"Laurel bearer"
The Daphnephoria festival was a ceremony held in Delphi every eight years, where a young man of good family and noble appearance, known as the Daphnephoros or "laurel bearer," reenacted the return of Apollon from his term served in penance in the Tempe valley. The festival was explained as being held in commemoration of the purification of Apollon at the altar in Tempe after killing the Python, however it might have been related to the Trojan war cycle in earlier times. The young man and his party would return with a cutting of the sacred laurel of Tempe, amid dancing, singing and festivities.
After Septerion, and linked to the Acronychal rising of the Delphinus constellation in Delphi.$^{67}$ Assuming that the festival follows the Acronychal rising in Delphi (22rd/23th June), and is on the 7th of the month, then this festival should be placed in Apellaios | Ἀπελλαίος most years. Though as the festival is every 9th year, its possible that the 9th year would be synced to years where the Acronychal rising takes place before the 7th of Ilaios | Ιλαίος instead.
The cutting of the laurel branch, which marked the start of the return to Delphi, likely took place at the Acronychal rising of the Delphinus constellation in Tempe (and elsewhere in Greece) approximately two weeks before the festival in Delphi. $^{68}$
<aside> <img src="/icons/hourglass_pink.svg" alt="/icons/hourglass_pink.svg" width="40px" /> More on the timing of The Great Year
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The Daphnephoria festival was held in Delphi every nine years to reenact the return of Apollon from his term served in penance in the Tempe valley. The main figure of the festival was a young man of good family and noble appearance, called the Daphnephoros or "laurel bearer". The festival was solemnly observed by the Delphians every eight years.
A Delphic boy served at Tempe on a nine-year cycle, replaced each cycle by the boy sent out at the festival of Septḗrion. During Septḗrion a boy is escourted along the sacred road (Plut. Quaest. Gr. 12) between Delphi and Tempe to serve his term in the temple. They stop at the village of Deipnias for a meal, as this was the place where Apollon ate after leaving the Tempe valley. This may be referenced by Callimachus in the Aetia:
Fr. 87: Δειπνιὰς ἔνθεν μιν δειδέχαται
From there Deipnias received him
– Callimachus, Aetia $^{65,}$$^{64}$
In the ninth year, the boy cuts branches from the sacred laurel, crowns himself and returns in a procession to Delphi; carrying a cutting of the laurel from Tempe. His return is celebrated with cheerful songs sung by choruses of unmarried girls. The laurel is then used to make wreaths for the winners of the Pythian Games, demonstrating the special holiness of the Tempe laurel in the cult of Apollo at Delphi.
The following fragment referencing Alkaios’ work is likely tied to this tradition, and speaks of Apollon’s return to Delphi at midsummer. It references a return from Hyperborea, but known Delphic tradition traditionally has that return marked by the Theophania festival in spring. It is most likely to be an attempt at reconciling the diverging traditions related to the god’s return.
(c) Himerius, Orations
I wish to tell you a tale of Alcaeus, which he sang in lyric verse when he wrote a paean to Apollo; and I shall tell it not in the Lesbian verses, since I have nothing of the poet in me, but changing the actual metre of the lyre into prose. When Apollo was born, Zeus equipped him with golden headband and lyre and gave him also a chariot of swans to drive, and sent him to Delphi and the spring of Castalia, thence to declare justice and right for the Greeks; but when Apollo mounted the chariot he directed the swans to fly to the land of the Hyperboreans.
Now when the Delphians learned this, they composed a paean and a tune and arranged dancing choirs of youths around the tripod and called on the god to come from the Hyperboreans. Apollo, however, delivered law among the men of that region for a full year; but when he thought it was time that the tripods of Delphi should ring out too, he ordered his swans to fly back again from the Hyperboreans.
Now it was summer and indeed the very middle of summer when Alcaeus brings Apollo back from the Hyperboreans: so what with the blaze of summer and the presence of Apollo the poet’s lyre also adopts a summer wantonness in the account of the god: nightingales sing for him the kind of song that one might expect birds to sing in Alcaeus, swallows too and cicadas, not proclaiming their own fortunes in the world but telling of the god in all their songs. Castalia flows in poetic fashion with waters of silver, and Cephisus 1 rises in flood, surging with his waves, in imitation of Homer’s Enipeus 2 : for Alcaeus is compelled just like Homer to give even water the power to sense the presence of gods.
– Alkaios fragments, from Himarius Orations, $^{63}$