erect phallus. Which stood for [sorry] good luck, protection and fertility.
Hermes was also the God of athletes and scholars. He liked to mix things up.
The Traveller’s Protector
One of His most important roles was protecting travellers. In the ancient world, travel was essential for trade but dangerous, due to gangs of feral dogs and packs of bandits. Not to mention pirates. Travellers needed a god on the job, and Mercury-Hermes was usually shown (semi-)dressed for a journey, cloaked, and topped either by a helmet, or by the round hat typically worn by travellers. But Mercury’s titfer didn’t just have natty bird-wing decorations— it had living wings. As did His sandals.
Despite being one of His biggest fans since I was nine, I’ve never been clear whether we’re to understand the wings as being on the hat, or poking through it, like a donkey’s ears through its sunhat. Surely, if the wings were on the hat, the hat would fly off His head? — And, indeed, some ancient representations of Mercury show the wings growing through His curls, from His head.
The same question can be asked about the sandals: are the wings on the sandals or on the feet wearing the sandals? But since the sandals have a special name, Talaria, and were fashioned for Him from gold by the smith God, Hephaestus, it seems the wings were on the sandals. Controlling the wings on His head and the wings on His feet at the same time must have been at least as difficult as flying a helicopter.
(The winged sandals weren't unique to our lad. In the Odyssey, the warlike Goddess Athena also has winged sandals. Seems they were the Gods' equivalent of a little runabout.)
Thieves and Liars
Something we find rather startling today is that Hermes-Mercury was the god of thieves and liars.
Well, come on, somebody has to be. (I’m not a thief, but as a writer of fiction, I lie all the time and get paid for it. It’s good to know there’s a God on my side.)
The most likely reason for Hermes being the ‘God of thieves and liars’ is because He’s ‘a trickster god,’ like the Norse Loki. The British Puck is probably the remains of another such. Come to think of it, Puck not only puts that speedy girdle round the earth, he carries messages for Oberon and plays tricks on people. One folklorist theory about the belief in elves and fairies, is that they were a folk-memory of older, pre-Christian gods. Which makes world-girdling, message-carrying, trick-playing Puck a British version of Hermes.
Trickster-gods embodied the fact that life and the world are complicated. Sometimes an action taken with every good intention has disastrous results. And sometimes things done with bad intent can have unexpectedly good ends. In many Trickster myths the Trickster god, in playing a silly joke, or behaving in some shameful, anti-social way, accidentally brings about the invention of something valuable, such as the taming of fire to cook food.
While still a baby-god -- a godling? -- Hermes climbs from his cradle and steals Apollo’s cattle. He makes them walk backwards, so it will look as if they've been driven off in the opposite direction. (In some versions of the story, He ties brooms to their tails, so they sweep out their own tracks.)
At a good distance, He slaughters one of the cows, builds a fire, cooks some choice steaks and scoffs them.
He also happens on a tortoise, admires its beautiful shell, and kills it, so He can use the shell to make the first lyre -- strung with cattle-gut, presumably.
Then Apollo arrives, furious at the theft of His cattle. Hermes absolutely denies that He had anything to do with it. 'I'm just a new-born baby, I don't even know what a cow is.'
Apollo hauls Hermes before Zeus, King of the Gods, for judgement, but Hermes manages to sweet-talk both of them-- and makes a present of the lyre to Apollo, in compensation.
Killing the tortoise, you might justifiably say, was an act of wilful cruelty. But by it, Hermes, the Trickster, brought music out of death, creation out of destruction; and placed a beautiful musical instrument in the hands of the God of Music. -- And got away with stealing the cattle.
(This killing of the poor tortoise explains why the swiftest God of the Greeks was associated with, and often pictured with, an animal re-knowned for its slowness.)
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| Hermes putting on His sandals - Richmond |
Boundary-Walker
Hermes-Mercury, the messenger, was the only Olympian god allowed to move freely between Olympus, Earth and the Land of the Dead, Hades' kingdom. (The others needed permission from the rulers of those realms.)
This freedom made Hermes a ‘boundary walker,’ a ‘boundary-crosser.’ For all His classical dress, He was a ancient shaman-god, a bargainer with ghosts, a traveller to other worlds.
He frequently crossed one boundary that is still mysterious to us: that between Sleep and Waking. We know that sleep is important, even vital, for us, but we still don’t have a full understanding of why. Nor do we fully understand why we dream.
