Labyrinths

Gwen,

RE: "That the Cretan labyrinth had been a dancing-ground and was made for Ariadne rather than for Minos was remembered by Homer in Iliad xviii.590–593 where, in the pattern that Hephaestus inscribed on Achilles' shield, one incident pictured was a dancing-ground "like the one that Daedalus designed in the spacious town of Knossos for Ariadne of the lovely locks". Even the labyrinth dance was depicted on the shield, where "youths and marriageable maidens were dancing on it with their hands on one another's wrists... circling as smoothly on their accomplished feet as the wheel of a potter...and there they ran in lines to meet each other."

The Bock saga material clearly describes the various labyrinth's many uses....some for male and some for female ritual testing to prepare for choosing a mate for the midsummer night's ceremonial copulation to bring in the next year's births, and various other purposes.

www.bocksaga.de

Not surprising that Ariadne, as a royal female would have been designated as the Priestess of a labyrinth....but there would have been others as well.

Homer was writing of a time and place far removed from the place the saga tells of, so there would have been differences for sure...

If Vinci is correct, then the Crete that Homer wrote of was on the Baltic Sea, and the Mediterranean Crete was a "copy" of the original topography/location.