Mr Caws in response to Omar's shamanism ideas:
> I agree. There are definite echoes of the Finnish construct in
>Norse mythology. Another connection to shamanism: Loki. Loki plays
>the part of the pseudo-adversarial trickster common in shamanistic
>tales very well.
Yes, I might agree as well. I connect the fire as shape-shifter theme with
Steppe mythologies. Fire lives in all three realms. Perhaps there _was_ a
connection between fire and the shaman in remote ancient times since both
live in this world and the other, n'est-ce pas?
Now concerning whether the Hellhound was originally a serpent. I disagree.
The serpent is an underworld creature intrinsically related to the waters.
Someone mentioned before about a connection between the shape of serpents
and the undulation of water which was interesting and I was too daft at the
time to realise this. I view the wolf (or dog if you will) as a later
addition because of the third labour (*Yemos and the wolf, both of the
earthly realm). When the tamed wolf became the guardian of *Yemos through
the *Manus the Mortal Hero's intervention, it also naturally became the
guardian to the entrance to the underworld. Hence this would be where one
should seek the origin of the dog-underworld connection, or says I.
Evidently the two symbols later have merged or rather the earthly dog has
been given added symbolisms such as a serpent tail in order to invoke the
new underworld character of the creature. We could also colour him with an
underworld colour (like say, red) and obtain the same effect. But wait...
what's this! It would seem that Cerberus' eyes are red. He's also stained
with blood, which is red.
But I'm sure that Thor's red beard has nothing to do with the underworld
since that's a warrior colour. I guess that means that Cerberus' is a
warrior (??) And Venus-Aphrodite too because her symbol is the red rose. So
Venus must be a warrior (????) No wait! I know! How 'bout this, folks? Red
is the colour of not only war in IE myth but of the _underworld_ too! That
would explain all these symbolisms so much better. Wow! What a concept!
Mr Caws:
> I think some of it might have to do with Odin's dissocation from
>the serpent. Most other magician deities have a connection with the
>serpent, linking them to death and evil as well as wisdom and power.
>The serpent was instead a separate primeval force in Norse myth.
>However, Odin's animals the raven and wolf both have mystical
>significance...
Can you provide instances of a connection between magic/wisdom and serpents
in range of IE myths?
> Apollo was also a magician deity.
Hmmm, also a healer. Was he a magician because he was a healer... or was he
a healer because he was a magician? Apollo's animal is also the mouse (cf.
Greek "Apollo Smintheus" and Indic Agni's transformation into a mouse). The
mouse is linked with fire and possibly derives from old steppe mythologies.
I think that the mouse is an IE symbolism for fire. So, I doubt that Apollo
can back the serpent-to-dog hypothesis very well.
>Now, a mostly unrelated tangent off that last sub-point- Apollo was a
>twin, born by a wolf-like mother. The origin of his cult is often
>thought to lie around Lycia. What other wolf-born twins do we know
>of? Hmm...
Well, maybe not wolf-born so much as sun-born, the horse being a symbolism
of the sun, hence Horse Twins (Ashvins)
>[...]and the story of the twins could survive(albeit in a different >form)
>in Romulus and Remus. Just a few ideas.
This is old hat. Remus is thought to be a corruption of *Yemos meaning
"Twin" (Indic Yama, Norse Ymir).
- gLeN
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