Gods, godesses and Arthur Mee...

Yes more stones.

This is my ‘small stone and stuff’ collection in my office. It includes my piece of fool’s gold (thanks Flora), a glass nugget I found on the road, some snail shells that mysteriously appeared one day (thanks anonymous benefactor), a tiny piece of broken windscreen, some calcified coral I spotted on a beach in Barbados, two scallop shells I picked up on another beach in Wales and some green pebbles from the tiny fishing village of Aberdaron at the most westerly tip of the Llynn. As you can see, the tiny golden Buddha my daughter brought me back from Gran Canaria one summer sits proudly on top of this eclectic mini-mountain of bric and brac (thanks Cloe).

I find it very pleasing, most extremely Zen.

If you look closely, on the right hand side and at the front you will notice three small stones - a flat oval one with brown stripes, a grey and white lozenge, and a brown and white one shaped a little like an extracted tooth. These are the latest additions to the madness that is my office windowsill. They come from Cyprus, picked up and brought back for me by Mr A. Lloyd of Macclesfield. Thanks Andy, a nice thought and I shall treasure them. Good to see that collecting pocketable pebbles is catching on and that I’m not the only loony wandering on the beach.

These three stones are very special though. These stones were picked up on Aphrodite's beach, the beach where Aphrodite was born - these stones might hold the love magic.

According to mythology the Greek goddess Aphrodite was born on Cyprus. I remember reading about it when I was a boy. I had nine out of the ten volumes of ‘Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia’, how I loved those books and how I loved the sections on mythology – Roman, Greek, Norse, it really didn’t matter. Specifically, she was born from the foam of the sea around Aphrodite's Rock, on the beach close to Pafos. In ancient times, people came to the beach to join in the fertility rituals and at the nearby temple, maybe my stones were part of the rituals, or maybe they watched as the magic was made.

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The story tells that Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) floated into the bay on a scallop shell. You may have seen the Boticelli painting ‘the birth of Venus’, if not I’ve recreated it for you in Photoshop at the bottom of this post. The first time I saw the painting was in a plate in volume six of my Arthur Mee – I was fascinated by it.

Aphrodite had no childhood - she was born adult, nubile, and infinitely desirable. She’s a major figure in Greek legend, characterised as vain, ill-tempered and easily offended. She appears in the Odyssey, was connected to the Trojan wars, even Zeus was frightened of her beauty, and she wore a magic girdle that made her irrestible to men.

She’s still worshiped today. Andy told me that people come to bury hand-carved stone hearts in the hillside, and at night - well at night the beach is littered with coupling young couples making the magic. Such is the way of Aphrodite.

Alas my nine volumes of Arthur Mee are long since lost. How I wish I still had those books. They had the most wonderful colour plates; birds of paradise, the great works of art, the flags and seven-wonders of the world, butterflies, moths, Boewolf, Romulus and Remus, Hottentots and knots.

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I learnt more from Arthur Mee than ever I did at school - and I only had volumes one to nine.

I wonder what else I’d have known about if only I’d owned volume ten, perhaps I'd have learnt the secret of Aphrodite's love magic - what do you think?