The Flood of Orpheus

Ivan Marazov  (Bulgaria)

Abstract

This paper examines some of the ancient evidence of floods in association with major mythical figures from the northern Aegean area. During ancient times these lands were inhabited by Thracians and Macedonians. It was here, where the mythical singer Orpheus was celebrated, that some of the biggest centers of the mystery of the Kabeiroi were located. Dynastic myths were enacted where the flood appears in each of three mythological cycles. The interpretation of this material is impossible without contextualizing it in terms of the mythology of similar disasters found in the rest of the Indo-European world. Since the topic is enormous, I shall dwell on one of these mythical water catastrophes that I shall refer to as “the flood of Orpheus.”