Re: [tied] Underworld

 
Mr. Caws:

>   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.

I read something about Mimir's head as an oracular head and a connection between the Yukaghir (excuse me if it is misspelled) shamans who were used to employ shamans' skulls in the same way.

Glen:

Now concerning whether the Hellhound was originally a serpent. I disagree.

Take a look at this fragment from the English translator of Pausanias (2, 25, 5-7) in the Loeb (talking about Cerberus):

But Hecateus of Miletus gave a plausible explanation, stating that a terrible serpent lived on Taenarum, and was called the hound of Hades, because any one bitten was bound to die of the poison at once, and it was the snake, he said, that was brought by Heracles to Eurystheus. But Homer, who was the first to call the creature brought by Heracles the hound of Hades, did not give it a name or describe it as of manifold form, as he did in the case of the Chimaera. Later poets have the name Cerberus, and though in other respects they made him resemble a dog, they say that he had three heads. Homer, however, does not imply that he was a dog, the friend of man, any more than if he had called a real serpent the hound of Hades.

Interesting, don't you believe?

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!

Once again, Glen, with your endless chain of associations... :-)
Let me comment something  from Xenophanes of Colophon: Ethiops represent their gods flat nosed and black, and Thracians say they have blue eyes and red hairs. But if oxen, horses and lions had hands and they may draw with them, the horses would draw gods likely to horses, and so on...
I suppose that being Norse blonde or red haired in more percent than Asians, for example, we have more possibilities to find a red bearded god in Norse mythology than in Asian, so small wonder that Thor were red bearded, don't you agree?. It is a matter of statistics, I guess.
Another example (a stupid one): Santa Claus is white bearded because he represents the shiny sun? No, the white snow, someone says. I think it has something to do with old age. But white also represents chastity, another one says. So Santa is virgin? But white is connected to paleness, so he must be ill, another one retorts. To sum up, we have a lot of possible reasons for his white beard. Which one must we choose? Of course, if one wants to develop a theory taking into account the equation white=chastity, it's OK, but...
If Venus' colour is red, so would you link her with the Underworld? If Eos is the rose fingered goddess of Dawn, and rose is related to red, so is Dawn half warrior? When a symbol symbolize too much, it means everything or nothing at the end;  I mean, you can use it for everything you want and of course, it will fit very well to any theory. It is a matter of fact indeed (contemporary use of social and political icons, for example).
By the way, I wonder why you are so adamant as to link red with the Underworld and to deny that black is more likely for this realm (black animals for Hades, black trees for Persephone in the Underworld topography, the black half face of Hel, the black dogs of Britain connected with the Underworld, the raven in Celtic mythology, the use of black in Homeric epithets to describe Death, shadowy Greek and Norse Underworlds...).

Can you provide instances of a connection between magic/wisdom and serpents
in range of IE myths?

A few examples between serpents and oracular/prophetic wisdom: Python, Trophonius, Tiresias, Melampus, Cassandra and her brother in Greek myths; Sigfrid in the Nibelungenlied.

>   Apollo was also a magician deity.

Hmmm, also a healer.

Shamanism encompasses both aspects. Apollo (as pointed out by M. Eliade) has shamanistic traits.

Well, maybe not wolf-born so much as sun-born, the horse being a symbolism
of the sun, hence Horse Twins (Ashvins)

Correct me if I am wrong, but are not Ashvins (as Dioskuroi) more closely related to the third function? And horses are more likely to warriors than to the first function, I guess. But I will add something to your Underworld warrior links, Glen: horse is related to the Underworld too, of course not like a "neighbour" (like Cerberus) but like a vehicle to be there (as Odin's Sleipnir).

Well, if the underworld is watery and certainly Cerberus is a resident of 
this world, then it's hard to say whether his placement by a river means 
anything at all.

The point may be viewed from Propp's theory. The first stage is the snake in the source of the river, the last in the mouth (as it is shown in Cerberus place). Of course, the development of the theory is too long to summarize here (a book of 500 pages in its Spanish version).

Omar