The Myth of Erysichthon

In the ancient kingdom of Thessaly, where the fertile plains stretched between the mountains and the sea, there lived a king named Erysichthon whose insatiable greed would bring upon him a curse more terrible than death itself. He was a man who measured everything by its material value, who saw the natural world only as a source of wealth to be exploited, and who had no respect for the sacred bonds between mortals and gods.

Erysichthon ruled over vast estates filled with grain fields, olive groves, and vineyards that produced abundant harvests year after year. His wealth was considerable, his granaries were always full, and his people lived in prosperity. But none of this was enough for the greedy king—he always wanted more, always sought new ways to increase his riches, and nothing could satisfy his endless appetite for gold and possessions.

Near the heart of his kingdom stood an ancient grove of oak trees that had been sacred to Demeter, goddess of the harvest, since time immemorial. These were not ordinary trees—they were enormous, ancient oaks whose branches had sheltered countless generations, whose roots ran deep into the blessed earth, and whose very existence was intertwined with the fertility of the surrounding lands.

The grove was home to dryads, the tree nymphs who lived within the oaks and cared for them with loving devotion. The local people had always revered this sacred place, bringing offerings to Demeter and seeking her blessing for their crops. They understood that the goddess’s favor was connected to the preservation of her holy grove, and for centuries, no one had dared to harm even the smallest branch of these blessed trees.

But Erysichthon looked upon the sacred grove and saw only timber—valuable wood that could be cut down and sold for a tremendous profit. The fact that the trees were sacred to Demeter meant nothing to him. In his greedy calculations, religious sentiment was merely an obstacle to profitable enterprise.

“These trees have grown fat and large over the centuries,” he said to his servants as he surveyed the grove. “Think of how much gold they would bring if we cut them down and sold the wood! The timber alone would make us wealthy beyond measure, and we could clear the land for more grain fields.”

His servants were horrified by this suggestion. “Master,” one of them said, “these trees are sacred to Demeter herself. To cut them down would be the worst kind of sacrilege. The goddess’s anger would be terrible to behold.”

But Erysichthon laughed at their concerns. “Superstitious nonsense!” he declared. “I have never seen this Demeter, and she has never done anything to help or harm me. These are just trees like any others, and I will use them as I see fit. Tomorrow we begin cutting them down.”

The servants tried to dissuade their master, but Erysichthon was determined. That night, he dreamed of the enormous profits he would make from selling the sacred timber, and his greed grew even stronger.

The next morning, he gathered a crew of woodcutters and led them to the grove, carrying axes and saws. As they approached the sacred trees, an unnatural silence fell over the forest. The birds stopped singing, the wind died away, and even the insects seemed to sense that something terrible was about to happen.

At the center of the grove stood the largest and most ancient of all the oaks, a tree so massive that it would have taken twenty men holding hands to encircle its trunk. This was the heart of Demeter’s sacred grove, the dwelling place of the oldest and most powerful of the dryads, a tree that had been growing for over a thousand years.

Erysichthon approached this great oak with his axe raised, his eyes gleaming with greed as he calculated its value. But as he prepared to strike the first blow, something extraordinary happened.

The tree began to speak.

A voice, gentle but filled with authority, emanated from the ancient oak. “Stop, Erysichthon! I am the dryad who has lived within this tree for centuries beyond counting. This oak is not merely wood—it is my body, my home, my very life. To cut it down is not just to destroy timber, but to commit murder.”

The woodcutters dropped their tools in terror and fled, but Erysichthon stood his ground, though his hands trembled slightly as he gripped his axe.

“I don’t care what you are,” he said, though his voice lacked some of its earlier confidence. “This tree belongs to me now, and I will do with it as I please.”

The dryad’s voice grew sadder but also more urgent. “Please, I beg you, spare my life and the lives of my sister trees. We have never harmed you or your people. Indeed, we have blessed your lands with fertility and abundance. Show mercy, and Demeter herself will reward your kindness.”

But greed had completely hardened Erysichthon’s heart. “I need gold, not blessings,” he replied, and with that, he swung his axe with all his strength against the sacred oak’s trunk.

