Some academics propose that this is the origin of the modern cult of garden gnomes. And today many believe that no garden is happy without its resident gnome...
According to Greek legend, Priapos (praɪˈeɪpəs/; Greek, Latin Priapus) was exposed at his birth on a bleak mountainside, so ugly was he. Discovered by shepherds and raised by them, he remained foreshortened in all but one attribute: his mighty male member.
Back then, two millennia and more ago, crops might be devastated by pests and pathogens. Rabbits and rats, birds and other beasts were obvious. Others like locusts arrived seemingly from nowhere. Starvation could and did result.
