Erysichthon- Greek FigureMortal

The Sacrilege

Erysichthon was a Thessalian king, son of Triopas. He gathered his attendants and entered a grove sacred to Demeter with axes, intending to fell its trees and build a banquet hall. When his men hesitated, Erysichthon seized the axe himself and struck the great oak at the grove's center. It cried out in pain, and blood ran from the bark. A nymph within warned that Demeter would take vengeance. Erysichthon ignored her and boasted that he would roof his hall with the sacred wood. Demeter appeared disguised as her own priestess and urged him to stop, but he threatened her with his axe. The goddess revealed herself in her full divine stature — but chose a punishment worse than death.

The Hunger

Demeter could not visit Famine directly, since the two goddesses are fated never to meet. She dispatched an Oread nymph to the frozen wastes of Scythia where Famine dwelt, gaunt and hollow, scraping at barren ground with her nails. Famine obeyed and breathed her essence into the sleeping Erysichthon. He woke ravenous and never stopped. He devoured entire herds of cattle and the horses meant for racing, emptying every store in his household. The more he ate the thinner he became, his body wasting even as his appetite grew.

Mestra

As Erysichthon consumed his fortune, his daughter Mestra became his last resource. Poseidon had granted her the gift of shape-shifting. Erysichthon sold her into slavery again and again; each time she transformed — into a mare one day, a bird the next — and escaped back to her father, only to be sold once more. Eventually even Mestra's transformations could not keep pace with the hunger. In the grimmest version, Erysichthon turned upon his own body and devoured his own flesh, the hunger finally consuming its source.