Well. This was bound to happen! We're always snarking about how pop stars are kind of like contemporary gods -- while indestructible, they tend to fizzle away on their own if you stop paying attention to them. And it seems that all along, there's been such a figure walking among all over us, wreaking havoc across the Earth. Driving us to hedonistic madness. With True Blood courting no shortage of public curiosity towards the mythology of maenads and Madonna just being herself, it's like adding two and two together to get four. Which is worth exploring, at least until the season finale of the soap strikes and we find something new on which to fixate.

It makes sense that the near-immortality of one of the most powerful women remains contingent on human sacrifice and orgiastic celebrations. Combine all of that with allegations of crypto-satanism volleyed by oversensitive Polish Nationalists and the rest is a clear-cut epiphany. Obviously, it's not like she's actually the handmaiden to the devil -- at least not in a "bull in a dress with claws" kind of way. Perhaps Madonna, whose namesake would obviously have you believe otherwise, is what we can call an "accidental" maenad. But here's a further distillation.

● Satanic link. A large part of the Polish Nationalists' otherwise far-reaching condemnation calls attention to the fact that the pop star decided to stage one of the shows on her Sticky & Sweet tour on August 15 in Warsaw. The day is usually set aside to celebrate the Virgin Mary's ascent to heaven. Adds a bureaucrat, "Madonna specializes in offending religious feelings. It is possible to suspect her of being a crypto-Satanist." And then there was also the matter of gratuitously repurposing crosses on a past tour.

● Dependency on dancing and drunk frenzy. Explains Wikipedia dryly, "Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by him into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dancing and drunken intoxication." Consider this and this.

● Human sacrifice. Whereas typical maenads may be barbaric, Madonna has a more tender approach. Just yesterday, it seems like she had Guy Ritchie's balls in a vice-grip.

● Near-immortality. Most maenads require these human sacrifices to keep their immortality, but Madonna simply overexercises. To the point where it seems like she truly fears the rise to old age.

● Pets. Perhaps this is the most telling giveaway. In True Blood, Maryann keeps a tight leash on her core coterie -- a little like how Madonna fought vigilantly to wrest her adoptive brood away from their family. And perhaps more than any number of drunken raves and ritual sacrifices, perhaps the key to the existence is, for both intended and accidental maenads, is the ability to keep their pets from wandering too far away from the nest.