Some time ago after some online text-conversations with my colleague Sartrix, I realized that the assignment of Scorpio III to Kairos, the god of opportunity, was probably wrong… and it was probably the Korybantes or Kouretes or Dioscuri — the name given to the masculine spirits of wild and dangerous places, in much the same way that the nymphs are the feminine spirits of wild but ‘relatively safe’ places.
Where the Nymphs (associated with Scorpio I) get woodland glades and the pools at the bottom of waterfalls, the Korybantes get the slippery rocks at the top of waterfalls and the more dangerous parts of the forest. Where Nymphs get the placid, sandy beaches where only light and easy waves come ashore, the Kouretes get the rocky beaches that regularly get the big eleven-foot rollers that surfers appreciate.
Nymphs, in other words, rule those wild places where you feel calm and relaxed and believe you can let down your guard. The Kouretes, though, might give you a broken arm if you aren’t paying attention every single moment you’re in their territory. And that’s assuming they let you leave alive.
In Greek mythology, it’s sometimes hard to tell when an author is talking about the Dioscuri, the Kouretes, or the Korybantes. These three groups overlap and inter-relate in many ways. The Dioscuri are usually understood to be just the Divine Twins named Castor and Pollux. Under those names, these gods were so closely associated with Sparta that almost every Greek city-state had their own local variant of the Twins. The modern association with Castor and Pollux as the exclusive deities seems to be the result of a formal effort by Roman imperial authorities to clean up and unify the legendarium of the Twins.
The Korybantes, on the other hand, were a group of masculine wild spirits who stood at the mouth of a cave (usually but not always on Crete) and made a lot of loud noise to keep Kronos from hearing the cries of his infant son Zeus. Dancing naked except for their swords that they clashed on shields of bronze, they stirred up the summer whirlwind and brought on the fall of autumn leaves and the storms of winter and the rains of spring. Where the Horae of Taurus II brought on the delightful changes of one season to another, the Korybantes activated the more dreadful and risky weather that destroyed crops and tore houses down.
The Kouretes or Curetes, finally, were both the masculine spirits of wild places, and also understood as the ‘guardian geniuses’ of young men between roughly the ages of 14 and 30, who were expected to form the core of a Greek city-state’s military force but lacked the battle-tested readiness of veterans — these spirits, like the mortals over whom they presided, needed to learn obedience to their elders, discipline and self-control — but not at the cost of their personal bravery, initiative, athleticism, aggression, or loyalty. The goal was to test and train and bend these spirits (like their mortal counterparts!) to the needs and expectations of the city in which they dwelled.
A tall order, to express the powers of all three of these in a single poem!
That challenge underlay the basic reason I hadn’t written a hymn to these Kouretes/Korybantes, despite years going by. Today felt like the day to write it, though, as I prepare to put together a “Big Book of Ritual” for people doing the Decans Walk my way. That hymn is here, and I’m providing it free to all readers, so that even those who did the Decans Walk years ago and have since left the Patreon still have access to it.
If you want access to the other 35 hymns of the Decans (along with the training materials in magic I created alongside them), they’re available at the $5 tier and higher through my Patreon.
Hymn to the Korybantes (Scorpio III)
Hail, Korybantés, wild lords of place, who rule the dangerous localities: To y’all we ascribe a masculine face — muscles and bearded physicalities, lustful, carnal pride, and blithe, hastened rage. Whirlpool and placid stream drown the reckless; the woods are full of widow-making limbs; most wolves haven’t known the zookeeper’s cage; cliffs can kill both the cautious and feckless; and deserts eat men who live by their whims. We honor you, who call up storms and rain, who send both the rockfall and lightning flash, who fan chimney sparks to burn the whole plain, who laugh in delight when oaks char to ash or lava spews molten from hell’s own mouth. The Earth bucks and buckles where your dances stir up violent whirlwinds from west to east, fracture her crust, splinter her north and south. On your turf we take no needless chances; you treat each mortal as a toy — or feast. Great Kouretés, take our caution as praise, our wariness in your fiefdoms as pray’r: with our careless flames you set all ablaze, and sacrifice men to snake, shark, and bear when they’re disrespectful on your soil. Help me be mindful in wild domains nor come to your battlegrounds unprepared, lest your savage snare around me coil. We mortals succeed not with brawn, but brains — and from your wrath, no idiot is spared.
