Next the hierophant performs the initiation and he takes the things from the chamber and distributes them to all the ones who will carry the kernos around…Then, raising his kernos aloft like the person who carries the liknon or winnowing basket, he tastes those things. (Polemon, fragment quoted in Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book XI, 478d–e, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Charles Burton Gulick.)
Moreover Polemon, in the treatise, says: “After these preliminaries (the priest) proceeds to the celebration of the mystic rites; he takes out the contents of the shrine and distributes them to all who have brought round their tray (kernos ). The latter is an earthenware vessel, holding within it a large number of small cups cemented together, and in them are sage, white poppy-seeds, grains of wheat and barley, peas, vetches, okra-seeds, lentils, beans, rice-wheat, oats, compressed fruit, honey, oil, wine, milk, and sheep’s wool unwashed. The man who carries it, resembling the bearer of the sacred winnowing-fan, tastes these articles.” (Polemon, fragment quoted in Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book XI, 478d–e, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Charles Burton Gulick.)
