Monday, December 8, 2008

The story of Amalthea

We recently received a gift from a friend of ours - a room spray called Cornucopia.  In the inside of the top of the box was the etymology of the word Cornucopia.   I quote verbatim "The Cornucopia (latin: Cornu Copiae) literally Horn of Plenty, and also know as the Harvest Cone,  is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5Th century BC.  


In Greek mythology, Amalthea raised Zeus on the milk of a goat.  In return Zeus gave Amalthea the goat's horn.  It had the power to give to the person in possession of it whatever he or she wished for.  This gave rise to the legend of the cornucopia."

La and I did not find this out until much later, but it was a serendipitous discovery.  T's name came from the Unicorn in Peter S. Beagle's book - the Last Unicorn.  We read that book when we were 17 years old....

Quite a few years ago.

Anyway, we were quite touched when we opened the box and read the above.  It's not every day Amalthea's name comes up  like that.

Oh and by the way, the day Amalthea was born,  a new moon was discovered on Jupiter - the name...

Amalthea.

1 comment:

amalthea said...

And thank you to Greg and Christine for the beautiful gift!