Our Lad could freely cross the border into the Land of Dreams, (which neighboured Hades). In Dream-Land, the gods of Sleep and ‘the Tribe of Dreams’ mill about, producing visions which troop out through the Gates of Ivory (deceptive, untrue dreams) and the Gates of Horn (true, predictive dreams) to inflict themselves on mankind. Hermes-Mercury, the divine courier, collects specific dreams and escorts them to the person intended to be troubled by them.
Psychopomp
Arguably, Hermes-Mercury’s most important job was as psychopomp, a ‘soul-leader.’ That is, He guided the spirits of the newly-dead to the Other World. Maybe He’s simply protecting travellers again—after all, you want a friendly guide on the road to Hades, an Insider to help you fix a price with the ferry-man. Homer calls Him, ‘Hermes the Helpful.’
I imagine he assembles a large party of the newly-dead and then takes them all to Hades together, pointing out the 'Must See After You Die' sights.
Psychopomping is presumably also part of His job as messenger. There you are, minding your own business, when suddenly Hermes appears with the message, ‘Time’s up! Come this way…’ Personally, I hope He does. A good-looking, helpful, leggy lad, giving me a hand down the steep difficult bits on the track to Hades? I’m all for it.
Anything else?— Oh, He was the God of herds and herdsmen and was sometimes shown carrying a lamb. And He carried the new-born baby godling Dionysus, away into hiding.
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| Saint Christopher - Bosch |
A guide and help to travellers, carrying a baby on His shoulder? -- Christians turned this very popular god into Saint Christopher.
So, Hermes is the God who:—
Protects Homes
Carries Messages
Oversees Trade and the Market-Place
Protects and Inspires Scholars and Athletes
Guards and Guides Travellers
Protects and Inspires Thieves and Liars
Guides the Dead to the Next World
Brings Dreams to Those Meant to Dream Them and
Watches out for Sheep, Goats and Shepherds.
And right down at the very end of this long list of jobs is added, as a bit of an after-thought, for when He had a spare moment:
‘and Patron God of All Those Who Make Their Living by Words.’
I was glad to discover this, as He was always my favourite god, ever since I first met Him in primary school, when I avidly read and re-read a collection of Greek Myths for a whole year. Keep your Enid Blyton. I wanted to read about the Argonauts again. And the Minotaur. And the Wooden Horse...
It never crossed my mind back then that I would spend most of my adult life ‘making my living by words’ under the patronage of Hermes.
God of both home and travel, speeding across the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness, bringing with Him dreams and ideas… The God of thieves, helping to steal a good bit from another writer (and then disguise it so no one will guess). And what’s the difference between lying and making things up so people believe them?
I think ‘The Helper’ has done right by me all these years. And since written works count as offerings to the God of words, I've done pretty fair by Him too.
Still, I probably owe Him some olive oil or even wine. Wine, I think. I can help Him out by drinking it for Him when He has to whiz off on some errand.
And He's Still Flying
It was while writing this piece that I was somewhat startled to discover that the Olympian Gods are being worshipped, at this moment, all over Europe and America.
‘Hellenic worship’ was revived in Greece, in the 18th Century, when there was a craze for all things Classical, rather as ‘Druidic worship’ was re-invented, from much less evidence, in the same century. Both have gone on from there.
On Reddit and Quora there are forums where people give each other tips on how to set up an altar to Aphrodite, Zeus or Hermes, or the rest of the Olympian gang, plus advice on how to worship them. They catch us up on how the Gods answered their prayers, or excitedly recount what Hermes said to them in a dream. (He’s quite chatty and flirty, altogether a good laugh, apparently. Well, He would be.)
In Greece, a new temple is being built to Hermes, and the Greek Orthodox (Christian) Church, predictably, is being rather dog-in-the-manger and spoil-sport about it.
Honestly, why shouldn't people worship Our Lad, if they feel like it? They might get a book, or at least a short story out of it. (But lock up your cattle and tortoises.)
The Church is wasting its time. They’re never going to out-run Him.
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That's Hermes in the front. Here, He seems to have dispensed with sandals: the wings grow from his ankles. Hard to say whether the upper wings are on hat or head. I don't know who the characters reclining on the cloud in the background are.
 The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price A twenty-first-century corporation invades the domain of a warlike sixteenth-century Scottish clan in this “brilliantly imagined” time-travel adventure. Philip Pullman.
 The Carnegie Medal Winning Modern Classic Alone in a world of darkness and ice, a shaman and a prince long for an end to loneliness. In the darkest hour of a freezing Midwinter, a night-walking witch begs a slave-woman to give away her new-born baby. The Czar of this cold realm fears his new-born son, Safa, will out-do him, and so imprisons the baby at the top of a tall tower, to live and die there without ever glimpsing the real world. to give away her new-born baby. |
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