• Melissa is a popular name these days– from melissae, the honeybee priestesses of ancient Greece. Their delicious name comes from meli or honey, a substance vastly more important in long-ago lives than in ours.
• As food fit for the gods and for humans, honey was the only worthwhile sweetener in ancient times. As a medicine, people revered it for its cure rate on burns and wounds, its antiseptic powers on absesses. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman medicos alike used honey-soaked bandages to patch up soldiers. And civilians.
• Sometimes bees B.C. pulled a fast one, producing toxic honey from certain specie of azalea and other plants. In large doses, “mad honey” could affect nervous systems, rendering armies helpless. In petite amounts, maenads and adventurous drinkers used it to get divinely maddened. (Grayanotoxin, the active compound, still afflicts unwary consumers of wild honey.)
• Furthermore, honey had an exalted role when it came to death: certain freethinking elites chose to be embalmed in honey, called mellification. We may scoff but the stuff really works, thanks to its ability to dehydrate tissues while preventing bodily decay.
• Given my fascination with this topic, I’ve written various times about honey’s sticky powers. (Warning: Shameless author plug ahead.) First in my previous book on ancient jobs, called Working IX to V, and now in my latest book on ancient science and superstition.
• But I wanted to tell more of the honeyfied stories than my books could hold. This blather is a teaser, a portent, a sweet prelude to what’s coming next. Starting with my next post, stop in often to learn the truly tangled tale of Alexander, the man who looked Great for 538 years, and his startling afterlife adventures.
Gr-r-reat example of the fact that just because something is natural doesn’t automatically mean that it’s safe!
Melissa is a beautiful name. In fact, we have a granddaughter with this name and she is as sweet as honey.
I had heard about this book, on Wonders and Marvels I think or it could have been on Allie’s site. I am just so glad Allie (Hist-Fic-Chick) linked to this site. I love books with information like this and it sounded good. However, I LOVE your style and will be looking for your books.
@caroline: yes, mother nature has her tricky side. Be interesting to know what defense or benefit it supplies to the bees.
@ doug and Izabel: it surely is a lovely name and she sounds darling as well.
I like knowing its ancient origins, don’t you?
@librarypat: thanks to Allie for referring you here–welcome and hope you keep coming back! And I hope this ‘taste” will make you want to read the entire book, How to Mellify a Corpse.