Thus all the Mighty Ones descended in the Underworld, to let the world sleep and rest, and get ready for spring.

And there they began their Godly feast and rest. Unseen and unheard, Dros traced his steps back. Once outside, in the darkness and cold of winter, his body shimmered and in a few blinks of an eye, a great stag was standing at the entrance of the cave.

Through the blizzard he ran, his hooves making no more sound than the snowflakes gently falling on the ground, until he reached the Edge of the World. He stopped and looked at the Eternal Wheel of Time, then with a mighty push, he stuck his great antlers in a spoke. With a shudder, the Wheel stopped.

Everything was still, the snowflakes had stopped falling in their dance, and were hovering in the air. His beautiful black eyes seeped in the light of the eternal stars, and he straightened his great neck, holding the Wheel from moving.

Deep, in the wombs of the caves, the other Gods and Goddesses stirred, and wailed. Great Bendis raised her perfect arms in despair, and cried to the other Gods: "He's stopping the Wheel from turning! This cannot happen! What are we to do?"

Derzelas enfolded her in his arms, and reassured her: "the Wheel shall turn again, o, Bendis! Of this, I swear!" and leaving the others to talk and plan, he left the caves and rushed to the Temple of the Sun. There, the Priestesses, all in a frenzy, surrounded him. "Oh, Dear God, Derzelas, what are we to do? The Wheel of Time has stopped, there will be eternal darkness, the world will never wake up again!"

"Shhhh, beloved daugthers. It all will come to pass, as it is supposed to. Put on your armors, take your daggers, and bring me a cup". The Priestesses all rushed and donned their breastplates, not bothering to remove their gauzy white dresses first. Daggers in hand, they brought a copper cup to their Sun God. Derzelas grabbed the dagger from one of them, and with a swift move, sliced open his forearm, letting his blood flow in the cup.

"Now listen to me, my daughters. Dros has stopped the Wheel, and he is Holding it from moving. You cannot get close to him without falling under his song magic. You will not be able to get even close to him because you will be too scared to go against a God. But, this has to be done, and there is nobody else who can do it but you. You will drink of my blood, and with my blood flowing through you, you will be part of me. You will be able to get close to him without fear. Now, with his song magic. Once you get close to him, start hitting your daggers to your breast plates. Start dancing in the rhythm of the beat. So you won't hear Him and you won't fall under His spell."

He took the cup, now full, and gave it to the Priestesses. They drank deeply from the blood of the Sun God, passing the cup around, until their eyes started shining brighter and brighter, and their hands started clenching on their daggers. "Now go, daughters, go and start the Wheel of Time again!".

And off they went the Priestesses, singing in the wind, until they found Dros, the Stag, where he was holding with his horns the Wheel of Time, trying to keep the World into eternal night and drought. Dancing their sacred dance they circled around him, and despite the fact that he shifted to human form and tried his magic songs on them, the drumming of the daggers was too loud, and the Priestesses couldn't hear him, so in the faster and faster twirling circle he was caught and slayed.

They casted his head in the river that flows all the way to the Underworld of the Ancestors and the Gods. The Great Bendis found his head and mourned and wept, and bore it to her bosom, until The Lord of the Night grew whole again and was reborn from Bendis as her son, and brought Spring again in the world.
And his eternal punishment for what he had tried to do was to be sacrificed each year by the Priestesses, for the rains to come aplenty and the crops to be bountiful, and each year to be reborn for the joy of Bendis the Beautiful.

For people not to forget, his head, cast in the very stone of the mountain, sits up in the clouds, on one of the peaks and looks over the lands....

And each year, girls dressed as Priestesses go out in the fields, and kill the adorned poppet of Ion, and they mourn him, and then throw him in the river so he can get to Bendis and be reunited with her. And the rains come and the wheat grows....

Ian, Ian, Caloian
Grab the torch
And open the Gates of the Sky
Let the rains flow
Heavy as our tears,
So the grains can grow

*******************
From the 25th of December until the 6th of January, in the Old Dacian tradition is "the time outside of time". The old year has died, and the Wheel of Time stands still, held in place by the great antlers of Dros. The New year will be reborn on the 6th of January, with the killing of Dros, the Great Stag, Ion the Magnificent. These 12 days are considered a "time of in-between", neither here not there, a time when the time doesn't move. There are 12 days, for the 12 months of the year.

You think you have never heard of Dros? Of course you have heard of him. The Greeks "borrowed" him, the same as they borrowed so many Gods, Goddesses and Heroes from their Northern neighbors, the Thracians. Have you ever heard of Orpheus? In the Greek myth, Orpheus, with his magic of the song, was killed by the Maenads, the priestesses of Dionysus (nobody else than Derzelas, in one of His faces the Greeks have borrowed, for Derzelas was not only the God of the Sun, and many others, but the God of the Vineyards as well, and his blood was the best wine) and his head was cast on the river Styx.

The great Romanian Sphynx, sitting on one of the peaks of the Carpathians, is said to be the head of Ion the Magnificent, forever watching over Dacia. And even in our days, in the last days of December, the "dance of the goat" (reminiscence of the Dance of the Stag) is danced all over Romania.

HAR TIOS
TINTONINOS
INSUS TIKO IS DAKON
KAND SIA TIL KOGAION
ILMATON HLIOYLO
PLEISTE NAKTOILO

Great is The God, for ever and everywhere! So say the braves when they look towards the Kogaion! The apprentices sing: Great and Powerful is the Lord of the Night!

(From "The Lore of the Hyperboreans - Magic of Ancient Dacia", copyright D. Berndt, a.k.a. Seachain Aroon)