One night, while
Hephaestus, the god of fire, was visiting earth, he saw a mortal
man tending a huge bonfire. Hephaestus went to the mortal man and
asked him if he could sit by the warmth of his fire to rest
awhile. The man, although he did not know that he was speaking to
a god, allowed Hephaestus to stay. The man then went about the
business of tending the fire. Hephaestus watched as the mortal
cared lovingly for the fire, as he would his own son. "What
is your name?" he asked as he studied the busily working
man.
"Why, I am
Bacharon, sir," the mortal replied. "I keep the fires
burning so that the ships that toss in the stormy seas will not
crash upon the rocks and be torn apart."
Hephaestus rose
from where he had been sitting. "I am Hephaestus, god of
fire," he said. "I have seen your fire and I ask you,
in the name of the gods, to come to Olympos with me and tend the
fires there."
Bacharon was
overjoyed at the possibility of tending the fires for the gods,
so he told Hephaestus he would go with him.
Things went well on Olympos
for awhile. Bacharon kept the fires burning all night, so that
the gods were warm and comfortable. Then, one morning, Bacharon
went down to earth to visit the friends he had left behind. They
drank, and sang, and had a merry time. When it was time for
Bacharon to start his fires, he had passed out from drunkenness,
and could not be aroused. When Hephaestus came to the place where
the fire should have been, he became angry to see that there was
not one.
In his anger, Hephaestus used his godly power and transformed Bacharon. From that point on, as the frost that forms at night,
Bacharon was always cold. To this day he sits on the window pane in winter, able to see
the warmth of the hearth inside, but never able to reach
it.
