To Appease the Queen - The Most Precious Possessions

Firstborn sons and daughters were offered by Carthaginian parents as living sacrifices in times of great calamities - war, famine, drought and plague. On a moonlit night, ancient writers say, a priest placed a child, mercifully killed moments earlier, on the outstretched arms of the statue of Baal. As the infant's body rolled into the flaming pit - entering the company of the gods - flutes, tambourines and lyres drowned out the parent's cries. Later the ashes and the bones were collected in a small urn and placed with thousands of others in the sacrificial precent, or tophet, of the Goddess Tanit at Carthage.

The Bog Queen has pronounced that any traveller seeking the secret of creativity and the Cave of the Ancients must offer a sacrifice. She does not want living sacrifices but she does expect travellers to sacrifice something that means a lot to them. Years ago I collected every copy of my C.V. and ceremonially burned them. This was a sacrifice. I was pronouncing that I would not be seeking promotions in my chosen career and was relinquishing this ambition in order to become more creative.

All sacrificial offerings will be collected and kept in a sacrificial precent, gaurded by the elders of the Bog People.