Kassandra's Spark

There, I fixed it: Kassandra's story

NOTE: If you missed the post summarizing and discussing the “traditional” version of Kassandra’s myth, you can find it HERE.

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Kassandra of Troy wasn’t always mad. She was once just a little girl, albeit a royal one. She had brothers and sisters and parents who loved her. She had a mind and heart of her own, and a bright future.

When Kassandra was a child, she and her twin, Helenus, dedicated themselves to Apollo. As the god of light, healing, and prophecy, Apollo delighted in children’s aptitude and thirst for knowledge. He valued excellence in all things, and the twins did indeed excel in all the arts of the Muses: not only poetry, dance, music, and theater, but history, astronomy, and mathematics.

Kassandra and Helenus spent so much time with the priests in Apollo’s temple that their father, King Priam, joked they should just live there and give up any pretense of residing in the palace with their poor parents.

“We should,” little Kassandra said. “Let’s live in the temple!”

“The priests won’t allow us to stay past sundown,” Helenus pointed out.

“They haven’t forbidden it,” Kassandra retorted. “And they can’t say no if we don’t ask.”

That evening, the two made a great show of bidding their priest-teachers farewell and scampering off into the sacred grove. But once they were in the trees, they hid until the temple was empty and then raced, giggling, back inside.

Together they fashioned a tent out of some fabric they found in the storeroom and had a very nice supper of bread and oil, which they had hidden for just this purpose. They stayed up well into the night, singing and challenging each other with riddles. Apollo looked on, pleased with their gumption. When they fell asleep, he sent to them a pair of snakes to watch over them and keep them safe.

The two slept past dawn, as sleepy children are wont to do when they have stayed up too late. Apollo’s priests returned in the morning to find them curled up together with snakes resting comfortably against them.

“Look!” whispered one of the younger priests. “See how the snakes lick at their ears—it’s the god whispering his secrets to them.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they have been gifted with prophecy,” said another. “We must watch them carefully.”

As the twins grew, so did their wisdom. But Kassandra noticed something quite curious… and, to her, quite infuriating. The closer Helenus came to adulthood, the more weight was given to his thoughts, abilities, insights, and judgments. When Helenus gave advice, it was heeded more often than not. But when Kassandra spoke, she was dismissed.

“I don’t understand,” she said to her twin. “I could say the exact same words you do, and they still wouldn’t believe me. But why?”

“Sister,” Helenus said. “Wise, clever, beloved, beautiful, gifted sister—”

“Dear brother,” Kassandra huffed. “Spit it out.”

“For someone so intelligent, you’re being remarkably dense,” Helenus said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”