ATYS

ATYS

"The reference to Atys made me shiver, for I had read Catullus and knew something of the hideous rites of the Eastern god, whose worship was so mixed with that of Cybele."

"Shall a Norrys hold the lands of a de la Poer? . . . It’s voodoo, I tell you . . . that spotted snake . . . Curse you, Thornton, I’ll teach you to faint at what my family do! . . . ’Sblood, thou stinkard, I’ll learn ye how to gust . . . wolde ye swynke me thilke wys? . . . Magna Mater! MagnaMater! . . . Atys . . . Dia ad aghaidh ’s ad aodann . . . agus bas dunach ort! Dhonas ’s dholas ort, agus leat-sa! . . . Ungl . . . ungl . . . rrrlh . . . chchch . . ."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats In the Walls

"His story is related in different ways. According to Ovid (Fast. iv. 221), Cybele loved the beautiful shepherd, and made him her own priest on condition that he should preserve his chastity inviolate. Atys broke the covenant with a nymph, the daughter of the river-god Sangarius, and was thrown by the goddess into a state of madness, in which he unmanned himself."

Sir William Smith, Dictionary Of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

"ATTIS was a Phrygian vegetation god, the consort of the great Mother Kybele (Cybele). He was forced by the goddess to castrate himself in a mad frenzy as punishment for his infidelity. Initiates into the eunuch priesthood of Kybele, called the Gallai, re-enacted the myth with their self-castration."

 Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology