►Mythology: “Dogs in Several Myths”🐕:
“Collaboration with Brenda Davis Harsham💫”
Artemis & Dog. Roman copy of the 1st cent. CE after a Greek original, 4th cent. BCE. Rome, Vatican Museums.
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►Introduction:
The dog is the first domesticated animal, and is symbolically associated with loyalty and vigilance, often acting as guardian and protector. Dogs are portrayed as guides and companions, hence the notion of “man’s best friend.”
Dogs almost always appear in a positive light. Native American legends generally portray the dog as the symbol of friendship and loyalty. The Joshua Athapascans believe that dogs were the first beings made by their creator-figure, Xowala’ci. The Jicarilla Apache, on the other hand, tell the story of God Black Hactcin, who first created a dog and then made man as a companion for the dog.
In Irish Mythology, dogs were the traditional guardian animals of roads and crossways and are believed to protect and guide lost souls in the Underworld. Irish seers chewed the meat of a dog in a ritual to gain prophetic vision. To be called “hound” was an honorable nickname for a courageous warrior; the name of the god Cuchulain is literally “Hound of Culann” or “Hound of Ulster”.
Cuchulain was named Sétanta when he was born. Sétanta killed a blacksmith’s Celtic hound in self-defense. When Culann, the blacksmith asked who would now guard his shop the young Sétanta offered to take the dog’s place thus gaining himself the title of Cuchulain, ‘The hound of Culann’. The offer was turned down and “Cuchulainn” (former Sétanta) went on to become one of the greatest warrior legends of that era, and the nickname stuck.
Cartonnage Anubis mask.
In Ancient Egypt, the dog was linked to the dog-jackal god, Anubis, who guided the soul of the deceased to the Hall of Truth where the soul would be judged by the great god Osiris. Anubis was associated with Wepwawet (also called Upuaut), another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog’s head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined.
One of the centers of the cult of Anubis was Cynopolis, or the city of dogs. The Greeks and Romans associated Anubis with Sirius in the sky and with Cerberus in Hades.
A crouching or “recumbent” statue of Anubis as a black-coated wolf (from the Tomb of Tutankhamun)
Cerberus watched the Underworld.
One of the most moving stories involving dogs in the one concerning Argos, the loyal friend of King Odysseus from Book 17 of Homer’s “Odyssey” (c. 800 BCE). Odysseus comes home after being away for twenty years and, thanks to help from the goddess Athena, is not recognized by the hostile suitors who are trying to win Odysseus’s wife, Penelope’s hand in marriage. Argos, however, recognizes his master and rises up from where he has been faithfully waiting, wagging his tail in greeting. Odysseus, in disguise, cannot acknowledge the greeting for fear of giving away his true identity in front of the suitors and so ignores his old friend; and shortly after, Argos lays back down and dies.
Argos and Odysseus
Set: He (Osiris´brother) is yet another ancient Egyptian canine deity, usually depicted as a broad-shouldered man with an animal’s head.
Xolotl: Often depicted as a man with the head of a dog, but sometimes as a skeleton, Xolotl was the Aztec god of lightning and fire.
Cerbura and Surma: Similarly to Cerberus, Cerbura is the three-headed infernal dog of the Krishna legend. Surma is a terrible beast from Finnish mythology. This huge dog with the tail of a snake, guards the gates of Tuonela, the realm of Death.
Sarama, The Mother of all Dogs & Yama´s dogs: In Hindu Mythology, Sarama is a female canine, who is referred as mother of all the dogs, and who helped God Indra to recover his stolen divine cows. Yama, the Hindu god of death has four dogs with four eyes guarding his abode.
Fionn’s hounds, Bran and Sceolán: There are many stories of the Irish Wolfhounds in Mythology. The most famous hounds are, without doubt, Fionn’s two favourites, Bran and Sceolán. They were brother and sister, of human descent, their poor mother, Tuirrean, (Fionn’s aunt) having been turned into a hound whilst she was pregnant by jealous Uchtdealb, woman of the Sidhe, and lover of Tuirrean’s husband. They were said to have been so tall, that their heads reached chest height to a man.
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► Links Post:
http://www.indiandogs.com/nativelegends.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_the_dog#cite_note-8
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/adamantinemuse/2016/07/hekate-isis-and-the-dog-star-sirius-welcome-to-the-dog-days/
https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Cerberus/cerberus.html
http://hekatecovenant.com/resources/symbols-of-hekate/dogs/
https://aliisaacstoryteller.com/2014/02/23/the-irish-wolfhound/
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/23/the-death-of-argos
https://www.dogspot.in/the-importance-of-dogs-in-hindu-mythology/
http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/HekateGoddess.html
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Detail showing Canis Major. Published in Alexander Jamieson´s “Celestial Atlas”, 1822
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💫“Laelaps, Hound of Magic”💫:
Sun-lit fur, storm-wind swift,
star-bright eyes, she
adores the olden air
of Mount Olympus,
dwelling of gods.
She finds scents at Zeus’s hand,
pounding clouds, chasing prey,
She never misses.
~~~
Yet Zeus sends her away,
tail drooping, eyes sad,
to serve Europa,
hunting kri-kri,
dodging their wild-goat horns,
nosing out badgers, martens,
hedgehogs and hare, circling Crete
on fleet feet. But dreaming everlong
of Olympus, cast out, cast down.
~~~
She’s bewildered,
passed on, passed over,
given next to King Minos,
then to cross-dressing Procris
and on to Kephalos, the errant husband.
The long-lived hound hunts, chases,
drinks deep, finds new hands and
new scents, until the very last.
~~~
The monstrous Teumessian fox
mocks a hundred hounds,
slips the nets of a hundred men,
devours a hundred boys.
Paradox.
~~~
The dog
always catches her prey.
The fox
cannot be caught.
~~~
Storm-wind hound hurls herself
into the chase, pants,
outpaces Kephalos,
fleeter than a spear,
fleeter than an arrow,
fleet as time itself.
But they never near Olympus.
Always, the hound needs the red-earth
scent of fox in her nose.
Always, the fox slips away.
Lungs burns. Feet bleed, but
never a whisker nearer that bushy tail.
Children grow gray and stooped,
watching them pass.
Hillsides wear away
from their pounding feet.
Deadlocked,
bones like rock,
hills aflame,
snapping, howling.
Bound to chase,
but never to catch.
~~~
Until blood-scent reaches
Olympus. Zeus watches,
remembers the velvet nose,
the twilight hunts, the sun-lit fur,
the starry eyes. His tears
fall on them both.
The salty splash
turns dog and fox to
sun-shot marble, mid-pounce.
~~~
Young boys in awe;
young girls in tears.
Never-resting, frozen in
not-escaping, not-capturing,
not-eating, not-drinking, not-sleeping.
~~~
Zeus tosses them
into the stars.
Canis Major.
Canis Minor.
Lighting Olympus,
turning the heavens
with the wind of their pursuit.
~~~
©Copyright 2017 Brenda Davis Harsham.
Brenda is a wonderful writer and poet, who lives with her family in New England, USA.
Click on the logo to visit Brenda´s blog. Thank you Brenda for your great poem!.
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