How to Make a Good Story With Honey Part I

  You don't think of the ancient world when you think about honey, but maybe you would if you knew some of its better stories.  Practically all early cultures used honey, whether for eating or ritual ceremonies. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Chinese all used this bee product quite liberally. Today, I would like to present a couple of accounts of honey in stories to show how something as mundane as this can be used to build up a good story.  First we will look at honey as a healing power and then we will look at honey as a metaphor.

     The Kalevala  by Elias Lonnrot, is considered by many as one of the greatest works of Finnish literature. It is a work of epic poetry composed in the the 1830's that tells of creation, magic and other things associated with Norse Epic Poetry.  One of the main figures in the poem is Wainamoinen, a hero figure who was probably a shaman. The following is a piece of the Kalevala dealing with honey.

There were nine diseases in Northland:
"Colic, Pleurisy and Fever,
Ulcer, Plague and dread Consumption,
Gout, Sterility and Cancer."
Wainamoinen, "the wise and wonderful enchanter", hastens to his people's rescue.
"Wainamoinen heats the bathrooms,
Heats the blocks of healing sandstone
With the magic wood of Northland
Gathered by the sacred river.
Then a honey heat he wakens,
Fills the rooms with healing vapors."
Then he prays to Ukko, the Great Spirit of Finland:
"On the heated blocks of sandstone
May the water turn to honey 
Laden with the balm of healing.
Send us mingled rain and honey,
Balsam from the great physician
To remove this plague of Northland."
The "eternal wise enchanter" then:
"Rubbed his sufferers with balsams
Rubbed the tissues, red and painful,
With the balm of healing flowers
Balsams made of herbs enchanted."
"The eternal wisdom singer
Thus expelled the nine diseases
Healed the tribes of Kalevala
Saved his people from destruction."

Here is a picture of Wainamoinen in despair because he was untimely born in the 1800's far too late for a good Norse Hero. Don't worry bud, you still get to save your people and dance in the rain that is mingled with honey!

     The poem above lets you see how honey is a primary emphasis of the  passage lending extra flavor to the text. That is the medicinal use, but let us now move on to the metaphor.

      The first Spanish Bible, published in 1569 is often called "The Bear Bible" because the image on the front is a bear reaching into a honey comb to get the sweet honey out. The image is a comparison of God's word being sweet like honey, encouraging the reader to reach in to pull out that sweetness.  That's number 2....a metaphor for digging deeper.  The thing that stands out in my mind is how multifaceted things we consider mundane can be when used properly.  The next entry, "How to Make a Good Story With Honey Part II" will be a Greek source that uses our favorite bee product in a third way.  Maybe the next time you get to write a story you can think of creative ways to use seemingly mundane topics to flavor your work.

-Jason

picture source