According to the ancient Greeks, you tried hard to make your way the underworld, Hades. Hades was not as fun as life on Earth, but still much better than wandering the Earth forever as invisible and restless spirit. So you started your afterlife journey to Hades. Soon, you arrived at the river Styx. It was too wide and cold to swim. And really how man yancient Greeks new how to swim?
So, your only viable way to cross was by using Charon theBboatman’s ferry. Charon demanded a gold coin as his fee. No gold coin, no passage. No Hades.
So you made sure to have a gold coin on you in case you died. However, Achilles was cheap. He didn’t want give Charon a gold coin, when he the brave Achilles could spend it while alive. So he had only a chocolate coin to bay the Boatman. But as the chocolate coin came clad in gold-colored foil, it fooled Charon. Achilles thus crossed the river and made it into Hades.
But eventually there was a hot day in Hell. Achilles’ gold coin melted. He, Charon, had been cheated. If Achilles felt bold enough to pay his way with chocolate, why then all future Greeks would do the same. The red mist descended around Charon. He wanted to kill every Greek hed meet. As all those people would already be dead, he wouldn’t even be able to do that.
He decided, there and then, to never again ferry people to Hades. Greeks soon learned of Charon’s no-ferry list. No Hades for them. So now what was the point of believing and sacrifing to the gods? So the Greeks stopped their sacrifices. The gods, deprived of their sustenance soon faded away.
This is why we no longer have Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and the rest of that lot.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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