This is the first of five posts all about magical people with otherworldly white hair. I shall begin this topic with the Lotus Eaters. Who are they? In Greek mythology, the Lotus Eaters are a mysterious race of people who appear in Homer's The Odyssey Book 9.
The hero Odysseus travelled on ship, today just termed the Homeric Galley. A violent north wind forced the ship to go off course and they ended up on an island, but when they reached shore, there was fewer men who survived the storm. Odysseus sent about three men to look around the island, looking for food and fresh water.
Here they encountered the island's inhabitants, who were a gentle but curious people. They had white hair and grey eyes. People who were born on the island looked like this but those who hadn't lived there too long would gradually change because of the chemicals in the lotus.
These people called themselves the Lotus Eaters. Odysseus soon discovered the island itself was small, and it's main food source came from a rare lotus tree that grew fruits that were a powerful drug. Such a tree grew lotus flowers, that the islanders called Lotus Eaters had always fed on. Most of the island's Lotus Eaters were asleep, day dreaming, or hallucinating! It's believed they were telepathic but mainly they were pretty lethargic.
The Lotus Eaters offered the crewmen to eat lotus fruits and flowers, so that they would forget their homes, and stay on the island. Odysseus tried to tell his men not to eat the lotus plants but they had already eaten. Already the men were affected by the lotus. All they wanted to do was to stay on the island. Odysseus then dragged some of them away, and the men reluctantly returned to the ship as they felt influenced by the lotus drug. Soon when the ship sailed off, the drug wore off.
It's believed that this lotus tree had once been a nymph called Lotis, who was transformed into a tree, but this is a story told by a Roman poet called Ovid in Metomorphoses.
She Wolf Night
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