Some time ago I've been talking with my mum about amber and stuff after an archaeology event near my town, and she gave me one of her amber necklace.
Do you know the myth about the origin of amber?
Phaethon, the mortal son of the sun titan Helios, convinced his father to let him drive his Chariot of the Sun across the sky. Unable to control the godly horses, Phaethon veered too close to the earth, scorching it and creating the great deserts, before Zeus struck him down with a lightning bolt. Phaethon then plunged into the Eridanus river (which ancient Romans and Greeks often associated with the Po River in Italy), and his grief-stricken sisters, the Heliades, gathered on the riverbanks to mourn him. Moved by their endless sorrow, the gods turned the sisters into poplar trees, and their weeping tears solidified as they fell into the water, hardening into drops of amber.
I decided to make a small bracelet of it so I could effectively wear it (shoutout to my girlfriend who helped me doing so). My mum bought the necklace in a flea market in Poland roughly 30 years ago, and I wanted to check for myself the amber's authenticity. Well, it's not a fake! I used a hot needle and the scent that came up from the amber was something between hot pine wood and fire smoke. I was so happy.
