A beers around the campfire retelling.

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A long long time ago on the island of Crete, there once was a chick named Telethuse. She was married to a bloke called Ligdus. Telethuse had become pregnant. Not long before the birth of their child, Ligdus informed Telethuse that if she had a girl child, she would have to expose her to death on the side of a mountain. Ligdus couldn’t afford a girl child you see. As he was such a good fella, he felt bad about this (apparently feeling bad about infanticide was the measure of ‘good fella’ in ancient Greece), but he still requested that his wife kill her own child if born a female.

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On the midnight before her labour, Telethuse woke from slumber. Or maybe she hit the psychedelics. The jury is still out. Either way, she was visited by a bunch of Egyptian deities. These included Isis, Anubis, Bastet, Apis, Osiris, and Wadjet. Needless to say, things were a little crowded in her sleep chamber. Isis then spoke to Telethuse ‘Ignore the donkey you call a husband. Raise this child, no matter its plumbing, to become a man’. Ligdus, thinking he had a son, named him for his father. Iphis became her name, which was handy, because Iphis is a gender-neutral name.

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Fast forward a few years. Iphis was tutored alongside a youth named Ianthe. Apparently, Ianthe was not only lucky to be a female and tutored in ancient Crete, but she was also pleasing on the eye. Iphis and Ianthe fell deeply in love. When the pair came of age, Ligdus arranged for Ianthe to be betrothed to Iphis. Ianthe’s response was ‘Oh Hades yeah!’ Iphis’s reaction however, was more one of ‘oh darn’

As the wedding drew closer, Telethuse did everything she could to delay the date. From sabotaging wedding photographers, to pretending she was in covid isolation. The wedding was inevitable, though. On the eve of the wedding, Telethuse took Iphis to the altar of Isis and cried out ‘Here are some random offerings of jewellery.  You told me to raise my child to be a man. You wanna help with that now? Time is of the essence.’  Isis heard this prayer, and was apparently pleased by the jewels. She shook her temple (or an earthquake hit this earthquake prone region) and boom! Iphis became a man! Iphis, whose first wish was to find some snow and write his name in it, ended up marrying Ianthe the following day. The wedding was blessed by random Greek gods, who decided to show up after the Egyptians did all the heavy lifting. Iphis and Ianthe then went on to live happily ever after. Iphis however, never did get to visit the snow.

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Iphis and Ianthe was carved unplugged (no power tools) in huon pine.