Erysisomethingoranother & Hunger

So the story starts out with Erysichthon finding himself in the sacred grove of Ceres. He tells the narrator to cut down the tree. The narrator tries telling him that the tree is sacred and that it belongs to Ceres. Erysichthon tells him that he doesn't care about the importance of the tree and if it was Ceres herself he would still cut the tree down! The narrator is still concerned so goes on to beg Erysichthon to not cut the tree down and Erysichthon's reply to this was, "Get off me, you pious son of a bitch!" which proves that this Erysichthon guy is a jerk.

Finally we get some decent characters! Ha ha, just kidding. I think.

So this guy Erysichthon is just a jerk and the tree does end up getting cut down and the entire time, Ceres was watching the whole thing.

Then an amazing thing happens, the tree comes to life! Or at least the tree spirit floats around talking and tells Erysichthon that he will regret what he did, but Erysichton is all like, "Oh, now I'm really frightened," making this story probably the most original story in the book. It sounds so modern which I actually like.

The goddess who heard everything, including what the tree spirit told Erysichthon, turned her mind to torments she could use on Erysichthon. Ceres comes up with the idea to torment Erysichthon with Hunger. So Hunger comes and clings to his back, making him always starving hungry, so hungry that he sold his mother to buy more food.

The mother while behind her new master in a small boat calls out a prayer to Poseidon (who is my favorite god by the way) and the god remembering her as a little girl, pulls her under and turns her into a little girl again who swims to shore. A legend followed this after many years saying that to this day, you can still sometimes see the little girl playing in the waves.

So going back to Erysichthon, even with the the money he had earned from selling his mother, it was not enough. And then a very surprising and almost creepy ending happens. The goddess comes forwards and brings to Erysichthon a silver tray with a knife and fork along with a vase holding a rose and this is where the story reverts to cannibalism. Yeah, you heard me right. Erysichthon puts his own foot on the platter and-well, you know the rest.

Now going back to what I said before about this being one of the most original stories in the book, well, I take that back.