Editing Maenad (section)

===Voluntary revelers===
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Not all women were inclined to resist the call of Dionysus, however. Maenads, possessed by the spirit of Dionysus, traveled with him from Thrace to mainland Greece in his quest for the recognition of his divinity. Dionysus was said to have danced down from Parnassos accompanied by Delphic virgins, and it is known that even as young girls the women in Boeotia practiced not only the closed rites but also the bearing of the thyrsus and the dances.

A possible foundation myth is the ancient festival called [[Agrionia]]. According to Greek authors like [[Plutarch]], female followers of Dionysios went in search of him and when they could not find him prepared a feast. As Plutarch records this festival, a priest would chase a group of virgins down with a sword. These women were supposed to be descendants of the women who sacrificed their son in the name of Dionysios. The priest would catch one of the women and execute her. This human sacrifice was later omitted from the festival. Eventually the women would be freed from the intense ecstatic experience of the festival and return to their usual lives. The Agrionia was celebrated in several Greek cities, but especially in Boeotia. Each Boeotian city had its own distinct foundation myth for it, but the pattern was much the same: the arrival of Dionysus, resistance to him, flight of the women to a mountain, the killing of Dionysus' persecutor, and eventual reconciliation with the god.