They tear apart animals with bare hands, cause milk to flow from an inanimate rock with a single blow, and nurse wild creatures. Entire regions are said to have been filled with fear and terror by them - the Maenads, the sacred female followers of Dionysus. At least, this is how the ancient author Euripides describes them. It sounds like a fairy tale, but for hundreds of years, these holy women were not fiction, but real. The author investigates this myth and seeks evidence of the true Maenads. In a wide-ranging collection of inscriptions and texts from ancient authors, she finds clues about the secret rituals that the women performed in honor of Dionysus. Contrary to the prevailing order of the time, women across Greece ventured into the mountains to be possessed by their god, Dionysus.