The moment the iron blade bit into the holy wood, a miraculous and terrifying thing occurred. Blood—red as rubies, warm as life itself—began to flow from the wound in the tree’s bark. The entire grove shuddered as if in pain, and the dryad’s voice rose in a cry of anguish that seemed to come from the earth itself.

“Ah!” the tree spirit wailed. “You have dealt me a mortal wound! But know this, Erysichthon—your crime will not go unpunished. Even now, my sisters are carrying word of your sacrilege to Demeter herself. The goddess’s vengeance will be swift and terrible!”

But Erysichthon, driven mad by greed and perhaps already under the influence of divine wrath, continued to hack at the bleeding tree. With each blow of his axe, more blood flowed, the grove trembled more violently, and the dryad’s voice grew weaker.

Finally, with a crash that seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth, the great oak fell. As it struck the ground, the dryad’s voice was heard one last time: “Remember my words, Erysichthon. Demeter’s justice comes for you now.”

With the heart of the sacred grove destroyed, Erysichthon and his servants (those few who had been too terrified to flee) spent the next several days cutting down the remaining trees. Each oak that fell released its own dryad spirit, and each dying tree nymph added her voice to the curse that was gathering around the sacrilegious king.

When the work was finished, the sacred grove that had stood for millennia was nothing but a field of stumps, and Erysichthon had accumulated a massive pile of valuable timber. He was well pleased with his work and began making arrangements to sell the wood to builders and shipwrights throughout Greece.

But even as he counted his anticipated profits, Demeter was preparing her revenge.

The goddess of the harvest was filled with rage when she learned of the destruction of her sacred grove. The dryads who had escaped the massacre came to her with tears streaming down their faces, begging for justice against the mortal who had murdered their sisters and desecrated the holy place.

“This cannot stand,” Demeter declared, her voice terrible in its quiet fury. “Erysichthon has shown that he values nothing but his own greed. Very well—let him experience what it means to have an appetite that can never be satisfied.”

Rather than strike Erysichthon down immediately, the goddess devised a punishment that perfectly fit his crime. She summoned Limos, the personification of Famine and Hunger, and gave her a special task.

Limos was a terrifying figure—gaunt almost to the point of being skeletal, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and skin stretched tight over protruding bones. Her very presence could drain the life from growing things and create desperate want where abundance had existed before.

“Go to Erysichthon,” Demeter commanded, “and enter into him. Let him know hunger such as no mortal has ever experienced—a hunger that grows stronger with every bite he takes, an appetite that can never be satisfied no matter how much he consumes.”

Limos flew swiftly to Thessaly and found Erysichthon sleeping peacefully in his palace, still dreaming of the profits from his sacrilege. The spirit of Famine entered into him through his breath, filling his body with her terrible essence before departing as silently as she had come.

When Erysichthon awoke the next morning, he immediately felt the curse taking hold. He was suddenly, overwhelmingly hungry—not the normal hunger of a man who has not eaten since the previous evening, but a gnawing, desperate starvation that seemed to consume him from within.

He called for his servants to bring him breakfast, but when the meal arrived, it barely seemed to touch his hunger. He devoured everything on the table—bread, meat, fruit, cheese, wine—but instead of feeling satisfied, he only grew hungrier.

“Bring more food!” he commanded. “I am still starving!”

His servants, puzzled but obedient, brought more food. Erysichthon ate like a man possessed, consuming in one meal what would normally feed a dozen people. But still the terrible hunger raged within him, growing stronger rather than weaker with each bite.

As the days passed, Erysichthon’s condition grew worse. No amount of food could satisfy him. He ate constantly, consuming everything edible in his palace, but the cursed hunger only intensified. His servants watched in amazement and horror as their master devoured enough food to feed a small army, yet grew thinner and more desperate with each passing day.

The king’s wealth, which he had accumulated through greed and sacrilege, now began to disappear as rapidly as he had gained it. All his gold went to buying food—not just for his household, but solely to feed his own insatiable appetite. He bought out the markets, hired every cook in the kingdom, and had wagons of provisions brought from distant lands, but nothing could ease his torment.

