We continue today with another segment from the Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Secrets...

..As the oracle became more celebrated, its prophetic machinery was constructed of more costly materials. The tripod was then formed of gold, but the lid, which was placed in its hollow rim, in order to afford the Pythoness a more secure seat, continued to be made of brass. She prepared herself by drinking out of a sacred fountain (Castalia), adjoining the crypt, the waters of which were reserved for her only, and in which she bathed her hair; by chewing a laurel leaf, and by circling her brows with a laurel crown. The person who made inquiry from the oracle, first offered a victim, and then having written his question in a notebook, handed it to the Pythoness, before she ascended the tripod; and he also as well as the priestess, wore a laurel crown. In early times the oracle spoke only in one month of the year, named " Byssus, " in which it originated; and at first only on the seventh day of that month, which was esteemed the birthday of Apollo, and was called " Polyphonic."

Virginity was at first an indispensable requisite in the Pythoness; on account, as Diodorus tells us, of the purity of that state and its relation to Diana; moreover, because virgins were thought better adapted than others of their sex to keep oracular mysteries secret and inviolate. But an untoward accident having occurred to one of these consecrated damsels, the guardians of the temple, in order, as they imagined, to prevent its repetition for the future, permitted no one to fulfil the duties of the office till she had attained the mature age of fifty; they still indulged her, however, with the use of a maiden's habit. The response was always delivered in Greek. https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/04/part-11-encyclopedia-of-ancient-and.html