Many of you may not know, but before the beautiful Maiden of the Spring, Persephone, was taken down to the Underworld by Lord Hades, Hades had shared his bed with a Nymph by the name of Mintha. Mintha, as you can well imagine, was none too pleased when Hades brought Persephone down and crowned her as Queen of the realm!
“Look at her,” Mintha scoffed in her jealousy. “She is not nearly as desirable as I! I don’t know what he sees in her! I am of far nobler form and more excellent is my beauty. My hips are more shapely, my breasts are more succulent, and my lips make men who’ve never touched me cry. I surpass her in every way!”
On and on she went, raving about her superiority, and making excuses for Hades, for she loved him dearly even still. “Poor Hades, dear,” she mused. “He is so caught up in this foolishness! Just you wait. As soon as he realizes his mistake, he will banish her from his side and return to my arms where he belongs! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned to me after he beds her but once. No mere girl is a match for my skills of amorous pleasure.”
One unfortunate day, Mintha was overheard ranting and squawking about Persephone’s inferiority by the Queen herself.
“Mintha, you look lovely today,” Persephone greeted her with a smile. Mintha was startled by the sound of her voice, for she assumed the Queen to be well out of earshot.
“Why, thank you,” Mintha stumbled in reply and added under her breath “I wish I could say the same for you.”
Persephone was familiar with Mintha’s retorts and was not surprised when Mintha simply walked along mumbling to herself, for her ill feelings consumed her. Persephone giggled as she envisioned the Naiad green with envy, and she thought, “I know just how to rid myself of her inane babbling and continuous insults.” Persephone held in her mind’s eye an image of the Naiad. She blew her magic across her hands, and a stream of silvery light enveloped Mintha, shrinking her smaller and smaller and turning her greener and greener until Persephone picked her up and completed her transformation into a beautiful and fragrant mint plant. Carefully, she pushed her up through the soil, past the bedrock and clay and roots and worms and topsoil until she popped out above in the Middlerealm, smack in the middle of Demeter’s garden. Mintha shook her leafy head with a screech and a new string of foul words flew from her mouth now fueled by anger. Below, all Persephone heard was a faint mumbling grumble.
“There you are, darling,” she sang. “Now you have a full and captive audience to listen to how wrongly you have been treated and how much better than me you are. Ta!” She closed off the hole, and walked away, happily whistling to herself.
Now, Demeter is Persephone’s Mother, and her love for her daughter is fierce and unending—to the point of occasional overprotection. When she heard of the torrent of insults being spewed at her daughter, she became furious!
“How dare she?!” Demeter cried. “I will put a stop to this once and for all!” With profound determination, Demeter marched right over to the garden, and when she arrived, what she saw infuriated her further, because the mint was spreading like wild already! Her carefully cultivated herbs and beautiful flowers were drooping and weak from Mintha’s overwhelming presence.
“What nerve!” exclaimedDemeter, whose patience had been spent. She stomped her to dust, and Mintha was no more.
Moral of the story: Do not overcrowd the garden with negativity, lest you invite the foot of a Goddess to land on your head.