As his fortune dwindled, Erysichthon became increasingly desperate. He sold his lands, his palace, his treasures—everything he owned—to buy more food. But no matter how much he ate, the hunger only grew more intense, as if some bottomless pit had opened within his body.

Finally, when he had sold everything else, Erysichthon was forced to sell the one thing he had hoped to keep: his beloved daughter Mestra. She was a beautiful and virtuous young woman who had always tried to counsel her father against his greed, and selling her into slavery broke what remained of his heart.

But Mestra had one advantage that her father did not know about: she had been blessed by Poseidon with the ability to change her shape at will. When she was sold to a fisherman as a slave, she simply transformed herself into a seagull and flew back to her father.

Erysichthon, overjoyed to have his daughter back and desperately needing money for food, came up with a horrible plan. He would sell Mestra over and over again, counting on her shape-shifting ability to help her escape each time. This would provide him with a steady income to feed his cursed hunger.

And so began a cycle of degradation that horrified everyone who witnessed it. Again and again, Erysichthon sold his own daughter into slavery, and again and again she escaped through her divine gift and returned to him. Each sale brought enough money to buy food for a few days, but the hunger always returned stronger than before.

But even this desperate expedient could not last forever. Eventually, people began to suspect what was happening, and Mestra found it harder and harder to escape from increasingly careful buyers. The money from her sales became insufficient to buy the enormous quantities of food that Erysichthon’s cursed appetite demanded.

In the final stage of his punishment, Erysichthon had sold everything he owned, exhausted every source of income, and could no longer afford to buy food of any kind. But the terrible hunger continued to rage within him, now more desperate than ever.

Driven completely mad by starvation despite having consumed enormous quantities of food, Erysichthon began to look at his own body as the only remaining source of nourishment. The curse of Demeter had reached its horrifying conclusion: the man who had destroyed sacred life in his greed would now destroy his own life in his hunger.

And so Erysichthon, the king who had cut down Demeter’s sacred grove for profit, began to devour himself. Starting with his fingers and hands, he consumed his own flesh, driven by the insatiable hunger that the goddess had placed within him. He ate his arms, then his legs, screaming in agony but unable to stop, as the cursed appetite compelled him to feed upon his own body.

In the end, there was nothing left of Erysichthon but his tormented spirit, consumed by the very greed that had led him to commit sacrilege against the gods. He had gained nothing from his crime except suffering, and had lost everything—his wealth, his kingdom, his daughter’s respect, and finally his very life.

The site where Demeter’s sacred grove had stood remained barren and lifeless, a reminder to all who passed of the terrible consequences of defying the gods. No crops would grow there, no trees would take root, and even weeds withered and died in that cursed soil.

The myth of Erysichthon carries several powerful lessons that remain relevant today. First and most obviously, it warns against the dangers of greed—the kind of insatiable appetite for material wealth that leads people to destroy things of genuine value in pursuit of profit.

Second, the story illustrates the importance of respecting the sacred and natural world. Erysichthon’s crime was not just theft, but sacrilege—the destruction of something holy for purely material gain. His punishment reflects the idea that some things are more valuable than money and that those who destroy the sacred for profit will ultimately destroy themselves.

Third, the tale shows us how one kind of appetite can become another. Erysichthon’s greed for gold transformed into an equally insatiable hunger for food, suggesting that unchecked desire of any kind can become a consuming force that destroys its victim.

Finally, the story demonstrates the principle of divine justice—that crimes against the gods and the natural order will ultimately be punished, even if that punishment is delayed. Demeter’s vengeance was terrible precisely because it was so perfectly suited to Erysichthon’s character and crimes.

The figure of Erysichthon has become a symbol in literature and philosophy of the self-destructive nature of greed. His name is remembered not as that of a successful king who accumulated great wealth, but as a cautionary tale about the man whose appetites literally consumed him.

In our modern world, where environmental destruction often occurs in the name of profit and where the sacred is frequently sacrificed to the material, the myth of Erysichthon remains disturbingly relevant. It reminds us that there are some things more valuable than money, some hungers more dangerous than physical starvation, and some prices too high to pay for any earthly gain.