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Thessaloniki - history and fairytale (redirected from Thessaloniki)

Page history last edited by bloggerman99 12 years, 10 months ago

   Thessaloniki and the water of immortality

 

This is the outcome of the project about the history and the fairytale about the Greek city Thessaloniki

 

Alexander the Great, this magnificent Greek, the king of Macedonia, the leader who extended the borders of Greece as far as India and Egypt, spreading the Greek culture and language throughout the world, is well known to everybody. What most people don't know is that he had a sister sharing the same father, Filippos, but not the same mother. This daughter was born exactly the same day that Filippos won the Thessalians (the residents of a Greek region called "Thessalia) in battle. It was then that Filippos decided to name his daughter "Thessaloniki" in order to remind him of his great victory (victory="niki" in Greek, so "Thessoloniki" means "victory against the Thessalians). Thessaloniki grew up and got married to one of her brother's Generals, Kassandros. Kassandros built a new city along the coastline of Thermaikos gulf in Northern Greece and he named it "Thessaloniki" in honour of his wife.

 

This is the point where facts stop and the fairytale begins. This is a fairytale made up by the Greek people due to their enormous grief for the premature death of Alexander, who died at the age of 33. The people sorrowed and shed bitter tears over the great king. Wishing to keep his memory alive, the Greek people created the story of the "immortal water", a story that came down to us from mouth to mouth, from one generation to the other.

 

It is said that once upon a time Alexander the Great sent his people to the end of the world to find and bring him the water of immortality. Whoever drank of this water would live for ever and there would be no way to die.

The immortal water was actually found and brought to Alexander to drink and stay alive to eternity. But that was never meant to happen. Alexander's sister, Thessaloniki, who didn't know what kind of water that was, drank it all...as she was very thirsty at that unfortunate time!

When she realized what she had unwillingly done, she was nearly driven mad. When after a while her beloved brother died, she didn't want to believe it and she fell into the sea to die too...

 But it was impossible for her to die, for she had drank the water of immortality and had become immortal for ever! She went on and on swimming in the sea for many many years until scales and a fish tail grew on her legs and she became half a woman and half a fish.

 

She became the Mermaid, the sister of Alexander the Great! Since then she has been roaming around the seas looking for her lost brother. Whenever she encounters a ship , she stops it in the middle of the sea and asks the sailors:  Is King Alexander alive? And if the sailors tell her that he isn't, she gets angry, she upraises a storm and sinks the ship. That is the reason why so many ships are lost at sea..!

But if they know who she is and give the answer:

Alexander is alive and he reigns and he conquers the world! Then her soul is calmed, she lets the ship go and vanishes into the waves of the sea...

 

In this way, through the legend of the mermaid, king Alexander's memory survived until nowadays, having got through the rough ages of the Turkish occupation over the Greek people, during which Greek schools were forbidden. At that time the Greek people did not lose their identity, they did not forget who they used to be, as long as they kept their language, and through it their whole Greek tradition and culture.

The fact is that a person really dies only when no one remembers them any longer... 

 

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Comments (1)

ninis said

at 11:38 am on May 29, 2011

επιστροφή στην κορυφή της σελίδας http://schoolnewspaper.pbworks.com/w/page/28118378/Thessaloniki+-+history+and+fairytale

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