Between stone and sun, in the cracks where even shadows hesitate, grows a small, silver-green plant. The ancients called it diktamos — dittany of Crete. It does not shout like the olive tree, nor sprawl like the grapevine. It clings, stubborn and quiet, until you touch its leaves and find the scent of healing.
But in myth, it was never just a herb. It was the plant that saved a king’s son from a deathly fate.
The Tale of Glaucus
Glaucus, the child of Minos, vanished one day while playing. Some said he chased a ball into the cellars; others whispered he followed a mouse. Either way, he was found drowned in a great jar of honey, his small body preserved like an insect in amber.
Despair gripped the palace—Minos, furious and heartbroken, called for Polyidus, the seer.
“You will bring my boy back,” Minos ordered.
Polyidus bowed his head. “I see what is hidden, but I cannot change fate.”
“You are in Crete,” Minos thundered, “and here we do not take no for an answer.”
The seer was locked away with the lifeless child. In the silence of the chamber, he despaired — until fate sent its teachers. Two serpents slid into the room, hissing. One struck the other dead. The living serpent fled, only to return moments later with a sprig of wild herb clenched in its mouth. It placed the leaves upon its fallen companion, and the dead serpent stirred, then slithered back to life.
Polyidus seized the herb, crushed it between his fingers, and its fragrance rose sharp and bitter-sweet. Dittany. The herb of cliffs. The herb the goats sought when wounded, tearing at the stone to eat it. The herb blessed by Artemis, healer of women.
He pressed it to Glaucus’ lips. And the boy breathed.
When Minos saw his son alive again, he said nothing — only poured wine, as if to drown the memory. But in that silence, dittany passed from myth into certainty: the herb that cheats death, born only of Cretan stone.
Healer of the Cliffs
For centuries after, men risked their lives to gather it. They dangled on ropes over ravines, fingers bleeding, to pluck the silver leaves that goats always found first. In village kitchens, it was brewed as tea to ease wounds, calm fevers, soothe an upset stomach, and mend a broken heart. Women slipped it into wedding cups, calling it erontas — the herb of love. Shepherds crushed it over cuts, swearing it healed faster than any salve.
Even Aristotle wrote of it with awe, and Virgil sang of the goats who ate dittany to drive arrows from their flesh. Always Crete, always the cliffs.
Peskesi’s Pithoi and the Living Tradition
In the hills above Heraklion, Peskesi Organic Farm carries the legacy forward in a quiet, deliberate way. Peskesi grows dittany in pithoi — large terracotta jars — on its organic farm, nurturing each plant as though it were a relic.
This is no random herb patch. Peskesi spans 24 acres of fields, olive groves, herb gardens, a seed bank, animals, and nurturing land that has been taught to heal itself. They use biodynamic, ecological, traditional methods — no synthetic fertilisers, no shortcuts — because dittany will not accept them.
At Peskesi, the dittany in pithoi comes alive, rooted not only in myth but in daily care. It is dried naturally, hand-sorted, and preserved. When you drink a Peskesi-dried dittany tea, you taste sun, stone, sweat, and stories.
Symbol of an Island
Dittany became more than medicine. It became Crete itself: wild, stubborn, healing. You cannot grow it in tidy rows. It refuses domesticity. It will not thrive without risk. That is why Cretans love it.
Today, tourists buy it in sachets, tucked between oregano and thyme in the markets of Heraklion. But locals still speak of it with reverence. A cup of dittany tea is not just a drink. It is a story of Glaucus, of serpents, of gods and goats, of cliffs that guard miracles.
The cliffs keep their secrets, but Crete whispers them through herbs. Dittany does not belong only to myth — it belongs to fields, to jars, to farms like Peskesi, making the old live in new ways.
